Tyler yelled. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you,” she returned sharply. Seizing the knife, she stuck it and her sandal back into the bag with her new clothes and undies. But she stopped, gaping down at the man on the floor. “I didn’t kill him, did I?”
“Nah. He’s moaning.” Tyler grabbed her hand, backing away. “In fact, I don’t think you hit him hard enough. He’s starting to come around. Let’s boogie, shall we?”
“I’m with you.”
Hanging on to Tyler for dear life, she hopped over Slab, who was lying apparently unconscious in the doorway. The two of them headed straight for the stairwell, not even stopping to breathe or synchronize watches. Tyler let her lead the way down, and she took the steps at a dizzying pace, trying to ignore the sound of pounding footsteps coming after them from above. By the time they hit the ground floor, shoving open a thick door that opened into an alley, she was gasping for breath.
Over the sound of approaching sirens, she shouted, “Rescuing good guys and escaping from bad guys is a lot less strenuous in the books.”
“We haven’t escaped yet.” Tyler’s expression was grim. “He’s not going to let us get away that easily. I suggest we—”
But a flashlight caught them where they stood in the alley.
“You folks okay down here?” a cool voice called to them.
“Oh, yes, Officer.” Emily straightened, putting on her perkiest I-am-a-Chaplin smile, rolling her pearls between her fingers so that the cop with the flashlight would be sure to notice she was a woman of quality and not some alley cat. “We were just wondering what all the commotion’s about. Did someone trip a fire alarm?”
“Nah. Place is busted. Bunch of underage kids getting tattoos. Plus we tripped over a domestic disturbance upstairs. You didn’t see anyone come out this way, did you?”
“No, sir, we didn’t,” she said with all due innocence. With Tyler’s hand in hers, she strolled nonchalantly out toward the sidewalk. “Oh, my, look at that.” She lifted an eyebrow Tyler’s way, assuming he’d want to stay clear of the authorities milling around The Flesh Pit. “That’s a lot of policemen, isn’t it, dear?”
“Quite a lot, darling,” he returned smoothly. “Makes a body feel safe, doesn’t it?”
“Indeed.”
Luckily, all the cops seemed to be flooding into The Flesh Pit through the front door, and nobody paid them any attention when they curved around the building and blended in with pedestrian traffic.
“I suggest we make tracks,” Tyler whispered in her ear.
“Agreed.”
Zigging and zagging, they sped up one street and down another, through an alley or two, across a courtyard, doubling back and branching out, finally zipping in the front and out the back of a Chinese restaurant.
“Couldn’t I just steal one little pot sticker off a tray?” she begged. “I didn’t have any dinner. I’m starving. I deserve something for my rescue effort, don’t I? I mean, I was awesome, wasn’t I?”
“Yeah. Awesome.” Tyler scanned the street one more time, for what she guessed was any sign of a pinstripe. “But we don’t have time for pot stickers just yet. Let’s make sure we’ve ditched Mack and his knife before we start celebrating.”
“Mack? Is that really his name?”
Tyler’s gaze was sardonic. “Are you kidding? How would I know his name? I’m not even sure what your name is.”
“That’s not true. You called me Emily,” she said logically. “I heard you. Ergo you know my name.”
“Yeah, but it could be a fake.”
She smiled up at him, slowing down as he pulled her across the street. “Do I look like someone who would use a fake name?” she asked with a laugh. “I mean, come on.”
“Emily, I don’t know anything about you except that you have a strange habit of popping up when I least expect it. Plus I checked you out on the register.” Tyler backed up into a quiet, shadowy park, an oasis of green in the bustling neighborhood. “Emily Bond, huh?” He paused, circling an arm around a tall tree, and she could see the dubious gleam in his eye even in the dim light. “That’s convenient. What are you, James Bond’s cousin? Sister?”
Uh-oh, she’d forgotten about that. “Don’t be silly. Emily Bond is a perfectly normal name. There are a lot of people named Bond in this world besides James.”
“Maybe. But you’re not one of them. The Gap boy said he was looking for ‘Emily Ch—.’ Since when does Bond start with Ch?”
“Maybe he made a mistake. Maybe my middle name’s…Charity.” Emily skipped right past him, out into an open area of grass. Over the tops of the trees, she could see the twin spires of a nearby church, illuminated so that they seemed to float there, up in the sky. The glow they cast down into the park was both beautiful and eerie at the same time.
“Emily.” Unexpectedly, he was right behind her, and she spun around, almost losing her balance. But he caught her and pulled her up against him. He leaned in so close that his warm breath tickled her ear when he whispered, “I know.”
“W-what?” Closing her eyes, allowing herself to melt into him just a tiny bit, she tried her best not to be intimidated.
So what if it was dark and private and incredibly romantic here in the park? So what if they’d just had an amazing escape and she was light-headed from lack of food and too much adrenaline and the heady, unbelievable triumph of bashing a jerk over the head with a shoe?
Out of your league, her inner good girl told her sternly. Having the best time of your life, her inner bad girl countered.
“What do you think you know?” she asked him finally, staring up into those moody green eyes, letting her gaze wander over that tiny, swollen ridge on his lower lip.
Soft, insistent, husky, the sound of his voice spun down her spine, weakening her already thin resistance. “I know you’re lying to me,” he murmured, tipping up her chin. “I know you’re following me. I just don’t know why. But you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?”
So he thought he could seduce her into spilling her guts? She lifted one finger to trace the bruise on his lip. “Does it hurt, where he hit you?”
“Emily, stop trying to distract me.” But he was the one who opened his mouth slightly, just enough to touch the tip of his tongue to the side of her finger, making her tremble and catch her breath. “You do know you’re playing with fire, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes. I’m counting on it.”
And he licked her finger again. She felt she had to hang on or she’d fall down, right there in the middle of the park. That tiny touch of his warm, wet tongue against her cool flesh was enough to send her tripping over the edge. Too much excitement, too many reckless emotions in a too-long day. And he was too good at this.
She wound her arms around his neck,
