Page 74 of Nothing But the Night (Basic Instincts 2)

Marc hurried to the office door and tried the handle.Shit. It was locked. He gripped with his good arm and rattled the knob. Hopeless. It wouldn’t budge.

Coils of smoke crept through the cracks between the door and the frame. What was she trying to achieve? Destroying evidence. She couldn’t be deluded enough to think she would get away with this now. Four people dead inside a locked room would arouse plenty of suspicion, regardless of how she tried to disguise it. If she was thinking rationally at all. What he’d glimpsed in her eyes while she stabbed Ryman was completely deranged.

“What happened?” Jason asked. His body slumped as he took in the corpse of his friend and partner.

“Soloman was already dead when we got here. She took Ryman by surprise when we found his body.”

Marc crossed to the window. He threw it open, but it was attached to a safety device that only allowed it to slide six inches. He could smash it easily enough with one of the office chairs. In normal circumstances, they would both be fit enough to hang down and drop to the ground below. But with their current injuries, they had no chance of making it.

He glanced at Jason. He was in a bad way, but a few more broken bones would be preferable to being dead.

“Did you notice a fire escape?” Marc asked.

Jason shook his head, wincing as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I doubt it has one. It’s just a row of terraced houses converted into office space.” He put his phone onto speaker and dialled, getting an immediate engaged tone. “Shit. Emergency services are all tied up with the storm. I tried to reach them on the way here.”

There was another door on the far side of the room. Marc went through into a bathroom. There was a skylight above the toilet. It offered a glimmer of hope. He climbed onto the seat and pushed the window open. Wind and rain whipped straight through, clawing at his face. Marc pushed his head and shoulders outside, assessing their options. If they could make it to a similar skylight in one of the neighbouring buildings, there could be a way down. The roof was slanted, and the tiles were perilously wet. There was every chance that they would break even more bones if they tried to get out that way.

When he returned to the main room, the smoke was thicker than before. He coughed as it seared his throat and eyes. Chantelle must have used some kind ofaccelerant to get the fire going so quickly. She must have planned this. When had she decided to kill her boss? Today? When he said he was returning to Blyham early? If this was premeditated, then she must have also planned her escape.

No fucking way. She was not going to get away with hurting so many people.

“We have to get out of here so we can nail that bitch,” he said.

“I won’t argue with that.” Jason hobbled to the window and looked down. A gust of rain battered the pane. “It doesn’t look like we’ve got another option. We’ll have to go this way.”

Marc put his arm across his face as the smoke grew more acrid. “Can you even make it that far? You’re in a bad way already.”

“A few broken bones are better than being burned alive.”

Jason’s practical manner and cool headedness was an almighty reassurance. Marc realised at that moment that he would trust him whatever happened. There was no one better to have on his side during a crisis.

Smoke continued to billow into the room.

“That door isn’t going to hold it back for much longer,” Marc said.

“Then let’s get out of here. Take off your jacket.” Jason was already shrugging his waterproof off his shoulders. He grimaced at the discomfort.

Marc didn’t understand but did it anyway, slipping out of his coat.

“Get Soloman’s and Ryman’s too.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Think of it like a prison break. We’ll knot them together to make a rope. It won’t be enough to get usall the way to the ground, but it will lessen the drop.” He took Marc’s jacket off him and made a hurried knot with their sleeves.

Turning to Soloman, Marc was filled with revulsion. Chantelle had made a mess of his chest and throat. How could she have been filled with so much hatred and anger? The doggedness to have done this to another human was unfathomable. He found a pair of scissors in a drawer and cut the cable ties on his wrists. “I’m sorry,” Marc said, easing Soloman’s corpse forward in the chair to shrug the jacket from his shoulders. He was heavy and difficult to manoeuvre. As the smoke poured into the room, there was no time to be squeamish. He got the jacket free from one arm, then the other and passed it to Jason.

However difficult it was to deal with Soloman, it was nothing compared to what he had to do next. Ryman lay on the floor, on his front. The back of his jacket was soaked with blood. Despite the repeated injuries, the structure of the garment seemed sound. Marc carefully eased it from his body. “I’m so sorry,” he said, fighting a coughing fit. “We won’t let her get away with this.”

The last thing he did was place his index finger and thumb over Ryman’s eyes and pull them closed.

He gave the last jacket to Jason for him to tie with the others.

The smoke was becoming overwhelming. They crouched low to the ground as it filled the room.

Jason tied the sleeve of his impromptu rope to the top of a radiator.

There was a paperweight on Soloman’s desk. Marc took it in his good hand and assessed its heft. It should do. They were running out of other options.

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