Harlequin Intrigue, Box Set 2 of 2 Read Free Page B

the light bill? Was the college saving money by turning off the electricity after ten? She glanced back toward the stage. The running lights were still glowing. Even if they were battery-powered, someone had to have turned them on. And she knew she hadn’t imagined those footsteps earlier. She wasn’t alone.
    â€œTyler, honey, if you’re playing some kind of game, this isn’t funny.” She shouted for the security guard who worked in the building most nights. “Mr. Thompson?”
    Was Doug Price playing a trick on her for turning him down again? Did he think she’d be freaked out enough that she’d run to him and expect him to be her hero? If that was what this was about... Her blood heated, chasing away the worried chill. Oh, she was so never going out with that guy. “Tyler? Where are you?”
    Why didn’t he answer? Had he fallen asleep? Had something happened to him?
    Uh-uh. She wasn’t going there.
    Katie shined her light into the men’s dressing room. Lights off. Room empty. She sorted through the costumes hanging on the rack there, peeked beneath the counter. Nothing. She opened the door to the ladies’ dressing room, too, and repeated the search.
    â€œTyler Rinaldi, you answer—”
    A boot dropped to the floor behind the rack of long dresses and ghostly costumes. Katie cried out as the layers of polyester, petticoats, wool and lace toppled over on top of her. Hands pushed through the cascade of clothes, knocking her down with them. “Hey! What are you...? Help! Stop!”
    She hit the tile floor on her elbows and bottom, and the impact tingled through her fingers, jarring loose her grip on the phone. Her assailant was little more than a wisp of shadow in the dark room. But there was no mistaking the slamming door or the drumbeat of footsteps running across the concrete floor of the work space and storage area behind the stage.
    Katie’s thoughts raced as she clawed her way free through the pile of fallen clothes and felt around in the darkness to retrieve her phone. Had she interrupted a robbery? There were power tools for set construction and sound equipment and some antiques they were using as props. All those things should be locked up, but an outsider might not know that. Was this some kind of college prank by a theater student? Could it be something personal? She wouldn’t have expected Doug to get physical like that. Had she offended someone else?
    Her fingers brushed across the protective plastic case of her phone and she snatched it up. She pushed to her feet and smacked into the closed door. “Let me out!” She slapped at the door with her palm until she found the door handle and pulled it open. “Stay away from my son! Tyler!”
    But by the time she ran out into the backstage area in pursuit of the shadow, the footsteps had gone silent. The exit door on the far side of the backstage area stood wide open and a slice of light from the sidewalk lamp outside cut clear across the room. After so long in the darkness with just the illumination from her phone, Katie had to avert her eyes from even that dim glow. She saw nothing more than a wraithlike glimpse of a man slipping through the doorway into the winter night outside.
    Following the narrowing strip of light, she stumbled forward, dodging prop tables and flats until the door closed with a quiet click and she was plunged into another blackout.
    She stopped in her tracks. The one thing she hated more than the darkness was not knowing if her son was safe. And since she couldn’t find him...
    She pushed a command on her phone and raised it to her lips. “Call Trent.”
    Inching forward without any kind of light now, she counted off each ring of the telephone as she waited for her strong, armed, utterly reliable friend to pick up. She thought she could make out the red letters of the exit sign above the door by the time Trent cut off the fourth ring and picked