LITMIR.BIZ

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weapon, odds were he’d have gone for it by now.

      He locked an arm around the briefcase and yanked. Snarling, she held on like a pit bull.

      Still gripping the keys in her right hand, she shoved one between her clenched fingers. She jerked on the briefcase’s handle, yanking him into a forward stagger as she jabbed the key at his left eye.

      He feinted and, instead, the teeth of the key raked a furrow along the side of his neck, drawing blood.

      Howling, he swung his fist.

      The blow to Paige’s cheekbone sent pain grinding down her face. Reeling, she knew she was going down, and made sure she took him with her. She hit the pavement hard, and though she rolled, he landed on top of her.

      The impact stole her breath.

      He lunged up. Jerked the briefcase from her hold. Bolting in a half limp, he veered across the parking lot toward a six-foot cement block fence.

      Paige shoved herself up, ignoring the flash of pain in her side and the throb in her cheek. She set off running after him. Eyeing him from behind, she realized the mask fitted over his entire head, like something out of an S&M flick.

      She was a foot away when he swivelled. She dove under his arm and hit him hard. Instead of toppling, he took the impact, swung the briefcase. She twisted, deflecting the brunt of the blow with her shoulder.

      She wished like hell she had her asp baton.

      He lobbed the briefcase over the fence, then scrambled after it. She caught his pant leg when he was halfway over.

      “Give it up, bitch!” he snarled, kicking wildly.

      The toe of his shoe caught her in the jaw, snapping her teeth shut. She lost her grip on his pants, staggered back and landed on her butt. She was on her feet in a flash.

      And knew there was no way she could get over a towering cement block fence in her snug straight skirt and three-inch suede heels in time to catch the scum.

      “Dammit!”

      Lungs heaving, breath ragged, adrenaline rocketing through her system, she crammed her trembling hands on her hips. Her jaw clenched as she listened to the bastard race through what sounded like high brush on the other side of the fence.

      “Freaking February tenth,” she muttered.

      The patrol cop whose brass name tag said Vawter sat behind the wheel of his black and white, jotting a note on a report form clamped to a metal clipboard. He sent Paige a speculative look across the front seat. “You sure you don’t want to go to the hospital, Ms. Carmichael?”

      “Positive.” A crackle of police traffic from the radio accompanied her reply. Even though she had a stinging sensation in her jaw and her right cheek was just now getting the feeling back, Paige had gotten roughed up a lot worse when she was a street cop. Nothing a couple of Advil couldn’t help. “The other guy was doing all the bleeding.”

      “A stroke of luck, considering the way you said you went after him.” Vawter was tall, with a linebacker’s shoulders beneath his uniform jacket. His thick hair and vivid blue eyes reminded Paige of her Grandpa Carmichael. “It’s going to take some doing to get the grime out of that expensive coat. And it’s my guess you’ve got a few bruises underneath it.”

      “A couple.” Already, her hip ached like a bad tooth.

      “Might have been smarter to let the guy have your briefcase. Especially if you think it could have been the escaped shrink.”

      “Like I said, I’ve got my doubts it was Isaac.” With the after-attack adrenaline still pricking at her wrists, Paige stared out the windshield toward the cement fence the scum had slithered over. “The voice didn’t sound like Isaac’s. And his waging an assault like that doesn’t fit his profile. He first likes to play mind games with his prey. Attack comes later. When that happens, he doesn’t leave his victim behind. He takes her with him.”

      “You said he called you after he escaped. Maybe he’s ready for a face-to-face.”

      “Anything’s possible.”

      “But you don’t think it’s probable.”

      “I don’t know. He’s been locked in a cell for three years. That changes a person.” Paige pursed her mouth. “My partner and I suspected Isaac had an accomplice, but we could never prove it. If we were right, that could have been who mugged me.”

      Vawter nodded. “Let’s look at things from another angle,” he said. “In my experience, a run-of-the mill mugger wants cash, credit cards. Stuff a woman carries in her purse.”

      “You’re wondering why he stole my briefcase. Maybe because I slammed it into his gut? Though he didn’t even try for my purse.”

      “Plus, hanging around the police training center is a strange place for a masked mugger. Unless he’s got a specific target.”

      “You’re not saying anything I haven’t already thought of, Sergeant.” Fingering her cheekbone, Paige winced when she hit an extratender spot. “The briefcase is old. It first belonged to my mother, so it shows a lot of wear and tear. If the guy was some druggie aiming to boost something he could pawn for enough money to score a hit, he struck out.”

      Vawter studied the list he’d jotted on the report form. “Inside the briefcase was an extra training manual, a file folder with copies of reports and newspaper articles on Edwin Isaac, another file containing personal papers, written assignments the people in your workshop turned in and a premeasured syringe of epinephrine, used to treat your allergy to peanuts.”

      “And one banana,” Paige added. Luckily, she’d left her laptop at the hotel.

      “So, you said you cut the guy’s neck with your car key?”

      “I was aiming for his eye. He dodged.”

      “What color were his eyes?”

      “I couldn’t tell. The mask wasn’t just your ordinary leather one. It fit over his entire head and had some sort of gauzy material over the eye holes. It looked like some kinky sex mask.”

      “Guess we’d better take a look at the local deviates. And we’ll alert clinics and hospitals, in case someone with a wound to the neck comes in.”

      “I doubt I hurt him badly enough to need stitches.”

      “Gonna do the alert before my shift ends, just in case.”

      Paige furrowed her brow. “It just hit me that I forgot to put the original assignments in my briefcase, so I stuffed them in here.” She patted her suede purse on the seat beside her.

      “Are there just police officers in your workshop?”

      “No, I’ve got some civilians who run security for local corporations. The subject I teach, statement analysis, can help them zero in on potential problem areas when they conduct hiring interviews. And if they discover their employer is being ripped off by someone on the inside, they can use S.A. to develop questionnaires to be filled out by possible suspects.”

      “So, it doesn’t sound like you’ve got any criminal types for students.” Vawter considered her for a second. “You ever been to Oklahoma City before? Made any enemies here?”

      “My mom and I spent a day here a couple of years ago at the Murrah bombing memorial,” Paige said quietly. “I haven’t been back until last night.”

      “Did you manage to ruffle anyone’s feathers today?”

      Paige shifted her gaze out the windshield at the bushy shrub where her attacker had hidden. “I got on the wrong side of one of your Homicide cops.”

      “Yeah? Which one?”

      “Nate McCall.”

      Vawter barked a laugh. “His daddy was my training officer when I was a rookie. You maybe got on the wrong

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