Love is Murder Story 01 - Grave Danger

even in special effects,” Ali told him.
    “Ali, precious Ali! Oh, yeah, everyone loves Ali. Old Blake Richards loved you. You were a suck-up. Always with the blond hair falling over your eyes. And you dressed to be provocative, trying to seduce the old bastard!” Victor accused her.
    “In T-shirts and sweats?” Ali asked. “He thought of me as a daughter, Victor.”
    “Well, you can go and join your old man, then,” Victor said. His voice sounded unreal, like the evil whisper of a—a movie picture.
    Victor started slashing the webbing that held Ali. He was comingcloser and closer to her. Desperate, Greg strained harder to reach the gun.
    Slash. Slash. He could hear the nylon ripping away with each dreadful fall of the knife.
    No, God, no! The gun was just out of reach. Greg screamed in fear that the blade would touch flesh at any minute. Real flesh. Ali’s flesh.
    Slash. Slash. Slash.
    And then, miraculously, it seemed that although he couldn’t reach any farther, the gun was moving— on its own —toward his hand.
    His fingers twined around the grip. He ignored the pain of the tensing nylon, twisted and took aim.
    He started to give fair warning.
    But the knife was over Ali’s trapped form, right over her throat….
    “Die, you bastard!” Greg roared. He fired.
    For a moment, skeletal and eerie, Victor Brill still stood, the knife aimed toward Ali’s throat.
    And then…
    He stumbled backward.
    The room was suddenly riddled with shots.
    Greg twisted around. Good old Tony. He’d followed, and he’d finished off the Slasher.

    Naturally, soon the whole building was abuzz with police. Ali still couldn’t believe that she was alive. She couldn’t believe that Greg had come. It had all happened so quickly, except, of course, for the terrifying moments when she had been in the net—strong, unbreakable threaded nylon. Hey, she was good at her work.
    But now it was over. And though she had been a victim and a witness, and long through with what the police needed from her,she waited in the conference room for Greg to tie up all the loose ends that a detective had to tie up.
    At last, he came back. She was seated at the conference table, next to the superb figure of Blake Richards. For a moment, he paused in the doorway, looking at her. He was impossibly wonderful, she thought. His dark hair was in total disarray over his forehead; his eyes fell upon her with naked longing. He was ever strong and steady.
    And he had saved her life.
    He hurried from the door to fall on a knee before her. He caught her face between his hands—studying her as if he had to reassure himself over and over again that she was all right, studying her as if she were his world.
    “Ali,” he whispered, and his voice choked. “The things you said—”
    “Were real.”
    He swallowed and nodded. She touched his dark hair, wanting to find the right words. “Let’s go home,” was all she could manage, and her words were thick.
    He nodded. Then he smiled crookedly. “Yours or mine?”
    “Yours—and I’d like it to be mine again,” she said softly.
    He stood and looked back. Tony was in the room. “I got it, Greg. I’m on the crime scene unit, the M.E., you name it. You get out of here.”
    Greg nodded. He took Ali’s hand and drew her to her feet. She was still shaky. She leaned against him. She loved the feel of him and the smell of him, and she trembled, thinking how lucky she was; she had almost died to find out that pride and fear were ridiculous.
    And that monsters were real.
    “Home,” Greg whispered to her. He clapped a hand on Tony’s shoulder giving him a gruff, “Thank you.”
    He looked back into the room for a minute. She realized that he was looking at the wax figure of Blake Richards.
    “He was a wonderful man,” Ali said. “I almost feel as if he was watching over me tonight.”
    “A great man,” Greg agreed. He was still staring at the wax figure. He smiled. She thought he winked.
    She blinked hard herself. She could have sworn that, for just a minute, the wax figure was alive, that Blake Richards smiled in return. And winked.
    “Home,” Greg said.
    Ali nodded. And still, she wondered, had Blake Richards helped save her life that night?
    Yes, quite possibly, because Greg spoke up then, after clearing his throat.
    “Thank you, sir. Thank you,” he said quietly.
    Yes, she thought. Yes, he had helped save her.
    Her life. And her love. The way that Greg had looked at the wax figure…
    “Thank