Dead Girl Running (Cape Charade #1)(86)

Out of the corners of her eyes, Kellen saw a man running toward them, roaring in fury and anguish. She knew him.

Max. It was her Max. He had to make it. He had to. She loved him so much! Then— The present day rushed back in, but everything was blurred, overlapped.

She was in the bustling city park.

She was in the penthouse suite.

Max was moving in slow motion. He wasn’t going to make it— Max was moving in slow motion. He wasn’t going to make it—





40

Max tackled Mara, low and hard, knocking her off her feet. The pistol roared, the shot blasting over Kellen’s head. Plaster showered from the ceiling. Max and Mara rolled across the room. Max slammed Mara against the floor.

Mara pulled a small, sharp, deadly knife.

He lifted his big fist and punched her in the face.

Her head snapped back, and she went limp.

“Kellen!” he shouted.

“I’m here,” she whispered.

Gasping, he looked around at her.

He was the man who had tried to save her.

He was the man who had failed to save her.

He was the man in the hotel.

He was the man who had saved her.

His face was harsh, primitive with fury, with bloodlust, with…passion for her.

She had forgotten him, but now she remembered.

My God, how she’d loved him.

They looked at each other, just looked, a moment of gratitude…and recognition.

Then his head snapped back to look at Mara, the collar of her hoodie clutched in his fist.

Kellen wanted to believe Mara was unconscious. But she didn’t dare trust that even Max’s full-fisted punch could take out the Librarian, so in an overly loud, unsteady voice, she said, “Restrain her.”

He did. He took Mara’s pistol and secured the safety and slid it into his jacket’s inside pocket. With a key he found on the coffee table, he went into the living room and came back with handcuffs—those used to bind Carson, she guessed—and dragged Mara to the cast-iron screen set before the unlit gas fireplace and used the cuffs to secure her hands behind her back.

Carson Lennex appeared. On his cheek, a round red burn marred his classic features. His button-up shirt stood open, and three burns dotted his chest, leading in a line to his nipple. He limped into the room. Everything about him was angry. To Max, he said, “Please. Allow me.” Kneeling beside Mara’s feet, he used the curtain cord to tie her ankles and her knees. To Kellen, he said, “She came up here with a message that you had sent her. I said, For the hieroglyphic tablet? She said yes. I invited her in.” He sounded outraged when he said, “I fed her her lines!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Lennex.” Kellen spoke through broken gasps. “When I realized what could happen, I did everything I could to save you.”

“I’m ashamed to know I’m such a fool,” Carson said.

“You didn’t tell her where the tablet was.”

“No. Damned if I’m going to help an archaeological looter and thief.” He had been tortured for his passion, for archaeology, and he had come out the victor.

“When it comes to Mara, you’re not the only fool. She played me.” Kellen’s temper rose, and that seemed to ease her breathing. “I never even suspected…” She turned to Max. “If she wakes up, promise you’ll hit her again.”

“If she wakes up, this time I get to hit her,” Carson said.

Kellen indicated at the body sprawled in the entry. Nils. “Is he alive?”

Max checked for a pulse, lifted his eyelid, slid his fingers along his neck. “He’s alive.”

She was more than a little angry with Nils, and more than a little worried at his continued unconsciousness. She told Max, “He’s not one of the bad guys.”

“I know. But he made me think that you and—” Max caught himself in midsentence. Going to the couch, he grabbed a throw and tossed it on Nils. “She hit him a good one. He’s out cold. Concussion. When we get the power back, we’ll get him to the hospital. They’ll check him out. He’s going to have a headache tomorrow.”

“You sure know a lot about head wounds.”

“I learned everything I could about them when you…” He choked.

She saw a tear.

No, don’t do that. She eased herself into a more comfortable position against the wall.

Max hurried over and knelt at her side. “Can you move?”

She wiggled her left hand, moved the uninjured fingers of her right hand. The little finger was swelling, throbbing and crooked, and she used her other hand to crunch it back in place. It was still broken, but as the joint slid back into place, the relief was immediate.

“Your legs?” Max insisted.

That took more concentration, but at last she shifted her feet, pulling them toward her, then using them to leverage herself into a sitting position.

He watched, offering no assistance, and if ever a man showed terror, it was him. She knew why. He feared she had survived, only to live a life without dance, without speed, without motion. Unlike hers, his memory of her time spent unconscious and recovering in the hospital would be whole and unbearable. He feared history was repeating itself.

“I’m not paralyzed.” She put her bruised and broken hand to her shattered chest. “I am in a lot of pain. Do you have an aspirin on you?”