Those words gave her the jolt she needed. She grabbed the monitor just before it toppled onto the tangle of cords, heaved it to chest height, and launched it at him with her last burst of panicked energy.
His eyes widened, and his arms flew up. He winced when it hit his chest and stumbled back, trying to catch the thing before it fell on his feet. She seized her chance and reached out, blindly scrabbling for the first thing she touched, which proved to be the fax machine. He was lunging at her again, and she spun around, swinging the thing up in a sidewise arc. Bashing it against the side of his head.
“I am so sick of you guys badmouthing my mother,” she told him.
He blinked stupidly. The sudden silence was startling. He toppled slowly, like a tree, and bore her down beneath him. She hit the wall behind her painfully hard with her sore shoulders, and slid down onto her butt with him on top of her, his head lolling heavily against her neck. A rivulet of blood snaked down his cheekbone.
She lay there for a few moments, shaking and crying, but it was way too soon to start sniveling and falling apart, with Connor lying still and quiet outside and Seth racing towards a cliff with doom in his pocket, thanks to her. She heaved and struggled and finally scrambled out from under Ed's dead weight, unwinding herself from the tangle of cords.
She clambered over him, recoiling from the necessity of touching his body. She was shaking so hard, she fell down again, almost onto her face. She noticed, remotely, that her arm was bleeding. Quite a lot, but she couldn't be bothered with it now.
First, Ed's gun. She searched through the rubble on hands and knees, sifting through the clutter with trembling fingers. She found it beneath the desk, a Glock 17. She stuck it into the back of her too-tight jeans. It was cold and hard, and extremely uncomfortable.
She stared down at Ed. He was breathing, and he had a pulse, which meant he could come to and attack her again. Villains always did in thriller movies. She'd better not take any chances.
She grabbed him by the feet and dragged him clear of all the fallen equipment, panting and whimpering with the effort it took to heave him out from behind the desk. She stumbled into the kitchen and rummaged through the drawers for rope, twine, anything.
She found a roll of duct tape, and raced back to the office, strapping his wrists behind his back first, men his ankles. She did his knees for good measure, and then bent his knees back and taped his wrists to his ankles. She ran outside, wondering if she might have overdone it.
Thank God, Connor was already sitting up, touching the side of his head with cautious fingers. She dropped to her knees beside him.
“Are you OK?”
He winced at her loud voice, “What the fuck?”
“Your boss hit you with his gun. Then he attacked me. He was supposed to take me to Novak.”
Connor gave her a dubious sideways look.
“Believe me, I don't have time to make up stories,” Raine snapped. “Come on, I'll help you into the kitchen.”
She retrieved his cane and hooked her arm around his waist, steadying him as he got to his feet. “Ed's in the office r she said, guiding him up the porch steps. “I used duct tape, but he's the first person I've ever tied hand and foot, so you might want to check my technique.”
“Ed?” His eyes narrowed.
“We've met,” she explained. “Seventeen years ago, when he killed my dad. And again, in my house last night. He was the first ski mask.”
“Ah,” he murmured, as she pulled the door open for him. “You've been busy while I was napping.”
There was a bag of cotton balls and antiseptic ointment lying on the kitchen table. She grabbed a wad of cotton, dosed it with gel and picked her way into the war-torn office. Connor was staring at Ed.
“You mummified him,” he commented.
Raine parted Connor's shaggy dark blond hair and dabbed at the bloody spot on his skull.
He jerked away. “Ow! I can do that!” He grabbed the wad of cotton. He looked down at Ed, then back at her. “How did you do it?”
She hugged herself, shivering. “I clobbered him with your fax machine,” she admitted.
“I see.”
“He insulted my mother,” she added. As if she needed to justify herself.
“Remind me never to insult your mother,” Connor said.
“I have to say, my mother made quite an impression on a lot of men. I'm starting to think she really must have been hell on wheels.”
She realized that she was babbling, and forced herself to shut up.
Connor had an odd expression, as if he were trying not to laugh. “Well, uh, if she's anything like you—”
“No, not really,” she said. “Look, I'm sorry I trashed your office.”
“No problem.” He focused on her face, and frowned. “Did you know that you have a cut on your face? Your cheek is bleeding.”
She shrugged. “Later.” She touched him on the shoulder. “Look, Connor, you're not going to slip into a coma if I leave you here with that bump on your head, are you? I can always drop you at an emergency room on my way to—”
“You're not going anywhere,” he said.
“It's too complicated to explain the whole story, but I figured out how the killer found us last night,” she explained, through clenched teeth. “And how Ed found me now. Seth has a necklace that Victor gave me in his jacket pocket. That's what's transmitting. It must be.”
Connor’s face darkened. “You put it there?”
“Yes!” she yelled. “I did! Sorry, OK? I'm an idiot! I had no idea what was going on at the time! If Victor’s watching, he'll see Seth on his system. He might think that he's me, but he'll be on guard.”
Connor grabbed the phone. He stabbed at the buttons, rattled it. Checked the jack. He lurched swiftly into the kitchen, fried the phone on the wall. “The fucking bastard. He cut the phone line.”
“Don't you have a cell?”
“Out of range. We're on the wrong side of Endicott Bluff.”
The dream sensation of helpless panic was creeping up on her. “But I have to find Seth before he gets to that meeting.”
“How? Even if Riggs hadn't cut the phone, command central was this office, and you just killed it. Davy's the computer geek around here, not me. He or Seth could put this mess back together, but I can't.”
She pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes. “I can use the monitor Ed used to find me.”
Connor shook his head. “Five kilometer radius. You're out of range. The only way to find them now would be to look them up on a master terminal running X-Ray Specs software that’s keyed to the right transmitter codes.”
“Victor’s system,” she whispered. “It's Victor's transmitter.”
Connor's face went thoughtful. “Yeah. Victor’s system.”
''Where are the keys to the car, Connor?”
He shook his head. “Forget it You're not—”
“The keys, Connor.” She yanked Ed's gun out of her pants and leveled it at him. "Now.” He touched his head and looked at his bloody fingers. “And leave me all alone with my possible concussion? I could slip into a coma and die, you know.”
She gritted her teeth. “I can stop by a neighbor's house and tell someone to come and look after you.”
“Let me give you a tip, Raine. The next time you try to coerce somebody at gunpoint, don't offer them milk and cookies and a nice warm blankie while you're at it. It totally tucks your credibility. Now put that thing down. You look stupid.”
Raine sighed and let the gun drop. “So give me a break,” she mumbled. “I'm learning this stuff as I go.”
“I'll go with you,” Connor said.
“No!”
They looked down. The exclamation had come from Ed. He struggled against his bonds. “McCloud, I have to tell you something—”