Otherworld 02 - Stolen by Kelley Armstrong Read Free Book Online

breath. Down the hall, his companion wiped his sweaty face on his shoulder. He stood, stretched, and crouched again. Several times he tried the door handle, then turned to his partner and shook his head. Finally my stalker waved him back. I quickstepped up three stairs, out of sight. They came into the stairwell and closed the door.
    "No go," lock-pick guy said. "I don't get it. I'm sure I popped the lock, but it won't open."
    "Dead bolt?"
    Lock-pick guy shook his head. "I checked out the place this morning. Old-fashioned key locks."
    "Call Tucker. I saw a pay phone out front. Ground line. I'll wait here."
    Lock-pick guy trotted down the stairs. As the first-floor door swung shut behind him, I heard another door open, this one on the fourth floor. Stalker-guy cracked open the exit to look down the hall. Then he made a noise deep in his throat, a stifled chuckle. I sneaked down a few steps, crouched again, and looked through the door crack.
    Paige Winterbourne stood in the hall, arms folded across her chest, dressed in a green silk chemise and matching wrap. Frowning, she surveyed the corridor. Then she stopped and stared at the exit where we hid. Though the door was open only a couple of inches, she must have seen light or shadow peeking through. As she watched, stalker-guy hesitated, holding the door handle, ready to close it. If she'd gone back into her room to call security, he would have bolted. But she didn't. She narrowed her eyes and started toward us. Yet another horror movie cliché. When the ditzy ingenue hears a bump in the night, does she retreat to safety and phone for help? Of course not. She has to see what's behind that partly open door. All Paige needed now was to lose the negligee, so she could run naked and screaming down the hall when she flung open the door and found the killer lurking behind it.
    Stalker-guy broke from the script. Instead of waiting for Paige to throw open the door, he took out his gun and snapped it back together. Then he eased the door open another half-inch and lifted the gun to the door crack. Last year, I'd seen an innocent woman gunned down because of me. Whether Paige was innocent or not was a matter of some debate, but I doubted she deserved to be murdered in a hotel hallway. I leaped over the railing and landed on the man's back. He fell forward. I grabbed his head and twisted his neck. The simplest, quietest, and cleanest kill.
    As he dropped face-first to the floor, I looked up to see Paige holding the door open and staring.
    "Stand guard," I said. "Is your room unlocked?"
    "My-? Umm, yes."
    I hoisted the dead man onto my shoulder and pushed past her into the hall. "I said to stand guard. He wasn't alone."
    "Where are you-oh, wait. My room? You can't put him-" She stopped. "Take him to the suite next to ours. The near side. It's empty."
    "All the better."
    "I can unlock the door with a spell," she said.
    She hurried down the hallway alongside me, murmuring words in a foreign language. While she was talking, I covered my hand with my shirt, reached over, and snapped the vacant room's doorknob.
    "Run back and get the gun," I said. "Then wake your aunt and get in here."
    Paige hesitated, like a knee-jerk reaction against taking orders. She seemed to think better of arguing and paused only a second before jogging to the stairwell. I dragged the dead man into the bathroom, closed the door, and checked his pockets for ID. Nothing. Seeing the two-way radio in his pocket reminded me that there was a second gunman, and Paige and her aunt were taking their sweet time evacuating their room.
    I opened the bathroom door as they walked into the vacant room. Paige was still wearing her chemise and wrapper. Ruth's long housecoat covered her nightwear. Both carried a change of clothing and their purses, and Paige had the gun.
    "Good idea," I said. "Is all your ID in there?"
    "No sense leaving them any clues if they break in," Paige said. "If we have to, we can leave the rest of the stuff