Midnight Promises Read Free Page B

intensity—started to abate, became some dim far-off thing, not really connected to her body. Her head, too, took a trip toward the ceiling.
    She was still in the emergency room when passengers from the airport starting to stream in. Cuts, lacerations, one woman was limping. Nothing really serious but the influx of panicked passengers created a swirl of chaos. Felicity watched it somewhat dreamily from her gurney, sorry she’d created the chaos, happy she’d escaped her attacker.
    Now that she was safely in the hospital she should tell the doctor she’d been attacked. He didn’t have to know she’d pulled the alarm, she’d just glide over the fortuitous fact that right after being knifed, the airport announced a bomb alert.
    She had solid heavy-duty medical insurance. She could probably have two liver transplants and a nose job while here. When they asked, she had everything in her backpack.
    If she needed surgery, no problem, though she hated the thought of being unconscious with her attacker out there somewhere. But she was in a hospital, with guards and nurses and doctors all around her. Her attacker wouldn’t…
    Felicity froze, her heart suddenly beating painfully hard behind her breastbone.
There he was!
Oh God, at the entrance, scanning the organized chaos of the emergency room, looking for her. She was partially covered by a green curtain, a privacy screen, and he’d have to go down a long line to see if she was on one of the gurneys. Surely he wouldn’t…
    Yes, he would. Thorough
bastard
. Oh God, she was trapped! She didn’t have the strength to get up from the gurney and rush to a hiding place. What could she do? Her mind was usually quick but now it was sluggish, thoughts slow and unclear. She might as well be dead if she had to think like that.
    Dead! God yes! Her attacker was moving forward from the exit, looking sharply at faces, no one stopping him. Maybe at a calmer moment someone would ask what he wanted but right now he had total freedom to move as he pleased. He strode decisively across the room. In a second or two he would be at the foot of her gurney and it would be over.
    Dead. She had to get dead quick, before he killed her.
    Felicity pulled the IV out of her arm, and blood started seeping out of the needle. Good. She pulled the needle out of the tube and bright red blood spattered the pristine white sheet. She pushed away from the wall, making her gurney isolated, abandoned, and pulled the sheet right over her face.
    Dead. Dead. Dead.
Deader’n shit
as a Texan hacker used to say. But she was gasping in panicked breaths and there was no way she could hold her breath. She was absolutely sure the sheet was rising and falling with her heartbeat.
    Okay, think. She’d refused to let go of her backpack—her entire life was in her computer—and it was going to save her life right now. She pulled the backpack over her chest and put her pillow over that. What anyone would see was an obese dead person, thick belly unmoving, bloodied sheet pulled up over its face in the universal sign of respect for the dead.
    Felicity held herself as motionless as possible, sure that her heart knocking up against her computer case must be audible. It felt like thunder in her ears.
    Some of the shouting and confusion in the entrance had died down and she could make out the sound of deliberate footsteps. Not a patient, they were all waiting for medical attention or receiving it. No patient who was ambulatory would be allowed back here, anyway.
    It was Knife Man, Felicity was absolutely certain. The steps were slow and even, though they stopped every once in a while to check the wounded. His steps approached where she lay, terrified, mind a great white glare of panic. However she tried to game out what she’d do if he pulled the sheet off and attacked her again, she couldn’t. She was freezing cold, a clear sign of shock and blood loss, and she felt weak. She was a sitting duck.
    Lying duck, actually.
    Someone