Page 52 of The Perfect Poise

“She could be,” he said with an unpleasant smile. “How would I know?”

In a flash, it all started to make sense to her.

“But the photo under the door,” she said, “you took that yourself, didn’t you? And Bridget’s food poisoning had nothing to do with Dana, right? It was just a convenient way to make her seem menacing? Did you poison Bridget yourself?”

“I would never do something like that,” he said unconvincingly as he took a step toward her. “That’s very hurtful.”

Hannah looked Clayton up and down. He wasn’t a big guy, smaller than her in fact. But she knew better than to make assumptions about people’s capabilities based on their size. Ash Pierce was tiny. The serial killer she’d shot dead, who was known as the Night Hunter, was an elderly man. She took a step back.

“You’re making a mistake here,” she said forcefully, standing as tall as she could. “Unlock the door, open it, and step aside. I might be willing to let this go if you stop now.”

His smile twisted into an ugly grimace.

“What if I don’t want to let this go?”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Hannah sensed that this situation was in danger, spiraling out of control. She decided to make one last attempt to rein it in before resorting to more desperate measures.

“Clayton,” she said, hoping she sounded calm and confident, “if you think that stalking someone has legal consequences, think about what you’re doing. Physically threatening someone, which you are on the verge of, has life-altering consequences. You’d be destroying your future. Take a moment to reconsider your choices here.”

He took another step toward her, seemingly undeterred.

“I used to worry about that,” he acknowledged. “But the truth is that none of the other girls talked after the fact. They must have known that saying something would be worse for them than just letting it go. So I figure you’ll keep your mouth shut too.”

Hannah’s heart was beating near out of her chest now, but she reminded herself that she’d been in situations more dire than this and come through them. That thought cleared her head. When she spoke, there was no hesitation in her voice.

“You’re forgetting something, Clayton,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“I’m not like other girls.”

Clayton, seemingly turned on by her words, licked his lips. Then he leapt at her.

He was quicker than she had anticipated, slamming into her and sending her colliding with the back wall of the study room. With one forearm pressed against her chest, he grabbed at the button of her jeans, trying to pop it open.

She reminded herself not to panic and waited until he got frustrated and looked down to see what he was doing. That’s when she pulled her right arm back, then fired it up and forward, smashing the bridge of his nose with the meaty part of her open palm.

Clayton released his arm from her chest as he reached for his face, allowing her to scurry away. But before she could dash to the door, he stepped into her path.

“You’re going to regret that,” he growled.

Behind him, on the other side of the glass, she suddenly saw movement. It took her a second to process that it was Finn, walking over with a confused look on his face. Because the room was soundproofed, he clearly didn’t understand what was happening. But she couldn’t worry about that. Clayton had recovered enough to smile again, oblivious to the blood dripping down from his nose into his mouth. He took a giant step toward her.

This time she maneuvered behind the chair that Clayton had been sitting in earlier, and gripped the back of it, as if it was some kind of shield. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that her action had given Finn an idea. He picked up the chair just outside the room that she’d been sitting in and held it up high over his head as if he was going to smash the glass with it.

Clayton got her attention again when unexpectedly, he dove at her. She let go of the chair and kicked it at him, aware that it wasn’t going to stop his forward progress. But it did make him stumble slightly as he neared her. That was enough.

As he got to her, she launched her knee upward, making contact with his groin. Just as she connected, she heard glass smashing. She ignored it. Clayton had doubled over in pain but was still standing. Again, she opened her right hand and locked her wrist. This time she came at him with an uppercut, slamming her palm into the underside of his chin. She heard his jaw snap shut as he toppled backward onto the carpeted floor.

Without hesitation, she grabbed the chair she’d kicked at him, flipped it around so that she was holding it by the legs, and thrust it downward, pinning the top of it to Clayton’s neck, jamming it up against his Adam’s apple. He appeared too stunned to struggle. Then she looked over at Finn, who was standing in a sea of broken glass, staring at her, dumbfounded.

“There are zip ties in the small back pocket of my backpack over there,” she said evenly, nodding to the right. “Get them please.”

Finn nodded without speaking. As he dashed over to her backpack, Hannah tossed the chair away and dropped down heavily, slamming her knee into Clayton’s gut. He groaned. She lifted her leg up just enough to flip him onto his stomach. Then she pressed her knees into his lower back and pinned his right arm behind it.

“Ow!” he squealed.

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