One Grave Less

shallow drawers.
    “I see what you mean,” he said. “These are a lot of drawers. Are all of them filled with diamonds and emeralds?”
    “Yes, there’s quite a lot of precious and semiprecious stones here,” she said.
    She wondered if she could get him interested in them enough to delay him. Maybe with enough time, she could think of some kind of damn plan.
    She pulled out a drawer between the two of them. An array of glittering cut and uncut rubies lay on cotton batting.
    “Not all of them are cut,” she said. “Some, like this one, are just like they were found in the ground.”
    “How much are they worth?”
    Diane shrugged again. She picked up a cut stone the size of a kidney bean.
    “This one is valued at thirty thousand dollars.”
    “I’ll take it.” He grabbed it from her hand and put it in one of his many pockets.
    “Be careful with it,” she said. “The stones are hard, but they are also brittle. They will shatter.”
    She pulled out the drawer above that one. It was filled with vivid green emeralds. His eyes grew wide.
    Diane ducked and shoved into his legs with her shoulder. He fell into the drawers, knocking the flats out of their slots, gems scattered over the floor.
    She ran for the exit, pushing at the massive steel door. He grabbed her ankle and pulled her down.
    “Now you’ve done it,” he said.

Chapter 51
    Diane kicked furiously at the hand that had her ankle, kicked at the man himself as he pulled her to him. He swung his arm, trying to untangle himself from the drawers on top of him. They were little more than an annoyance, but she had an opening to give one good kick to his face. The corner of her heel caught the edge of his eye. He jerked his head, but didn’t back off.
    “Like you said, what’s the hurry?” he said. “I told you if you tried anything I would hurt you. And I was just beginning to like you. I still like you.”
    Diane continued to kick with all her strength. She reached with her arms, feeling the floor for any kind of weapon. But what kind of weapon would Mike have on the floor or in the ruby and emerald drawers? Her hand grasped one of the stones. She saw a flash of red in her hand. Rubies, raw, embedded in whatever rock they form in, she couldn’t remember. But she did remember that a ruby was a nine on the scale of hardness, harder than a pocketknife blade. The rock was about the size of her palm.
    She levered herself up when he had both hands on her legs and slashed at his forehead. The cuts weren’t deep, but the forehead has lots of blood vessels and bleeds like hell when cut. Blood ran into his eyes. He lashed out with his hand and knocked the rock away.
    “This is going to be so fucking bad for you,” he said. He kicked at the long drawers that were now on the floor but still in his way, breaking one to splinters.
    He struck at her with his fist, she dodged and he hit her shoulder. It was the same shoulder where one of them had shot her, probably him, she thought. A wave of pain arced through her, turning quickly to nausea. She was already sick with pain and he hadn’t even started. She had lost her shoes with all the kicking and she didn’t even have them as a weapon. Teeth, she had teeth. If he got close enough, at least she could wield a force of about a hundred and twenty pounds per square inch on some part of his anatomy. Of course, so could he.
    He stood up, still holding one leg. Diane grabbed at the floor, still kicking at him. She snaked her torso around near his legs, and grabbed one of them, pulling. Nothing happened, at least nothing good, but she held on even as he was raising his hand to slap her.
    The lights went out. He dropped her leg.
    Hands were on her, pulling her out the door and pushing her somewhere. It happened so quick, she didn’t have time to react, other than to kick, which was all she seemed able to do.
    She stayed where she was in the dark, feeling around her. She felt something like a table leg. The room was quiet. Really quiet—nothing but the ambient sounds of the museum. She stayed still, barely breathing.
    Suddenly after all the quiet, all hell broke loose.
    The lights came. Her first sight was Liam knocking the gun from the kidnapper’s hand as Liam shot him, hitting the man in the arm. The man barely flinched. He struck out at Liam, and Liam’s gun flew across the room. Then they fought.
    There was no fancy kicking, turning, or acrobatics; it was all arms and fists, and evasion. And it was so fast.