Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense by Brett Battles, Robert Gregory Browne, Melissa F. Miller, J. Carson Black, Michael Wallace, M A Comley, Carol Davis Luce Page B

and the chair. Laura took the path of least resistance and sat down, her eye immediately going to the top page of the file.
    He was talking again, but she was doing a pretty good job of tuning him out. She knew he was telling her lies. Right now he was talking about his coming wedding. “Up to me, it would be just the two of us on a beach, and Moby could be my best man.”
    Laura said, “Moby?”
    “My dog.”
    Laura knew Grady was talking to keep her mind off the files. He thought he was smarter than her, that he could fool her. He was supremely confident in that belief.
    “Now this lady here, I know I sent the check in,” he was saying. Standing above her, looking at the file, then placing it open-faced in front of her. Her eye going to the name.
    “I'm going to need copies,” she said.
    “No prob.” Opening the top file drawer again. Crowding her some more.
    She smelled his aftershave as he leaned closer. Her mind registering the stealthy whicker of the casters as she moved the chair back to put more space between them.
    She heard him step away to the file cabinet, and then there was quiet. There should have been another file. The hair stood up on her arms.
    Suddenly, the stillness erupted—a lightning bolt from left field.
    A knife arcing through space, white heat at the edge of her vision.
    Her palm flew up to ward him off—pure reflex—and she shoved her chair backwards. It tipped— go ahead and let it —just as the big knife slashed through the air past her face.
    Instinct taking over, everything in slow motion. Her sight narrowing to a very small space surrounded by darkness. He was yelling something, but she couldn't hear it. She saw the fluorescents barring the ceiling, the tilt of dark gray carpet, falling in slow motion, toppling onto her right side and something—the cheap wooden armrest?—walloping her arm a few inches below her elbow, all her body weight coming down, banging it hard.
    The shock running all the way up her arm and into her jaw.
    Her hand, trapped. Sticky, pulsing.
    She'd been cut.
    She saw the capering glee in Grady's eyes as he took a step back to take another run at her, the hunting knife with the seven-inch blade gleaming in his fist, a drip of blood ending in an exclamation point on the handle, smearing his hand.
    She kicked her way out of the chair and backpedaled before even forming the thought, scuttling across the six feet of carpet to the storage cabinet. The next time the knife sliced through the air, it would take part of her face, her eye. She reached the closet a second before his arm shot forward, her whole body slamming the door shut, her good hand and her good shoulder, the knife punching through the door, the blade whinging.
    This close to her eye.
    With her body and her good arm, Laura shoved the water cooler up against the door as the knife stabbed again through the hollow-core door.
    Heart pounding.
    In shock.
    She needed the SIG. Left hand. Left hand ! Laura had backed up against the Formica counter, out of range of the punching knife, wondering how long it would take for him to hack it to pieces. She reached awkwardly across her stomach to unsnap the holster, sliding the SIG out backwards, taking an eternity to turn it around in her fumbling fingers.
    Still straining under disbelief that he had attacked her. Why?
    It was illogical, crazy.
    She steadied her left arm against her side, hard. Standing so that her gun was squeezed against her stomach, rigid against her side—if she shot there would be a recoil and a burn—the gun six times as heavy.
    Aiming chest-high. “Throw the knife away! Do it now! Or I will shoot you through this door.”
    The knife withdrew and he punched the door hard, fist coming right through. Class ring, Rolex, manicured nails. A roar of rage.
    “You're not going to fuck this up! I'm not going to jail again! You bitch !”
    The words punched into her heart. Bitch.
    Suddenly, centuries of fear uncoiled in her stomach, the tentacles