Another gunshot blasted, and the window of the empty ticket booth ahead of me shattered, raining glittering pebbles across my path. I veered away from the jagged glass and raced up the entrance ramp.
The parking garage spat me out on the lake side. I streaked down the sidewalk, focusing as hard as I did during auditions. I used my arms, my posture, my breathing... every technique I had in my arsenal. I ignored the pain in my feet. They were tough and calloused from years of ballet and could survive nearly anything.
Two long strides had me banging across a metal drainage grate, and only a second later, the grate protested again.
Shit, he was closing in.
“Stop!” He sounded furious.
The block was deserted, but the theater was around the corner and hopefully would still be crawling with federal agents. Could I get there before he caught me? I could hear him, gasping for breath and right on my heels. It wasn’t a good idea—but I couldn’t stop myself from looking back.
Seth was only ten feet behind, a determined focus painted on his face.
You’re not going to make it,the desperate voice inside my head cried.
The hell I’m not,I fired back.
I dug deep for more power as I rounded the side of the building... only to collide with something so hard, the impact knocked the laptop from my grip, the air from my lungs, and sent me sprawling across the sidewalk.
The collision sent the man stumbling back, and he let out a grunt of pain, but he managed to stay on his feet. My hands took the worst of the fall, and I groaned when the broken sidewalk scraped across my palms. A stressed seam on the side of my dress ripped open, and frigid air poured in.
The thick body I’d run into was dressed in black with a silver star clipped to his chest and a gun holstered at his hip. The young, uniformed officer blinked with surprise, and I could only imagine what I looked like to him, gasping for air in a torn dress as I lay in a heap on the concrete.
Get up. Keep moving.
There was another cop, this one older, standing beside him, who reached down to help me. “Whoa. Are you all right?”
I shook my head as I grasped his offered hand and let him haul me up. “He’s got a gun, and he tried to kill me.”
Alarm made him stiffen, and both officers reached for their weapons. They were pulled from their holsters and held with both hands to the side of their bodies, alert and in the ready position.
“Get behind me,” the older officer said, and I eagerly obeyed.
Our tense focus turned to the corner I’d just come from, the one where I expected Seth to appear at any moment?—
Only it didn’t happen.
In the tense silence, the only sound was my teeth chattering in the cold. There were no footsteps, no labored breaths besides my own.
Anxiety made my words tight. “He was right behind me.”
The officer I’d collided with raised his weapon. He took one cautious step toward the corner, and then another. His stocky frame swung around it, disappearing beyond the building edge. My lungs refused to work as we waited.
But there were no gunshots.
No sounds of a struggle.
“It’s clear,” a voice finally called out, and the officer before me relaxed his grip on his gun.
I clenched my teeth to stifle the scream I wanted to unleash. My encounter with Seth had been terrifying, but I couldn’t imagine anything worse than him on the loose.
3
JASON
I wantedto be anywhere other than the FBI office at whatever the fuck time it was, shaking hands with Agent in Charge Miller. I’d only worked with Miller once before, and he was a decent enough guy for a Fed, but the FBI was going to drag its feet on this case, guaranteed. The Department of Justice had authorized protective detail with lightning-fast speed, and they didn’t move quickly unless the case involved some major collar.
I didn’t get calls for protection services anymore, and certainly not for women. Usually, they assigned a female primary for that. Was this the reward for my bad behavior on the Nelson case? That I had to watch over a stripper?
