Page 32 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold
He stilled at the sound of the voice and felt his eyes cinch tight. He didn’t dare turn around. He just said, “Oh. You’re still here? I thought you’d run off while my back was turned.” He tossed the words over his shoulder. Like a grenade.
“I wanted to say goodbye.” Alex gestured down to the clothes he’d laid on the bed. It was nothing fancy. Some jeans. A shirt. Some shoes. Lingerie. (But King tried very hard not to think about the lingerie.) “So do you have a girlfriend who’s going to wonder where her outfit went?”
Any other woman might have sounded like she was fishing for information, but Alex probably just wanted to know who she might have to kill.
He slid a pat of butter into the pan and watched it slide. “I know your size, Alex.” The pan sizzled, and it was all King could do not to let his insides melt. “The building has a concierge. I made a phone call.” He glanced at her. “I’ll add it to your bill.”
“Well, thank you.”
“Be careful out there.” He gave the eggs a quick whisk, then started slicing a ripe, red tomato. “I’d ask if you’re hungry, but I’m assuming you’ve got to run.”
“King—”
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell anyone about this place—at least until I can find alternate accommodations—”
“Michael,” she snapped, and he froze.
How dare she call him that? How dare she stand there, bruised and blistered and beautiful? How dare she.
“So this is it?” She threw her arms out wide, and something about the gesture was too much for him. He should have put down the knife.
“I’d ask you to stay, but we both know how that turned out the last time.”
“Last time we hadn’t both beenkidnapped.”
“What do you want me to say, Sterling?” He gestured with the knife, but she didn’t even flinch because she didn’t need a weapon to take him. She could kill him with a look, slice him to ribbons with a word.
“You could say—” she started hard, but the rest didn’t come. It was like the words were lodged in her throat, trapped in her mind. It was like they were a record that was skipping and something wouldn’t let her move forward.
“Say...” he prompted when a shadow passed beyond the darkened window. Too big to be a bird. Too close to be a plane. And coming way too fast to do anything other than shout, “Look out!”
In the next moment, glass was raining down and a hot dry wind was blowing through the place where the windows used to be.
“Not again!” Alex shouted, because there were two guys soaring through the hole in the glass. Rappelling harnesses and cords and semiautomatics blasting up the room.
Alex dove behind the counter as King stood up and hurled the knife into the leg of the first man, who dropped just as King leapt over the counter and kicked him in the face.
The other man started for Alex in the kitchen and she reached for the hot pan. Butter ran down the side and streaked across the floor as she swung it. There was a sickening sizzle as hot pan met face, and the man screamed and fell to the floor, unmoving.
“I’d like to point out, I’m not killing anyone!” she said, a little snide.
“I appreciate the restraint.”
King kicked the gun away from the man with the knife in his leg. He took off the man’s own belt and made a tourniquet except... there was already too much blood and the man was already gone.
“Shit. Must have hit the femoral.”
“That one’s on you.” She looked like she was almost enjoying this, and maybe that’s why she didn’t feel the movement behind her, didn’t sense the threat—but King did.
In a flash, he pulled the knife from the dead man’s leg and hurled it across the room, right at the chest of the man with the burned face who was up and lunging for Alex. The man staggered forward—one step. Two. Then he dropped on the spot. Dead.
“Oh.” Alex sounded almost disappointed, but all King could do was roll his eyes as he looked at the two dead bodies and the gaping hole where the window used to be.
Curtains blew wildly. Alex’s hair waved in the breeze. There was glass everywhere and his best omelet pan was ruined, but all King could think was—
“How the hell did they find us?” He wanted to tear the building down brick by brick, sift through the desert, grain of sand by grain ofsand. He wanted answers. No, Kingneededanswers because he never did well without them. “It’s not like you called...” He had to trail off at the look on her face. “You called it in?”
“Maybe they found us because you brought us toyourapartment? Thatyouown.”
