Page 89 of The Agent
Natalie hadn’t told her about the stalking. Regina had had enough to worry about.
Dobs walked over to put his arm around his wife and lead her back to the chair, gently pushing her down into it. “It was just a little warning. Because she had interfered in our marriage.”
“That’s right,” Natalie said. “I saw the bruises on her arms and told her she didn’t have to stay with an abusive psychopath like you. I told her I would help her get away from you.”
Just when she thought she’d really riled him, the anger seemed to drain away. His eyes became blank and unreadable and his fists relaxed. “I love my wife. I would never hurt her,” he said. “You tried to come between us by telling her lies. I needed to punish you.”
Regina looked terrified now and Natalie willed her not to say anything. She didn’t want Dobs to focus his insanity on his wife.
“Well, it didn’t stop me, did it?” Natalie said. “Because I took in your lying little accomplice, just like I took in your wife. You were counting on me doing that, so you must have known you hadn’t scared me, you moron.”
Dobs stroked his hand over Regina’s dyed hair. “My dear, I need to talk with Natalie alone. Go with Vince and Arlo to the helicopter. I’ll be right there.”
Helicopter? So Dobs was leaving by air. And soon. She needed to find a way to delay him.
When the two men released Natalie, she staggered slightly before finding her balance. As the goons escorted Regina out of the room, the young woman threw an anguished glance toward Natalie, who steadfastly ignored it. She had to keep Dobs talking.
Natalie went on the offensive. “How did you get Sarah Lacey to drug me?”
Dobs closed the door and turned the key in the lock. “I borrowed her daughter for a day.”
Natalie felt like he’d hit her again. Now she understood why Sarah’s terror had been so genuine. “You kidnapped achild?! You don’t deserve to be a father.”
“Shut up, you stupid bitch!” He swiveled toward Natalie, his face lit with an ugly anticipation.
Natalie put a large chair between herself and Dobs as cold fingers of fear walked down her spine.
Where the hell was Tully?
Dobs walked over to his desk. “You’re a hairdresser. I believe you are right-handed.” He surveyed the vast desktop with its array of expensive accessories before he picked up a fist-size chunk of greenish-yellow crystals embedded in a white mineral base. “Brazilianite.” He brought the rock up to his eye level and turned it back and forth so the faceted crystals glittered in the light. “Rare gemstone quality. It will do nicely to crush the delicate bones of your hand. And these points will penetrate the skin to draw blood.”
He put the rock back on the desk before he pivoted toward Natalie. “I enjoy blood. The color is so vivid.”
Natalie involuntarily tucked her right hand behind her back.
He came toward her, moving faster than she expected. She dodged behind the desk, but the sudden movement kicked up the drug-induced vertigo again. Dobs’s lips drew back in something between a snarl and a smile. “If you think I’m going to play ring-around-the-rosy with you, you’re wrong.” And then he vaulted onto the desk, looming over her with a triumphant sneer. She shrank back against the bookcase as she tried to decide whether to dash right or left.
“It doesn’t matter which way you go,” Dobs said. “Pick one so we can get this done.”
Natalie grabbed the wheeled desk chair, a heavy wood-and-leather piece, using it as a shield as she scooted sideways to the left. When Dobs committed in that direction, she gave the chair a hard shove to keep it going and bolted right, hoping Dobs would jump onto the chair and fall. Unfortunately, he managed to stop his momentum before he hit the edge of the desk, leaping onto the Persian rug to land only a few feet from where Natalie braced herself behind another chair.
His agility surprised her but maybe it was fueled by his insanity. She hoped his knees hurt like hell in the morning.
Feeling like a cornered rat, she tried to dart sideways as he closed in on her sheltering chair, but he managed to grab a handful of her blouse and yanked her back against him, wrapping his free hand around her throat and squeezing.
She clawed at his wrist, but between the drug and the lack of oxygen, she didn’t have much strength.
“Van Houten, let her go now!” Tully’s voice cracked like a whip, sending relief and joy rushing through her like a shot of adrenaline.
She twisted in Dobs’s hold, expecting it to loosen, but instead her captor squeezed harder and spun toward the office door. Although Natalie’s vision was beginning to blur, she saw Tully, dressed in black like some sort of ninja, advancing into the room, his gray eyes blazing with fury. He pointed a huge handgun toward her and Dobs.
“If you’re trying to give me a legitimate reason to shoot you, Dobs, you’re doing a good job,” Tully said, moving smoothly into the center of the room, the black hole at the end of his gun never wavering. “And believe me, I’m looking for one. Let her go now!”
Dobs dragged her toward the desk, keeping her body between him and Tully’s big gun. She pictured the chunk of rock resting on the leather top and reached out, her fingers scrabbling over the doodads arranged there until she felt the sharp crystalline points. She grabbed it and slammed the Brazilianite into Dobs’s thigh as hard as she could, hoping the shock of pain would be enough to loosen his hold on her so she could get out of Tully’s way.
Dobs shrieked but he kept squeezing harder while he called her horrible names. She tried to put an apology in her eyes as she looked at Tully, who stood like an ebony statue.
Then she jerked as a loud bang cut through the cursing and the black haze beginning to fog her eyes. As Dobs’s grip went slack, she gulped in a lungful of delicious air and reached again for the desk to hold herself up.
