“Like I said,” Robertson chuckled, “no one’s gonna even lift a finger …”
Dani got up. The pressure on her arm pretty much forced her. She grabbed her bag. Two tables were occupied in the back of the café. It wasn’t clear to her if anyone actually saw what was going on. One or two seemed to be purposely averting their eyes. Others just continued on with their conversation.
“Nice and easy now …” Robertson said in her ear. He locked his hand on her arm and led her toward the door.
Dani’s heart was in a frenzy.
He’s going to kill me, she told herself. Just like Trey. And maybe Ty. Poor Ty … Oh, please don’t let that be true … She desperately wished she could find a way to contact him. He hadn’t called her back, which only made the possibility seem worse. Something could well have happened to him. Her legs slid, wobbly and without strength, passing tables, people not looking or just going on with their normal business, not knowing anything improper was going on. Can’t they see!
She thought of screaming out. They were ten feet from the front door. They couldn’t all just sit there and let him take her. Blind to what was happening. Just like with RMM. And if they saw, well, then Robertson couldn’t just do what he said, like what he had done to Trey. Too many people. As she walked, everything in slow motion, Dani’s eyes darted around to anything she could use against him. There was silverware on every table, knives and forks, but she knew she’d never get a full grasp on something in time—and even if she did, Robertson was a trained special ops guy. She’d never have a chance to use it.
I’ll break your arm off right here, he said.
She also saw those old-fashioned metal napkin dispensers on every table, the edges pointed and sharp.
Six feet. Robertson dug his grip into her arm ever harder. “Almost there now.”
She couldn’t let him take her.
As they reached the door, it suddenly opened, and a woman stepped in, maybe in her fifties, in a blue blouse and open sweater vest. She gave them a smile in the doorway. Robertson smiled back as if nothing was happening.
Once she was out that door it was over for her. This was her only chance.
Now.
Her heart pounding, Dani lunged and reached for the table closest to the door, grabbing on to the napkin dispenser, and swung it up with her free hand as Robertson, one hand on her, held the door.
She hit him with the sharp edge in the forehead just above the left eye.
He shouted out, letting Dani go, the hand he had around her shooting up to his eye.
The woman screamed as Dani wrenched out of Robertson’s grasp, flinging her against him.
Then she bolted out the open door.
Outside, she almost ran headfirst into the black SUV pulled up there. There were two people in the front seats. She knew she had only seconds before Robertson, momentarily staggered, would come out after her. Even fewer before one of the two in the SUV would realize what was going on. The café was mid-block. Even though it was the town’s main street there was virtually no one milling around and a only few vehicles on the street. She looked desperately for a police car. For anyone she could run to. The passenger door to the black SUV opened. A man stepped out.
Dani took off down the street.
She ran past the storefronts, a knitting supply shop and a State Farm insurance office. At an alley, she glanced behind her. Robertson had now come out of the café, a hand to his head, and the guy from the SUV came up to him.
They pointed toward her.
She had to find a way out of here now.
She sprinted down the alley, which was behind the storefronts on the cross street perpendicular to Main Street. She had about fifty yards on them. They hadn’t even made it to the alley. She tore past the backs of the stores, searching frantically for a place to hide, her blood pumping feverishly. She knew she had to try Ty again. She only prayed he was somehow okay. She stopped and looked behind her; she saw two men turning into the alley. A back door was open to one of the shops and Dani ran in, locking the door behind her. It was an outdoors store, selling clothing and camping equipment. She pushed her way through a back storage room filled with boxes and garments on racks, toppling them in her panic, and then ran through a short hallway and into the main store. A female clerk looked toward her, hearing the agitation. “Ma’am, can I help you?”
Dani didn’t even know what to say. She was too panicked to even remain there the few seconds it would take to either call Ty or tell the woman what was happening.
“Call the police!” she said to the woman. “Please. There are two people chasing me.”
Suddenly, she heard pounding on the door in the back. “Call them!”
She bolted out the front.
She found herself on the street that was perpendicular to Main Street. The stores were even older and less busy there. She didn’t know if Robertson and the other man had come through the store, but there was another alleyway a couple of stores down where they’d be able to cut through and intercept her. She heard the two men coming down the alley, shouting. She ran across the street. She came upon a small side street and headed down it. She passed a bakery and a small crafts store with cheap, beaded jewelry in the window. She pressed against the building, keeping her breath still, fumbling in her purse for her phone. She grabbed it, finding Ty’s number in her recent history, and punched at the keys, frantic, clumsily, until finally pushing the call icon with both thumbs to make sure it went through. Heart racing, she peered around the corner and saw the two men come out onto the street. To her surprise, Robertson wasn’t one of them. They both had to be from the SUV.
Where the hell had Robertson gone?
To her anxiety, Ty’s voice mail came on. Dammit, no … Under her breath, she started to tell him what had happened.
Suddenly they seemed to spot her across the street and pointed.