Chapter 80
Mark froze. The scene below him unfolded so rapidly he barely had time to assimilate what was happening.
A man, who he only partially saw through the crack, suddenly charged into the room where Janet stood staring at her computer. She twisted, quick as a cat, partially connecting with her foot to his midsection before he hit her and they spun out of view. Before Mark could move to open the trapdoor and jump down to her aid, it was over.
Janet strode back into view looking as unruffled as if nothing had happened.
“Good night, sweet prince.”
The casual, flippant response, the way she barely glanced back over her shoulder, said more than her words. The man who had attacked her must be dead.
Janet picked up her cell phone and pressed a single key. After a couple of seconds, she spoke into it.
“Jack, I???ve had a situation here.” She paused for a moment. “No. I handled it, but I’ll need you to help me with the cleanup…Right. Just get here as quickly as possible.”
Snapping the phone shut, she turned, just in time to catch a feathered dart high in her left shoulder. Her look of surprise was quickly replaced with a slackness that spread to her arms and legs. The cell phone clattered to the floor as Janet followed it to the ground.
Instantly, the man was on her, ripping duct tape free from a roll and wrapping it several times around her hands and then her feet, placing another strip across her mouth.
“I guess it’s my turn to say good night to you,” he said with a low chuckle. “Don’t worry, little princess. You’ll have plenty of time to think about what went wrong over the coming days.”
Mark, who had been too stunned by this new development to move, jerked into motion, kicking open the trapdoor and leaping into the hallway below. As he landed, the man’s head snapped toward him, a long, wicked-looking knife appearing in his hand.
Seeing who faced him, a mirthless smile spread across the chiseled features of the man who stood over Janet’s prone form, not twenty feet away from Mark.
“Kid, I don’t know what you are doing here, but this isn’t your lucky day.”