Midnight Exposure (Midnight #1)(84)

She shouldn’t be afraid of him. He loved her.

He tugged. Mandy resisted. Nathan pulled harder, dragging her into the alley. His truck was only a few feet away. She dug her rubber-soled shoes into the asphalt and dropped her ass toward the ground. “Let me go!”

Damn it. He was going to have to pick her up, throw her in the truck, and drive through the night.

Good thing he wasn’t the least bit tired.

“Nathan, what are you doing?” Her voice, sharp with apprehension, echoed down the empty street. Someone was going to hear her. She was going to ruin everything. “I said let go of me!”

Rage at the situation and his sense of impotence boiled over. Nathan slapped her without thought. The crack of his hand across her cheek knocked her to her butt. Her eyes went from saucers to dinner plates.

“Shut up and get in the truck.”

Jed flew out of the diner. Two strong hands gripped Nathan’s lapels as the hunter got in his face. “Don’t you touch her!”

The knife jumped from Nathan’s pocket into his hand. His honed blade slid into Jed’s belly like it was Jell-O.

An agonized scream shrilled in his ear. Not Jed. His mouth was slack with shock. Nathan turned toward Mandy. He needed to shut her up—fast.



“I can’t believe Jaynie wasn’t there. Where could she be?”

From the backseat of a Honda Odyssey, Danny Sullivan listened to his oldest brother, Pat, bitch and moan.

Main Street rolled by with Hallmark charm and enough wholesome Christmas decorations to make Norman Rockwell gag.

Riding shotgun, Conor added, “I got a bad feeling about this.”

So did Danny. Fear for his sister lay dormant in the pit of his chest like an Iraqi IED, ready to blow Danny’s precariously balanced peace of mind to shit at any second. He just couldn’t take it if anything happened to Jaynie.

Pat continued to complain. Both his Irish temper and his concern for their sister had peaked when they’d driven up to Reed Kimball’s house to find only a supremely pissed-off Siberian husky in residence. No Jaynie. “It’s only nine o’clock and the place is a ghost town. Where the f*ck is everybody?”

Back home, the nightlife hadn’t even hit full swing yet. The bar would be filled up with the tail end of happy hour and the first wave of partiers.

“Just park somewhere. We’ll split up,” Conor barked.

Pat pulled over. “OK. Try to find someone, anyone who might have a clue as to what’s going on. I’m going to drive around and try to find that inn Jaynie said she stayed at. Shouldn’t take long. The whole place is only a dozen blocks each way.”

Conor climbed from the van and pulled his cell from his pocket. “Hallelujah. I got bars.”

Danny checked his display and grunted his assent as his boots hit the sidewalk. Pat affirmed his service had returned as well. “OK then, boys. Text with news or meet back here in twenty.”

The brothers parted.

Conor pointed south. “I’ll go this way. Toward that strip center. Looks like a drugstore, at least.”

“Whatever.” Danny was already headed north. A diner sat at the main intersection, across from the burned-out shell of a building. A glance at the rubble brought a horror of a slide show to Danny’s brain. With long practice, he shut that f*cker down.

He was so not going there tonight.

Jaynie needed him here, not tripping off into flashback land. Helped that the tiny hamlet of Huntsville, Maine, was the polar opposite of Iraq.

Danny walked in a quiet that was simultaneously quaint and creepy.

A woman’s scream shattered the silence. Danny sprinted toward the sound, the slapping of his shitkickers on hard pavement painfully reminiscent. A twinge shot up his left arm.

He passed the diner. A man and woman struggled in the shadowed alley next to a midsize SUV. A third figure lay on the ground a few feet away.

“Get in the f*cking truck now.” The man pulled the resisting woman by the wrist. She shifted her weight back like a stubborn mule. He raised his free hand and cracked her across the face.

Danny launched his body at the guy, breaking his hold on the lady. Danny and the rude dude went heads over asses. Unable to break his fall with his bum hand, Danny landed in a tangle of limbs while the woman-beating * sprinted for his truck. Asshole twisted and pointed at the woman. “You’re mine.”

Danny got his legs under his body and set up for a flying tackle.

Sobbing stopped him cold.

He glanced sideways. The woman knelt at the prone figure’s side. “Help him, please.” The eyes that turned on him were blue as a desert sky and just as captivating.

Shit.

Danny gave up on grabbing the attacker and hurried to her side. Her assailant’s engine faded as fast as taillights in the dark.

Danny ripped open the guy’s bloodstained jacket and applied pressure to a deep stab wound to the belly. Two functional hands would’ve helped.

The stanching of blood threatened to suck him back in time. Imaginary rockets and bullets began to whistle through the silence. Keep your head in the game.

“You have 911 service here?” He turned to the woman and was struck f*cking dumb. Even with mascara running down her cheeks, swollen eyes, a hand-size slap mark, and her friend’s blood smeared all over her, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. An apparition. An angel.