Detective Danny Cavanaugh 01 - The Brink

into her room and shut the door behind him. He could hear water running behind the bathroom door. She’s taking a shower.
    Drake visualized her stunning face. Soon he would see it, crowning her taut, naked body. What a waste , he thought as he stalked across the room and pulled a blade from his pocket.

Chapter 9
    Sydney stepped out of the tub, making sure to stomp off the water that clung to the bottom of her shower shoes onto the towel she had laid on the floor. She walked over to her toiletry bag, which lay on top of another towel underneath the sink. She squatted and searched her bag for a new razor blade to finish the job. That’s when she saw the light underneath the door shift. Someone was in her bedroom.
    Sydney squeezed her head down to the crack underneath the door. She stared past the mosaic of multicolored tiles that covered the floor and saw a pair of black combat boots closing in on her. She remembered when she met the guards on their security detail. Each one looked menacing dressed entirely in black with their expressionless faces. But it was their boots that were the most intimidating, the heavy sounds they made as they struck the ground.
    Sydney was about to yell to the guard when Knobby’s voice echoed inside her head.
    Guards follow orders. Someone sent this guard here. They realize you know the lawsuit is the sign.
    Sydney shot back up. She scoured the bathroom for anything to defend herself. She stared at the hair dryer, envisioning throwing it into the tub and electrocuting her attacker. But that wouldn’t work. There was no standing water in the tub. Yeah, Syd, maybe he’ll give you time to fill the damn thing up and then stand quietly while you throw in a working hair dryer, she thought sarcastically. She considered the razor blade. What, shave him to death? There was only one way in and out of the bathroom. She was trapped.
    Sydney looked at herself in the mirror and suddenly realized that except for her shower shoes, she was naked. She pulled her bathrobe off the hook on the back of the door and slid it on as quietly as she could.
    Then Sydney saw it. A possible weapon. It was dangling from the marble holder that hung on the wall next to the mirror. Her toothbrush. A desperate idea edged into her head. She stalked over to the tub and eased the curtain shut. Then she lifted her toothbrush from the wall just as the doorknob turned.
    Sydney crept behind the door and squeezed herself into the corner. She turned the toothbrush around in her hand and stuck it between her ring and middle fingers while she made a fist. The door moved toward her. She pressed her body into the wall, trying to evade detection until the last possible moment. The door kept coming. She sucked in her taut belly and stopped breathing. The door finally stopped just before it hit her shower shoes, and the intruder slipped inside.
    The guard crept over to the bathtub and raised one hand to grab the shower curtain. He readied a knife in his other hand. A sudden thought of the parents she never knew entered Sydney’s mind. They want to kill me, just like they killed my parents.
    The guard raised his blade and yanked back the curtain. Just as fast as he had tensed, his body went limp at the sight of an empty bathtub. But he also revealed something else: Sydney’s salvation.
    The guard stood dumbstruck, staring at the stained-glass window. Sydney turned the toothbrush in her hand so that now she gripped the spine with all four fingers and reinforced the brush end with her thumb. Then she moved, her eyes flashing on baby Jesus while a prayer raced through her mind.
    Sydney wrapped her right arm around the guard’s neck. As she did, he instinctively looked back toward her, finally revealing his face. She didn’t know his name, but she would never forget his face as long as she lived.
    Sydney’s other arm was already in motion. She only needed to adjust her target a few inches to make solid contact.
    She tightened her choke hold and drove the toothbrush into his ear. The guard let out a barbaric wail as his knife clattered into the tub.
    As he clawed at his ear, Sydney thrust away from him. But she didn’t give him any time to recover. He was still trying to yank the toothbrush from his ear when she used every bit of strength she could muster and shoved him into the brilliant manger.
    Sydney turned for her bedroom and saw the only guard whose name she knew standing in her bedroom doorway. Stefan Taber. He actually smiled