Everybody Takes The Money (The Drusilla Thorne Mysteries) Read Free Page A

backward and her head cracked against the edge of the table she’d been sitting at with Anne. Her head made a dull thwopp when it hit, like a fat softball at a slow speed.
    I kicked Roger in the crotch, hard. I’d worn boots for a reason. If I’m going to fight, I plan on inflicting permanent physical injury. When it’s down to me or the other guy, I plan on being the one to walk away.  
    Roger folded into a tight ball and vomited on the carpet. Great. I could ignore him for a bit, then.
    Anne ran over to where Courtney lay, moaning. That she was making any noise was a good sign. If someone doesn’t make any noise or move within a very short time after getting hit in the head, they might have a serious brain injury or cranial bleeding.
    “Get in the bloody car!” I yelled.  
    Turned out Roger wasn’t quite as incapacitated as I’d thought he was. He reached out and grabbed my ankle, which pulled me backward to the ground. I landed on my back and my head hit the floor. He launched himself with a surprising burst of energy on top of me, landing a weak but stinging punch to the side of my ribcage, followed by a hit to the side of my face. That one hurt much more than the ribcage one did.
    “Bitch!” he yelled.  
    Bitch : the modern version of the kiai from martial arts. Tiresome.  
    Instead of taking advantage of his superior position and really hammering me into the thin carpet, he reached up, toward that desk drawer he seemed so damned fixated on.
    His agitation about that desk warned me I’d better keep Roger from getting into that drawer if any of us were going to get out of here alive.  
    “Call 911!” I added.
    Behind me I heard Anne finally jump up and run out of the room. The sounds of traffic on West 3 rd Street nearby were loud and the warm outdoor breeze wafted over me, so the door was open, thank God. Perhaps someone passing by could create enough of a distraction that I could really lay the hurt on Roger.  
    I reached up and jabbed my fingers into the underside of his throat. He twisted away from the drawer and toward me, which gave me enough time to push him backward into the desk chair. Which took him off me and allowed me to scramble to my feet and take stock of the situation.
    Anne: outside. Good.
    Courtney was pushing herself into a sitting position, holding the side of her head and squinting in pain. Tears leaked out of her eyes without any sobbing motion on her part. And she was looking at Roger. Instead of, you know, getting the hell out of there.
    I wasn’t going to waste time saving her if she wasn’t invested in saving herself.  
    I dashed out of the room and into the parking lot, where Anne’s car idled, waiting for me, pointed toward the exit. I yanked open the door, jumped in, and said, “Drive!”  
    She drove. I didn’t have my seatbelt on before she took the first right and I damn near flew into the driver’s seat. Hermes Trismegistus, my entire left side hurt. He must have gotten a good punch in.  
    “Are you okay?” Her voice was wavering, like she was about to lose her entire mind.
    “I’m okay. Drive somewhere public. And fast.”
    “He had a gun,” she said. She pressed her hand over her mouth and started hyperventilating. “I think he had a gun!”  
    So I was right about the drawer. I was willing to bet he had a few other things in there, but I didn’t care. We were out.  
    Now that the adrenaline rush was over, I realized my back hurt from where I had hit the floor. The back of my head hurt, too. And my jaw was beginning to throb with pain from where he’d punched me. My left side hurt from where I’d bashed into Anne. Today was not my day.
    Anne kept turning her head to look at me, which terrified me given how erratic her driving was right now. Up ahead was the familiar large red oval marking a Ralph’s supermarket. I jabbed my finger at the parking lot. “Drive! There! What are you looking at? Is he behind us?”  
    She shook her head, vibrating