Run to Ground(127)
Her knee slammed into his groin, and he yelled, his body folding in the middle as if to protect himself from another attack. Grabbing his head, she pushed it down as she raised her leg again. Kaylee felt his nose connect with her kneecap, felt it crunch and flatten, but it happened too fast for her to cringe away. Blood poured from his broken nose, and his eyes rolled up as if he were about to pass out.
With a groan, he fell to his knees, and Kaylee ran. The valet had just gotten out of the driver’s seat of her car and was now frozen in place, his gaze locked on Martin struggling to his feet. Kaylee shoved the valet out of the way as she dove into the car, and he stumbled back a few steps, just far enough that she could shut the door.
“Stop her!” Despite the nasally edge to his voice, Martin’s fury was obvious. Looking confused, the valet reached toward the door handle. Fumbling the gearshift into drive, Kaylee stomped on the gas pedal.
With a squeal of tires, the car shot forward, leaving an enraged Martin behind her.
* * *
Kaylee couldn’t keep her leg still. It bounced up and down, betraying her nerves. If the room where the desk sergeant had brought her had been bigger than the tiniest of closets, she would’ve paced, but she’d scarcely be able to fit in two strides before running into a wall.
Shifting in her chair, she pressed both hands on top of her thigh, trying to physically stop the nervous twitch. It didn’t work. With a shaky sigh, she gave up on keeping her jittery leg still and glanced around the room.
Besides her very hard chair, there was a small table—barely bigger than a kid’s desk—and a second chair. A detective was supposed to come in to talk to her. As soon as Kaylee had mentioned the name Martin Jovanovic, the cop who’d brought her to the interrogation closet had said that Detective Grailley would want to speak with her. At least the cop had let her go to the bathroom first to wash up, and he’d given her a department hoodie that was warm and covered the worst of the bloodstains on her dress.
She wondered if there was already an ongoing investigation into Martin’s activities. Kaylee hoped so. It would take some of the focus off her. She wouldn’t have to be the main witness, the only source of information…Martin’s main target. The thought of Jovanovic coming after her, seeking revenge and her silence, made her have to bite her lip to hold back a frightened sound. The tiny room felt claustrophobic, and Kaylee couldn’t sit still anymore.
She shot to her feet just as the door opened and a uniformed cop entered. A little bit of tension left her body now that someone was in the room with her. Kaylee didn’t think she could’ve taken waiting alone for much longer. The officer was young and very tall, with shorn, light-brown hair and an attempted mustache. His gaze fixed on her for a long moment before he looked over his shoulder.
Kaylee’s skin prickled with heat before flashing cold, her initial relief overtaken by alarm. There was something wrong. Maybe she was basing her cop knowledge on too many TV shows, but Kaylee was pretty sure that a detective wouldn’t be wearing a uniform. There was also a tenseness in the officer’s posture, in the way he glanced behind him as if checking to make sure no one else was around. Her brain spun as she tried to think clearly, tried to figure out what she was going to do. All her instincts were screaming Danger!
He refocused on her, his light-blue eyes cold and strangely familiar. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” she asked, even as she reluctantly moved toward him. Although she wasn’t sure what she was going to do, Kaylee knew she couldn’t accomplish anything in this small room. With the creepy cop blocking the door, she couldn’t escape it, either.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped back, allowing her to leave the room. As she passed close to him, her gaze dropped to the gold name tag pinned to his starched uniform shirt pocket.
L. Jovanovic.
Numb, Kaylee walked down the narrow hallway, followed closely by Martin’s…what? Nephew? Son? Much younger brother? His hand latched around her upper arm, exactly where Martin had grabbed her earlier, and she flinched. Her breath wanted to come quickly, but she couldn’t show her fear. Her lungs burned as she forced each inhale to slow, each exhale to come out silently, rather than in a terrified sob.
Right before they reached the end of the corridor, the cop steered her toward a door marked Stairs. Just as she’d known she wouldn’t survive if she’d gone back into Martin’s mansion, Kaylee knew, deep in her gut, not to enter the stairway with L. Jovanovic.
Forcing herself to stay outwardly relaxed, to stay compliant and pliable under his hold, Kaylee stepped toward the door, her hands reaching for the release bar. Before she pressed it, though, she wrenched free of his grip and sprinted for the next hallway. She needed to find other people, other cops. L. Jovanovic had taken her out of the room where she’d been trapped like a mouse in a tiny box. He was steering her away from cameras, away from somewhere they could be seen. He wanted to get her alone to do whatever he was planning, and Kaylee knew her survival depended on preventing that.