Page 59 of The Woman in the Garage

But I was excited to see the tile brought back to life.

By the time I was finished, the floor was almost sparkling, and my arms felt like jelly. Like vibrating jelly.

I brought the buffer back into the garage, setting it by one of the bays so it would be easily pushed outside for pick-up the next day, then I went back into my office, wanting to take a few minutes to freshen up my makeup before heading over to Santo’s place.

I already had his address plugged into my GPS, since I still didn’t know many of the streets in the area yet.

“Good enough,” I decided, clipping my compact closed and tossing it into my purse before pulling it up on my shoulder.

I was still mussing up my hair as I reached to open the door.

Only to have it fly forward into me, the corner catching me in the face.

The pain shot through my cheek, making my eyes water, making my vision go wonky as my brain scrambled to figure out what just happened.

Someone pushed the door open.

When I was supposed to be alone.

I’d locked up the garage.

After walking around with a tire iron to make sure no one was around.

But someone was here.

Someone had broken in.

Or, worse yet, someone had let themselves in.

An employee.

My stomach twisted.

But before I could even work myself into an appropriate panic, the intruder grabbed the door, pulled it back, and slammed it forward again.

It caught me square in the nose, the pain overwhelming as blood trickled down my face and into my mouth, copper exploding across my taste buds.

Somehow that shocked me out of my stupor.

I had to get out.

But the only exit was straight through the attacker.

My gaze slid wildly around the office, looking for something—anything—I could use to defend myself.

There were pens on the desk.

And while, yes, I was sure one would be pretty effective when stabbed into someone’s eye, I didn’t feel too confident in my ability to actuallydothat. I felt sick just at the thought of it.

I had an umbrella in the stand.

Open, it could keep someone from grabbing me. And it had that little hard plastic nub at the end that I could, I don’t know, ram into someone.

I had my Uncle Phil’s old brass bass paperweight on one of the filing cabinets.

Decision made, I flew at it, my fingers closing around its comforting solidness.

I blinked tears out of my eyes and rushed back toward the door.

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