Star Witness - By Mallory Kane Page 0,46

and fear darkening her eyes. “Swear to me that we will get out of here.”

“Of course we will,” he said, unable to resist reaching out to touch her cheek and berating himself for his weakness. A fluttery feeling rippled in his chest when her head inclined toward his hand. “As soon as we’ve rested for a few minutes, we need to get out of here and get as far away from this area as we can. As soon as I figure out what street we’re on, I’ll be able to find a police station.”

She lifted her head and gave him a searching gaze. “A police station. Really?”

“Really,” he assured her. He wished he was as confident as he sounded. “Now we need to get out of these wet clothes.”

A sudden blast of wind rattled the windows and doors and made the roof creak loudly. It roared like an oncoming train. Dani threw herself into Harte’s arms with a small shriek. He held on to her until the noise died down.

“I’m so sorry. I’m trying not to react every time it thunders,” she said as she picked up the items she’d dropped.

“You’re doing real well.”

“You don’t think that was a tornado, do you?”

He shook his head. “It sounded more like straight-line wind. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the damage we’ve seen and heard has been from tornadoes. These spring storms can spawn them.”

“I know,” Dani muttered.

Harte cringed, his heart aching with understanding. Her father had died in a tornado. Of course she was terrified that any wind and rain would turn into a deadly funnel cloud. He shouldn’t have gone on and on about them.

“There’s the pain-relief aisle. I need an elastic bandage for my ankle. Then we can check out the back.” He grabbed a bandage and headed toward the back of the store.

“There,” he said, pointing toward a door that said Employees Only. When he opened it, he found a dark, musty storeroom with shelves groaning under the weight of boxes and bins of all shapes and sizes. There was a door marked with an Exit sign.

Throwing the latch on the exit door, he eased it open. The rain was still coming down in buckets, and the alley behind the store was running at least six inches deep in water. He set his jaw and stuck his head out, wincing at the chilly wind that blew rain in his face. He’d almost dried enough that he didn’t feel waterlogged. He wasn’t anxious to get out into the rain again. But he’d needed to check out their means of escape. “We can get out this way if we need to,” he said, closing and latching the door.

Dani sighed. “Okay. Can we go back inside the store? It’s chilly out here. And look.” She pointed. “The roof is leaking like a sieve.”

“Sure, go ahead,” Harte said. “I’ll change in here. Take some of these towels.”

“Stand over here near the door while you’re changing,” she said. “Otherwise your clothes will be wet again before you get them on.”

She left and Harte quickly shed his shirt and peeled off his jeans, remembering what she’d said about hers. She was right. The wet denim felt like duct tape as he peeled them down his legs. He dried off quickly and donned the scrub pants. Then he sat on one haunch as he quickly and efficiently wrapped his sore and swollen ankle and pulled on clean dry socks. But once it was wrapped, he found that he couldn’t get his shoe back on. He tried the bandage alone, but no. It was still too large. Finally, sighing with frustration and the anticipation of more pain, he unwrapped his foot and tossed the bandage aside. He was able to get the shoe on over a dry sock. Just as he reached for the long-sleeved Big Easy T-shirt, he heard a crash and a scream.

Grabbing the flashlight, he bolted through the door and almost ran headlong into a shelf. Careering around it, he sprinted to the front of the store. “Dani? Dani!”

He heard her whimper.

Turning toward her voice, he saw the narrow beam of her flashlight canted across the floor, illuminating a pale body sprawled on the floor. “Dani!”

She was sprawled facedown on the floor with her wet jeans and a pair of white panties tangled around her feet, and scrubs and hoodie in a pile beside her. She was wearing nothing but the T-shirt. Nothing but the T-shirt. Her pale, shapely backside was