Star Witness - By Mallory Kane Page 0,37

“Can’t call out or send a message.”

“The storm must have knocked out a bunch of cell towers.”

Harte nodded. “If we can’t call for help, they can’t either. Let’s go,” he said. “I want to see where the freight door is—and how many other doors there are. Then we can plan how we’re going to get out of here.” Glancing around, he continued. “If we’re careful, we can use the floats like a maze. There must be thirty in here, maybe forty.”

“That’s thirty or forty too many for me. They’re creepy.”

“Come on,” he said, leading the way into the darkness lit only by the flashlight’s narrow beam. She followed his winding trail through the dozens of floats, giving the huge fiberglass monster heads as wide a berth as she could while still keeping up with him.

He stopped abruptly and she almost ran into him.

“Here’s the freight door. It looks pretty sturdy and it’s on the opposite side of the building from the door we came in.” He glanced around. “They’re going to use their car to break it in, I’ll guarantee you. Come on. Let’s circle around this side of the building.” He gestured. “Stay away from both the freight door and the door you opened.”

They made their way diagonally away from the freight door. When they reached the wall, Harte slid along it, feeling for a door. Dani stayed behind him.

“Here,” he said finally. “If I haven’t totally lost my bearings, I think this door is just about halfway between the freight door and the one we came in and on the opposite wall.” He caught her hand and drew it toward him. “Feel the lock. Is it like the one you picked?”

“It feels like a Schlage. It’s got a turn bolt on the inside, just like that one. All we should have to do is turn the latch and open the door.”

“Great,” he said.

“Do you want me to open it now?”

“Hang on a minute and listen.”

Dani heard pounding and shouting and an occasional gunshot. “Won’t the police hear the gunshots?”

“In a storm like this? I’m guessing the only reason we can hear them is something about steel and echoes. That’s not my area of expertise. But outside, in the rain and the thunder? I doubt that noise they’re making will carry for twenty-five feet.”

“How long is it going to take them to break in?”

She felt his shoulders move in a shrug, and a small thrill slid through her. Now that she’d kissed him, she was reacting to his every slightest move. He was tall and graceful and rock-hard. His skin was like silk over steel. Everything about him radiated warmth and safety and a sexuality that drew her to him like a moth to a flame.

She shivered. “Will you hold me for a minute?” she asked.

For a brief, heart-stopping moment, he hesitated. Then he slid his arm around her shoulders. His wet shirt against her thinly covered breasts caused goose bumps to rise on her skin. She felt a fine trembling in his muscles.

Was he chilled in his wet clothes, or was he as affected by their closeness as she was? She hoped he was. At that instant, he bent his head and laid his cheek against hers. With a sigh, she lifted her chin slightly, so that her lips brushed his skin.

“How’s your ankle?” she whispered, looking up at him. His face was barely visible in the almost pitch-black. Light from the small windows glittered in his deep brown eyes. His breath drifted across her sensitized lips, making them tremble with the need to feel his mouth, his body, pressing against her.

“Harte?” she said, hearing the question in her voice and wondering if he would hear it and understand it. She felt odd, almost weightless, as if she were floating. She ached with wanting him, and that frightened her. Because he wasn’t interested in her at all, except as his witness. The thoughts flitted through her head in the space of a single breath.

“What is it?” he answered, his voice unsteady.

A niggling question at the edge of her brain almost brought her up short. What was she doing? Harte Delancey was the last person she should be having sexy fantasies about. Sure, she’d been fascinated by him and his good looks from the first moment she’d faced him across the courtroom, but his superior attitude had been a turnoff. She’d decided back then that she was only interested in him because of his notorious legacy and their grandfathers’