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“Shit!” Tyson growled. Stopping. The footsteps no longer clambering. He must think she propelled herself off the porch!
Nikki shrank inside, willing herself to be smaller.
“Tyson?” Ashley called from the front of the house. Oh, God, she was heading this way. When she turned the corner Nikki would be visible against the old stones!
Just leave, Ashley. For God’s sake, get in your car and take off! Please, please, please!
“Shhhh!” he hissed back. Tyson was moving again, the floorboards creaking with each of his approaching footsteps. He was at the corner.
Close. He was so damned close. Nikki’s heart thundered, nervous sweat slathered her body. She bit her lip and willed herself to remain still. Unmoving. Pressed tight to the rocks.
But she could hear his breath, could feel him nearby.
She was trapped!
Cowering against the stone wall, Nikki slid her phone into her pocket and reached for the box cutter, a pathetic weapon against a taser, night-vision goggles and a gun. Two guns, she reminded herself, two damned guns and two shooters!
Crap!
Think, Nikki, think!
You’ve been in tight places before!
With trembling fingers she reached into her pocket and withdrew the church key. No match for a gun. But . . .
She hefted the bottle opener’s weight and then, hidden from Tyson’s view by the chimney stack, flung it as she had Mikado’s frisbee, skating the key through the air, whizzing it away from the lodge until it landed with a sharp thud on a tree in the surrounding forest.
“What the . . . ?” Tyson moved. The floorboards groaned.
Go! Go!
But he didn’t take the bait. Didn’t jump off the porch. Didn’t race after the sound, was still only inches from Nikki. She heard his uneven breathing, sensed his indecision.
Go! Chase after it! Fetch, damn you!
“What the fuck?” he whispered under his breath.
Now what?
“Ty?” Ashley called.
“Shh!” he hissed.
Nikki didn’t dare breathe. In just a second or two, Ashley would discover her and then she’d be a sitting duck. She had to risk leaping over the rail. It was the only way that she had the slimmest of chances! Oh, Lord. She looked across the railing to the forest not twenty yards beyond. Could she risk it? If she could spring over the rail, drop to the area beneath the deck, then if he was looking for her bolt across the open way into that border of—
As her eyes scanned the woods, she thought she saw something shift. Movement in the dense, dark foliage.
Her heart stilled.
Reed!
He was here! She felt a second’s elation, then sudden, horrifying dread.
Tyson had night vision. With his goggles, he could detect not only movement but see images. Oh, God, no.
Reed would be an unwitting target!
That couldn’t happen!
