Anne Woodard - Dead Aim

Maggie tucked the evening’s take into the small office safe, shoved the stack of paperwork she’d meant to get to tonight to one side—working undercover like this meant she ended up doing two jobs, not one—and locked the office behind her. Dora, the morning manager, would have too much to do getting the shop ready to open at six to worry about whatever Maggie had left undone.

She emerged to find Sharon shrugging into her coat while Steve turned out the lights. Rick was standing in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets, wearily staring at nothing.

Maggie squelched a sudden urge to wrap her arms around him and tell him not to worry, that it was all going to work out somehow.

Helping Rick Dornier was part of her job, she sternly reminded herself. She wanted to find Tina and so did he. It was as simple as that. She was not getting emotionally involved here.

The sound of her footsteps on the old wood floor evidently roused him from his thoughts, for he blinked and gave himself a little shake. And then he smiled at her, a tired, intimate little smile that made something tighten in her chest.

She saved her smile for the two college kids. “Thanks, guys. I sure appreciate your staying late to finish up. I’ll lock up behind you.”

“We’ve still gotta take out the trash,” Sharon protested, pointing to two well-filled plastic bags that had been set by the back door.

“I’m parked out back,” Maggie assured her. “I’ll get them. You two go on home. See you tomorrow.”

The click of the lock as she closed the door behind them sounded unusually loud. She paused a moment in the entry. To make sure her employees were all right, she told herself. Her hesitation had nothing to do with the man still in the shop, waiting for her.

At this hour of the night, the pedestrian mall was quiet, the restaurants and upscale bars the only places still open, and even they would be closing soon. She flicked off the lights, plunging the shop into shadow. Behind her, Rick Dornier stirred. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.” Maggie jiggled the doorknob to make sure. The low-wattage security light over the bar and the dull-gold light slipping in from the streetlights outside only made the shadows seem darker and bigger.

Rick Dornier loomed in the darkness, solid, human, inescapably male. Maggie’s nerve endings pricked into life.

“I’m sorry it took so long. We don’t usually get so many customers so late on a weeknight.”

“No problem.”

The only illumination in the back hallway was the emergency exit sign, but Maggie didn’t need to look to know where he was. She could feel him there, right behind her, close enough to touch if she wanted.

Instead, she opened the back door, then grabbed the overstuffed trash bags Sharon had left there. “Get the locks, will you?”

The cold night air hit her like a slap in the face.

The man who lunged out of the inky shadows by the door was swinging something that would do a lot more damage when it landed.

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