“The cops are on their way,” he yelled.

“Not in time to do you any good.” Corian took another swing with his trusty shovel, slamming it into the Volvo door so hard it dented it. Car alarms began to squall up and down the rows of cars, bouncing off the cement walls and roof.

No way was Corian going to let him get his hands on that gun. He might as well give that plan up now.

Elliot hooked a hand around the side mirror of a Kia and somehow managed to scramble to his feet without passing out. Compared to getting kneecapped this was nothing, he told himself. This was a fucking picnic.

“Give it up, Corian,” he panted. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re just making it worse for yourself.”

He dodged away as Corian came after him swinging the shovel like a scythe.

“Game end,” Corian puffed. “If I’m not going anywhere, neither are you.”

What Elliot could not afford to do under any circumstance was allow himself to be cornered between these cars. Bracing his broken arm with his good one, he made a staggering run for the main entrance. Where the hell was Tucker? What happened to his ETA of five minutes? Where the hell were the cops for that matter? Or security.

Why were there no sirens?

Oh, but this would be a Code 2. Urgent. No lights or sirens. They would all try to avoid spooking Corian—as though he weren’t the spookiest thing around.

Elliot’s backup might be here even now, might even at this second be moving into position. He just needed to stall a bit longer. That’s all. Stay alive a few minutes longer.

These had already been the longest five minutes of his life. Probably not even five minutes. Every second felt like a week when you were fighting for your life.

Elliot looked around. To stay alive he needed a weapon. Failing that, he needed a decent hiding place.

Spotting the construction site ahead, he sprinted for it, putting on a desperate burst of speed. He stumbled under the web of yellow-and-black tape with the warnings Caution ~ Keep Out ~ Danger.

He stepped back into the shadows of the girded cement wall and felt around, left-handed, for his pocket knife as he tried to catch his breath. That was pain and shock making him so giddy because in the normal course of things—and even with a bum leg—he could still run rings around blubber ass Corian.

He could hear him pounding up the drive. Elliot wiped his forehead with his good arm.

Come on, Tucker. Where are you?

“A little old for hide and seek, aren’t you?” Corian inquired in conversational tones. He had not been far enough behind to miss seeing Elliot slip into this section of the garage. He knew Elliot was close by, but the site equipment offered a certain amount of concealment. He proceeded with caution.

Tucker, you’re cutting this pretty damn close.

Elliot stood motionless, trying to control his breath, his knuckles whitening around the bone haft of the knife. His grandfather had given him this knife when he was eleven. Grandpa Mills was an ex-Marine and, unlike his hippie-dippy son, Roland, had no problem with a judicious use of force.

Had his dad made the call to Tacoma PD? Hopefully yes, because if Elliot was standing here reminiscing about Grandpa Mills, he was mere heartbeats from passing out. He blinked the sting of perspiration from his eyes and concentrated fiercely. He heard Corian take a shuffling step forward, his dress shoes crunching on gravel.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” Corian murmured. Still leery of charging in after Elliot. Kind of a compliment in there somewhere, wasn’t there?

Sweat damped the back of Elliot’s shirt. His breathing slowed as his gaze gradually zeroed on the sagging concrete wall. All at once, he could see how it would play out. He could see it just as cleanly and simply as if he were studying one of his war-gaming dioramas. Each move and its inevitable consequence appeared before him, the whole progression of action and reaction.

Kneeling, he scooped up a handful of gravel and dirt and tossed it behind him. The bits of rock pinged off the metal surface of the cement mixer and the sand whispered down. Though he couldn’t see Corian around the corner, he felt him catch his breath, felt his complete and utter stillness.

Yet he didn’t move.

Elliot waited, tensed to spring, wondering if he had miscalculated, and then he heard the bite of soles on crushed rock and Corian came around the wall with a roar. He swung the shovel with all his strength, slamming it into the wall where he pictured Elliot standing—stepping so close he nearly fell over Elliot crouched beneath him.

Elliot jabbed the pen knife into Corian’s thigh and rolled out of the way even as the crumbling cement broke away in heavy blocks, large chunks striking Corian’s head and shoulders. Shrieking, clawing at the knife in his leg, Corian careened drunkenly into the toppling wall and the rest of it came crashing around him.

Game, set, match.

That was Elliot’s impression, anyway. He had landed on his bad arm and it was hard to see past the flashes of blinding white light. From what he could tell, Corian wasn’t getting up. Elliot didn’t blame him, himself hanging on for dear life as the world went spinning away. He dropped back in the sand and closed his eyes. The emergency lights overhead brightened, blurred.

Somewhere a cell phone was ringing.

The lights went out.

*  *  *

“Once upon a time Friday night meant dinner and movie,” Tucker said, climbing into bed.

“That might be fun too sometime.” Elliot glanced at the clock on Tucker’s nightstand. “I don’t know why you’re bothering. You just have to get up again in two hours.”

“Because this is where you are. How’s the arm?”

“Don’t ask.” Elliot stared in resignation at the fresh cast covering most of his right arm. Despite his exhaustion and some heavy duty painkillers, he seriously doubted he would be getting much sleep. But there was always a bright side. The good news being that, despite the stress and strains of the evening, his knee felt fine. Relatively fine.

The mattress dipped as Tucker leaned over him. “Did I ever tell you, you do a really nice wounded hero?”

“I’ve had a lot of practice.”

Tucker huffed a laugh. For all his teasing, the series of tiny kisses he delivered, his lips lingering on Elliot’s stubbled chin, his lower lip, the corner of his mouth, the bridge of his nose, his brow bone, were meltingly sweet.

Elliot closed his eyes. There had been more than a moment this evening when he had believed he would never have this again—never see Tucker again. It had mattered. A lot. It still did.

Tucker seemed to read his mind because he raised his head and, as Elliot opened his eyes again, said, “You know you just missed Corian’s femoral artery.”

“Gee, what a shame.” Elliot left it to Tucker to figure out what the shame was: nearly killing Corian or failing to kill him. If he never heard the words Andrew Corian again it would be too soon. And too much to hope for. They were going to be eating, drinking, sleeping this horror of a murder case for the next months. And it would be worse once they went to trial.

The search warrant had turned up a gruesome but not entirely unexpected discovery. A graveyard of headless corpses in the cellar of Corian’s secluded, peaceful English Tudor style cottage. Where the heads of his victims were hidden was currently unknown. Corian’s house sat on twelve heavily forested acres, and he was no longer volunteering any information although he’d had no hesitation explaining his “artistic process” to the cops and feds when he’d first regained consciousness.

Now there was an illustration of the inherent unfairness of life. Corian’d had a rock wall fall on him and he’d recovered his senses within five minutes. In fact, he’d been carted off with nothing more than an assortment of cuts, scrapes and bruises. Well, not counting that stab wound in his thigh.