Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(109)

His face was very pale. “Nikki, that hasn’t been—”

“On? Recording? Now?” I shrugged carelessly. “You know me, Oliver, I don’t do tech. I doubt I would even know how to turn it off.” I held up the little camera and turned it idly in my hands. “I did have a friend take a look at it. Turns out it’s easy enough to point the live stream in a different direction. To somewhere safe, say, where people have access to everything we talked about no matter what happens to me tonight.”

I pictured Charles Miller, probably a cup of coffee in one hand, hunched over his laptop, watching and listening intently. Given the many unhealthy things that might happen to the people in this room tonight, I wasn’t about to let Mr. Jade and Mr. Ruby watch me in real time. Not with my intentions. We were helping each other, but they were still sworn to uphold all laws. I wanted a bit more flexibility. Yet I had given Charles the contact information for the two agents just the same. If worse came to worst, he’d know where to send his recording of the night’s events. “If you two hadn’t been so busy today planning your boss’s murder,” I finished, “you might have noticed that you weren’t watching my office anymore.”

Oliver looked around the room warily. “You brought me here to trick me?”

I didn’t bother to answer.

He flushed, thinking, then made up his mind. “I didn’t know I was being recorded. None of that’s admissible in court. Give me the camera. Now.”

“No.”

“Give it to me,” he demanded.

“Come and get it.”

“Get the camera from her, Joseph,” he said.

Joseph looked like he’d been hoping for exactly those words. Without hesitation he walked eagerly toward me, his pale eyes murderous. “I’m looking for an excuse,” he said, his gun pointed directly at me and the steel bolt cutters held loosely in his left hand like a hatchet.

I picked up my penknife again. “What are you going to do with that besides cutting your pretty little nails?” he sneered.

I didn’t bother to answer. Just reached across fast and slashed the yellow ropes nearest to me. The sharp little blade went through the taut nylon and the ropes slid away, limp with released tension. I was already on my feet, backing a safe distance away from the wall.

Joseph shook his head. “Come on. No more games.”

There was a single thud as a hardcover dropped off the top of a bookcase, bounced off Joseph’s shoulder, and landed at his feet.

He looked down at the book curiously.

Then he looked up to see where it had come from as the entire length of the bookcase lurched forward, hundreds of books toppling down all at once. He tried to get out of the way, tripped over a pile on the floor, fell, and then the lower half of his body disappeared as the long wooden shelf came down on top of him.

By then I had the .357 in my hand. No more banter. I was all business.

Oliver was watching me with the look of someone who’d just watched a tiger jump its fence at the zoo and was now wishing he hadn’t been poking it through the bars. He shrunk away from me, timid once again. I could see Joseph moving under the pile of books and kept my eyes focused on him. As I walked past Oliver, I threw a hard elbow into the bridge of his nose. Hitting him felt very satisfying. He’d had it coming for a long time.

He clutched his nose and gasped in pain, then again as I kicked him hard in the side of the knee. I saw him fall in my peripheral vision, saw Joseph’s good arm bracing itself as he tried to push himself up. “Joseph,” I called. “Keep your hands empty or I’ll shoot them off your damn wrists. Stand up.”

I watched Joseph struggle to his feet, disheveled. “Your stupid tricks,” he said furiously.

Hitting Joseph across the face with the barrel of the .357 felt even more satisfying than hitting Oliver. He went down on one knee, a gash spilling blood down his forehead. The .357 barrel made a nice straight line between my hands and Joseph’s head. “Get up.”

“Stop, Nikki, right there.”

I turned my head for a quick glance, not wanting to take my eyes off Joseph. My elbow hadn’t done Oliver any favors in the beauty department. Blood had spread all over his lower face and chin and he was panting loudly through his mouth. But his hands, holding a semiautomatic pistol, were reasonably steady.

“I wasn’t going to shoot you, Oliver,” I said, eyes still on Joseph. “I was going to make sure you were held accountable, but not shoot you.”

“That’s easy to promise when I’m pointing a gun at you.”

“You’re missing my point. You just changed things. I wasn’t. But now I might.”

He picked up the little white camera and threw it on the ground as hard as he could, then ground his heel into the pieces for good measure. “Put your gun down, now.”

I had to make a decision quickly. If I pivoted and shot him he probably wouldn’t have time to react. He hadn’t done this kind of thing before. There would be that fragment of shock, delaying his reaction, as he realized he had to pull a trigger with an actual person in front of him. But multiple guns in a small room meant almost anything could happen. And as soon as my gun shifted, Joseph would throw himself at me. He was already inching closer, reading my mind. He wouldn’t care if I shot Oliver. Not if that let him reach me. He hated me that much. I thought of Board Shorts, catching a ricochet in the garage. I pictured the three of us here, bullets bouncing randomly off concrete in a small enclosed space.