PI On A Hot Tin Roof

coming.
    Later, she thought that she should have heard Skip running, heard her radioing for help, but at the time, amazingly, she was in the zone. Not turtling out; right there. Not exactly on top of her game, but fully focused on trying to think of what the hell to do. You kick a man in the groin—what do you do with a woman? She had once read one of those Internet warning things about how not to attract rapists, and the very first thing to do (after staying out of parking garages) was never wear a ponytail, because they were easy to grab. Kristin wasn’t wearing one, but she had plenty of hair to pull. Talba grabbed for some.
    Kristin jerked her head back, but she threw a fist at Talba’s chest. It probably would have hurt a lot worse without the vest, but it was still no day at the beach.
    More Internet self-defense methods were coming to her, something about elbows. She threw her right one at Kristin’s boobs, and that was better. “Uuuuuhhhh,” the woman said, and teetered on her itty-bitty heels. But she was still standing. “Down!” Talba shouted. “Down, goddammit!” She kicked at Kristin’s knees, but the other woman kicked back, with those nasty little heels. Kristin was no Jackie Chan, but you still couldn’t get close to her with that going on. Her hand snaked out, but not at Talba—at Talba’s desk. It came up with a pen in it.
    Talba knew from the Internet what she was going to do with that—she was going to go for the eyes. Only one thing to do. She closed them.
    Closed them, lowered her head, and butted like a billy goat, catching her assailant full in the face. That did the trick—she could see flowered turquoise panties as Kristin went over backward. And then the woman’s legs hit the floor, revealing a no longer beautiful face. If Talba wasn’t mistaken, the lovely Miss LaGarde was going to need rhinoplasty to look her best in court.
    “You bitch!” Kristin screamed, one hand gingerly touching her battered face.
    She heard pounding footsteps, and Skip skidded into the office, barely stopping before she fell over the fallen former angel face. Shooting a quick look at Talba, who was rubbing the top of her head, she flipped Kristin over and cuffed her. Standing up, she barked, “You all right?” somewhere in Talba’s direction.
    “No!” Kristin screamed. “Call an ambulance.”
    “Thank God,” Talba said to Skip. “Is Adam okay?” Skip didn’t answer. Instead, she rushed back to the hall, Talba following. She saw immediately why Skip had skidded—the floor and much of the walls were slick with blood—arterial blood, it seemed, from the looks of what was going on on the floor. Abasolo was bent over a man, applying pressure to his thigh, and Skip radioed for help, then took over as he ripped off his belt, to try to tie it into a tourniquet. The man was moaning in agony, his face turned away. Talba had to step around the whole grisly tableau to see that it was Royce Champagne.

Chapter 25
    At Langdon’s insistence, Talba went with the three of them to the hospital, ostensibly to make sure she wasn’t seriously hurt—though she knew perfectly well she wasn’t. But she
was
shaking and cold, utterly wrung out—the shock, Langdon said, the adrenaline crash. She was amazed at the “a” word—for once, adrenaline had been her friend. And now that she thought of it, this wasn’t the first tight spot she’d fought her way out of. The turtle mechanism seemed to go off when she was blindsided—the surprise set off her imagination, and that stopped all motion. But she’d gone into this thing with her eyes open.
    Also, the danger was real, not something in her head. The body had responded as it was programmed to do, as it did when soldiers went to war. She didn’t try to figure it out. She made herself stop thinking about it.
    Kristin must have gone out to meet Royce last night. It was probably his idea for her to call Talba with an ass-covering apology. Why had Talba believed that just-out-for-a-ride story? Then there was the suggestion that she bring the tape downstairs—what was Kristin going to do, shoot her from the car? No, someone else was going to grab her, or maybe follow her back to her office and kill her there.
    Hindsight. Even Langdon had missed that one.
    On the other hand, Kristin and
Royce?
On the face of it, it made no sense at all.
    But it started to fall into place if you considered the economic possibilities of such an alliance. (And Kristin’s