Dawn Stewardson - The Full Story

“Stop dead and put your hands up,” Mickey ordered.

There was his break!

He whirled around and dove toward the floor in one motion, catching the killer around the knees as the Magnum exploded.

They both went sprawling and the gun skittered across the floor, vanishing beneath a massive desk.

The killer swore, grabbing Dan by the throat.

He slammed his fist into the guy’s face hard enough to make him let go. Then there was another deafening shot. Just as he realized that Mickey must have fired again, she screamed, “Stop! Both of you!”

Instinctively he glanced in her direction, which proved to be a really stupid move. The killer caught him with such a wicked fist to the temple that it almost knocked him senseless.

While bells were bonging inside his head, the other man tore out of the place.

Mickey slammed the door shut after him, threw the bolt, then hurried over to where Dan was sitting on the floor.

She had a semiautomatic in one hand. The other, she tentatively rested on his shoulder, saying, “Are you okay?”

“I’ve got to catch him,” he told her, managing to lurch to his feet.

“Dan, I don’t think—”

“There’s only one way he can go. And I can drive that road faster than someone who doesn’t know it.”

He reached for her gun; she whipped it behind her back and said, “Let’s give that idea some thought.”

DAN FELT AS IF he’d been hit with a tire iron rather than a fist, and when he tried to ask Mickey where she’d gotten a gun no words came out, which he took to be a bad sign.

If not for that, and if he had more confidence about getting farther than the porch without collapsing, he’d wrestle Mickey for the gun and head after the killer.

Given the reality of the situation, however, he simply stood waiting to hear what she’d say next.

“Dan, you hardly look up to chasing after a hit man,” she began. “And for all we know, he has another gun in his car or wherever.”

Right. And he’d need another one. That Magnum was still lying under the desk.

Everything had happened so quickly that Dan had almost forgotten about it. But he’d dig it out before he left. It never hurt to have an extra weapon.

“So if he does have a second gun,” Mickey was saying, “and you go looking for him, you might end up awfully sorry.”

He’d have nodded that she had a point, only he suspected the movement would make his head explode.

“I should have shot him,” she said more quietly. “Instead of simply firing into the air, I should have shot him in the leg or something. I was afraid of hitting you, though. Then he sprinted by me like a track star and that was that.”

“It’s okay,” he managed to say. “You probably kept us both from getting killed. So…thanks.”

When she smiled and said he was welcome, the thought that she had a great smile somehow found its way into his mind.

He wasn’t sure which was more bizarre—the fact that he was having the thought at all or that he was having it while his head was pounding.

At any rate, he told it to find its way back out, then put together the words to ask where the gun had come from.

“It was in a drawer,” she told him. “In the theater. I don’t usually go poking around in other people’s drawers,” she continued quickly. “But you seemed certain the killer was going to show up, and I remembered reading somewhere that Billy kept guns around.”

“Ah,” he said. Then he gingerly touched his temple to see whether it had started to swell.

Not surprisingly, it had.

“We should put ice on that,” Mickey said.

Before he could tell her he didn’t have time to waste on first aid, she added, “Why don’t you go sit down and I’ll get some.”

Sitting down struck him as an excellent suggestion. But since his cell was lying on the kitchen counter, and he didn’t trust her not to grab it and call her editor, he followed along to make sure she wouldn’t, his head only hurting a little more with each step he took.

He picked up the phone and clipped it to his belt, thinking that even though his plan to lure the killer here had worked, the end result sure wasn’t what he’d been hoping for.

So now he was back to square one, and there wasn’t a chance in the world of that guy giving up. He’d try something again, just as soon as he had a good opportunity—which, unless Ken lucked out in New York, could well be tomorrow morning.

“Here,” Mickey said, handing him some ice wrapped in a dish towel.

“Thanks.” He pressed the ice pack to his temple, saying, “I’ve got to make a call.”

That was her cue to give him privacy, of course, but when she pretended not to pick up on the hint, he couldn’t be bothered making a big deal out of it.

Since she already knew the basic story, what would it matter if she listened in on the next installment?

He got hold of Ken and asked whether he’d found Billy yet.

“Still working on it,” he said. “But I have to admit I’m losing hope. Anything happen there?”

“Yeah, and it wasn’t pretty.”

He began filling the other man in, trying not to think that Ken must figure he was an idiot.

What else would he think, though?

It was just a good thing he was the type to keep quiet. Because Dan O’Neill setting a trap for a killer, and then entirely missing the guy’s arrival, was so much not the norm for him that a lot of people would find it too damn funny.

After he finished relating the basics of what had happened, Ken said, “Are you still hearing bells?”

“No, I’m fine now.”

And that was only a slight exaggeration. He was feeling a lot better than he’d been a few minutes ago.

“But Billy sure isn’t going to be fine,” he added. “Not if this guy gets to him before we do.”

“And we don’t have any more idea of who we’re up against than we did before,” Ken said.

“Uh-uh. His mask was the kind that pulls down over the head. So all I know is that he’s average height, average build, and hits like a heavyweight.”

“You think he’s going to hear about Billy being on Sherry Sherman’s show?”

“Yeah, I think there’s a real good chance. Even if he’s still thinking Billy’s holed up here, he wouldn’t come back. He’ll realize that his first visit put me on high alert, which would make a second one too dangerous. So now he’ll start planning a different approach. And he’ll hear about the show as soon as he begins nosing around for fresh information.”

“I assume you’ll be leaving for New York right away, then.”

“As soon as I can get a flight. I didn’t have a chance to check on them, but I’ll just head to the airport and take whatever’s available.”

“Well, I’ll keep looking here.”

“Right. And I’ll call you again later.”

“So,” Mickey said as he clipped the phone to his belt once more. “We’re on our way to New York now.”

We? He almost laughed.

Did she figure that getting punched in the head had given him amnesia? That she’d be able to convince him he’d agreed to more than he had?

If so, she was about to be very disappointed.

“I’m going to New York,” he told her. “Alone.”

“But—”

“No,” he said firmly. “Our deal wasn’t that you’d go along. It was that, if I went, you’d stay here and get your exclusive once the excitement was over. And that you wouldn’t breathe a word about the story until then.”

“But things have changed.”

“Meaning?”

She shrugged. “Meaning I kept you from getting killed. I probably did,” she added before he had the chance to correct her.

“Plus, that ice is working wonders. I can hardly see any swelling now. So all in all, you owe me.”