Official Escort. Jean Barrett

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СКАЧАТЬ from claustrophobia. It was a situation that might be to her advantage, or prove even more dangerous for her. There was no way of knowing. She could only pray that, when help arrived, she could somehow make them aware of her plight.

      They didn’t speak as the long minutes passed. She watched him become increasingly restless. Every few seconds, his movements jerky and impatient, he would attack the alarm button with his thumb or smack the other buttons in a futile effort to move the elevator. They could hear the bell ringing somewhere in the distance, but no one came. There was a sheen of perspiration on his face now. Madeline feared he was so panicked that he was nearing a stage of hyperventilation.

      What would she do if he lost all control? What could she do, when she was trapped in an elevator with a wild animal who wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if she made the wrong move?

      Madeline didn’t know whether to be worried or relieved when he finally ruptured the silence with a growled, “I’m not taking this anymore! I’m getting out!”

      She followed his lifted gaze, understanding his intention. There was a panel in the low ceiling above them, covering a service hatch to the roof of the elevator.

      “Floor above us can’t be more than a couple of feet higher than the top of the elevator,” he said. “If I can get up there, maybe I can force the door, climb out. Get over here and make a step for me with your hands.”

      Madeline didn’t want to touch him, but she didn’t dare to refuse him. She joined him below the hatch where he had positioned himself. Leaning down, she braced herself as he placed his weight on the sling she created with her hands linked together. He shouldn’t have been too heavy for her, not when she was nearly as tall as he was and his body was emaciated. But with the satchel still firmly in his keeping, he felt like a boulder.

      Steadying himself, with his fingers biting painfully into her shoulder, he rose to his full height and shoved the loose panel up out of its frame. The hatch was now open to the elevator shaft. She wished he would hurry. Her hands wobbled under the strain, especially when he stretched himself to gain a hold on the frame. Having succeeded, he was ready to swing himself through the opening. That’s when it happened. The elevator lurched without warning, dropping another several inches.

      Madeline lost her footing, Angel his grip. With a yell, he plummeted to the floor of the car. The satchel swinging wildly from his shoulder cost him his balance. He went crashing into the steel wall.

      When she’d recovered herself, she went over to check on him. He was huddled tightly in a corner, unconscious, blood seeping from a wound where his head had struck the wall.

      Madeline crouched beside him. The aroma of his cologne was overpowering, sickening. Forget that. Find his gun.

      Her hands were on his coat, ready to search him, when there was a clang of metal from the floor above. She recognized it as the sound of a door scraping open. It was followed by the familiar voice of the small-statured Korean man who was the super for the building, calling down to her.

      “Who is there, please?”

      Madeline got eagerly to her feet. “It’s me, Kim.”

      “You okay, Miss Raeburn?”

      “I’m fine. Just get me out.”

      “Sure. I got a ladder. It’s coming down.”

      By the time he managed to lower the ladder to her through the hatch, Madeline had the precious satchel back in her possession. With a last glance at the still-unconscious Angel, she swarmed up the ladder. The fifth floor, where Kim waited for her, was no more than three feet above the roof of the elevator. He reached down and helped her scramble to safety.

      “You got anyone else down there, Miss Raeburn?”

      “No, Kim, I was all alone on the elevator.”

      He started to mutter about how the tenants would complain again about the car having to be shut down until the engineer came to fix it. Madeline didn’t stop to listen to him. She was already flying toward the stairs.

      Nor did she permit her pace to slacken when she reached the street. She hurried down the hill, the clang of a cable car making her start nervously as she threaded her way through the evening crowds. From time to time she checked over her shoulder, fearing that Angel might be in pursuit again. Or, if not Angel, another enemy sent by Griff to find her. Nowhere in the city was safe for her.

      The police? No, Madeline didn’t trust the police to protect her. Hadn’t she learned firsthand what happened to informers? Griff Matisse was too powerful, had too many friends in high places for her to risk staying here in San Francisco. Damn it, she was scared. All she wanted to do was to lose herself, go far away and hide.

      You’re doing the right thing. They’re dead. You can’t help them now. Stay and testify? Don’t be a fool. He’d never let you survive long enough to mount a witness stand. You were planning to go away, anyway, weren’t you? That’s why you took all your money out of the bank, remember?

      She wouldn’t let herself feel guilty because she was running away. She wouldn’t.

      SCARS, THE RESIDUE of a severe adolescent acne, pitted his jaw. They were the only flaws on Griff Matisse’s handsome face. He permitted nothing else to mar his appearance, which was as immaculate as his tasteful office in the Phoenix on Powell Street. Nor was Matisse willing to tolerate any mistakes from those who served him.

      “I’m not happy,” he coldly informed the man who stood on the other side of his desk. “I think I have every reason to be unhappy, don’t you?”

      Angel, resisting the urge to finger the wound in his scalp, nodded slowly. For a moment the only sound in the office was the muted wail of a saxophone off in the elegant main room of the club.

      “What are we going to do about making me happy again, Angel?”

      “She’s disappeared,” Angel said in his hushed, raspy voice that was almost a whisper. “She could be anywhere.”

      “But she’s somewhere, isn’t she? And wherever that is, and whatever it takes, I want her found and eliminated. We have all the right connections. Use them.”

      Angel didn’t need to be persuaded. He had his own score to settle with Madeline Raeburn.

      Chapter One

      Rural Wisconsin

      Madeline didn’t have a good feeling about this arrangement. Maybe the setting was responsible for that, at least partly. It wasn’t very encouraging, she decided, gazing out the passenger window of the car as it bumped up the long, rutted farm lane.

      It was a bleak situation, the fields brown, the trees leafless. Even the spiky evergreens that studded the hills on all sides were a dull shade of green. Snow would have softened the scene, made it more palatable. But even though it was late December and only a few days before Christmas, the ground was bare, though the gray sky was certainly cold enough to warrant snow.

      The burly man beside her at the wheel, hair grizzled, face lined, must have sensed her anxiety. “We’re doing the right thing,” he reassured her gently.

      He had been particularly kind to her since yesterday. Understandable, considering he had come within millimeters of losing her СКАЧАТЬ