Runner's Moon Trilogy Megabook Series (37 page)

On the computer screen the little multicolored boxes rotated and flipped and gyrated with abandon. Fifteen minutes. She had been idle for fifteen minutes. Well, screw it.

It could remain idle for another fifteen minutes. She needed to get up and get a little fresh air and a cup of coffee. Then she could return to her work and hopefully get this one particularly irritating chapter put to bed.

And perhaps by then it would be time to put herself to bed, as well.

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A sense of calm happiness filled Sarah when she saved her last revision and made a backup copy on her portable memory card. That frustrating chapter was finally polished to near-perfection. Not only that, but she had figured out a way to combine two of her remaining chapters, thus narrowing her to-do list by a few hours' worth of work.

It was a little after eight. She had taught her three o'clock class but had given her four-thirty students a walk with an assignment. Since then she'd been parked in front of this screen.

Crap. Her neck was killing her. She got up from the chair and rolled her head around on her shoulders, trying to work out the stiffness. It was already dark outside; she watched her reflection in the plate glass window. Immediately her thoughts went back to the Greek god who had taken the campus by storm ever since the medical branch broke ground three months ago, just a week before the next wave of construction crews arrived. It was a few days later when she'd gotten her first glimpse of the man. She could remember it vividly.

Of course, at the time she had been more interested in watching the formation of the layout of the building, the way the architect had designed each corridor and office, integrated the classrooms with the patients' rooms, and where the restrooms would be located. It was going to be a learning 510

hospital, and purportedly one of the best in the nation once it was finished.

She had been standing at the window, warming her hands around her coffee mug and staring down at the array of pipes sticking out of the concrete slab, when the Greek god came ambling around the corner with a load of PVC pipe in his arms. Of course, it was his back and tush that had first caught her eye. But then when he turned around, that was when she felt her heart do its little jerky lurch thing.

Lurch.

Damn. She forgot to call Dr. Sarey's office and make an appointment. Grabbing a pen, she jotted a memo to herself on the desk's calendar blotter. Sighing, she straightened and glanced at her reflection again in the window.

Okay, given that she carried a little more meat on her figure than the average twenty-something, she didn't look half-bad in a slimming skirt.

Sarah frowned. And as long as she stayed away from loose-legged pants.

Her frown deepened. Maybe something that emphasized her chest area and kept the attention off of her waist and hips?

Aw, screw it, Drumman. Admit it. You'd make a body bag look svelte.

She ran a guilty eye over the empty chip bag and candy bar wrapper from the junk she'd eaten in lieu of a decent lunch and supper. Well, maybe not supper, she told herself.

There was still time to go by Kort's Cafeteria and get some of 511

their baked tilapia. Yeah. With some of those little slivered almonds on top. The thought of it made her mouth water.

"Hey, I'm worth it." With the chapter from hell vanquished, she deserved a little special something to celebrate.

Grabbing her purse, she turned out the lights, closed and locked her office door, and hurried down the hallway toward the elevators. She noticed all the other offices she passed were dark, which wasn't unusual. She'd spent too many evenings by herself in this big empty building, either working on her presentation or grading papers. Besides, she rather liked the feel of the old place. It reminded her of the time she'd spent doing her post-grad work in the most remote, out-of-the-way corners of the campus library.

The wheezing elevator shuddered to a stop on the first floor, finally pulling away its single door. The first floor of the sciences building was divided into four quarters: two classroom auditoriums and two labs. Classroom B was also set up as a planetarium, and it was exclusively used by Sarah. As the only doctor of astronomy on campus, she felt especially privileged to be able to preen her feathers over the state-of-the-art equipment contained inside the large-capacity auditorium. It was another reason why she loved her job and this college so much.

The double doors at the entrance were already locked.

There were no evening classes on Tuesday, so the custodians always locked them after five. If any students or pre-med lab techs needed to work on their experiments or studies, they could get to the lab wing on the other side of the building.

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Pulling her ring of keys from her purse, she fingered through them until she found the heavy master key to let herself out. Which was one of the dumber things administration has done recently, she told herself. Needing a key to get in she could understand, but why would anyone need a key to get out? She shook her head at the illogical reasoning and shoved open the door. Fortunately, if there was a plus side to the issue, it was the fact that once the door was firmly closed behind her, whether coming in or going out, it automatically locked again. No need to re-lock it the way she had to do her apartment's front door.

The humidity hit her full force when she exited the building. It was barely halfway through April, and the weather was already muggy in the evenings. Sarah could feel the sleeves of her lightweight cotton blouse starting to cling to her sweaty skin. Even the wind refused to play among the many trees surrounding the main sidewalk and building. Not a leaf stirred.

Although the nearest street lamp was quite a distance away, there were enough landscaping lights planted around the edges of the flowerbeds and sidewalks to help her find her way to the staff parking lot. She was nearly there when a scruffy-looking young man with several days' growth of beard on his face emerged from the shadows, nearly frightening her out of her skin.

"Hey."

"Oh, goodness!" she half-laughed, holding a hand to her chest to catch her breath. "I didn't see you coming."

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He seemed to ignore her flustered state. "How do I get to the lab?" he asked bluntly.

"Which lab in particular? There's the biology lab and the chemistry lab." She gestured to the building behind her. "This building houses planetary sciences and research labs." She squinted at the man, trying to figure out if she'd seen him before. He certainly wasn't one of her pupils.

"The research lab. That one. Do I get to it through there?"

He pointed behind her.

"No. You'll have to go around the back. There's a keyed entry there, but if you swipe your student ID, it'll let you in.

No problem."

She started to go around him when he asked, "Can't you let me in through the front? You got the keys."

His tone of voice immediately set her on edge. Something about his request wasn't right. This entire situation had gone from incidental to downright creepy in less than two seconds.

"I promise not to tell. Come on, now, miss. Don't be such a tight-ass about it."

Ice chips suddenly clogged her veins. Sharp fear poked painfully through her skin. The Templeton branch of Northern State University was not a large campus. But every student knew nearly every professor and teacher by sight if not by name. For this man to call her "miss" told her two very disturbing things: he wasn't a student, but he knew she was employed by the college.

And that could only mean one thing...

They continued to stare eye-to-eye for a handful of heartbeats. The man shifted his stance slightly. Sarah's gaze 514

dropped to his hands tightening into fists, and the next moment she bolted, running back toward the building.

The man was younger, and lighter, and definitely more athletic than she was. Two rough hands grabbed her by the waist, and Sarah was shoved into the grass with her attacker falling on top of her. She struggled against his greater strength. The scream she tried to force out of her throat wouldn't come out. The air had been knocked from her lungs, and it was taking everything in her to get out from underneath.

"Stop struggling!" the man hissed. He caught her arms and began pulling them behind her. The tension on her shoulders became unbearable.

"Stop struggling!" he ordered her again. "Keep it up, and I'll slice your fucking throat, you hear me?"

A huge silver blade sliced the air in front of her face. Its tip was buried in the wet grass less than an inch from her nose.

Sarah stared in paralyzed fascination at her distorted reflection.

She could hear the man panting as he jerked her skirt above her hips. Kneeing her legs apart, he kept her arms held at the wrists against the small of her back while he ripped off her panties with his other hand.

The horror of the next few minutes threatened to rob her of all sanity. She knew that if she kept her face pressed into the grass, and didn't struggle or fight him, he wouldn't have to hurt her any worse than he already was. If such a thing was possible. If she tried to run away, he would catch her again. There was no way she could overpower him or outrun 515

him. Even if she tried, he would do something far more terrible to her than the rape that was coming.

She had heard of people who were able to distance themselves mentally and emotionally from these kinds of violent acts. Unfortunately she would not be one of them.

Terror came out of her in whimpers. Her arms felt like they were being slowly pulled out of the sockets. Behind her she could hear the man struggling with his belt, then the grate of a zipper.

"You keep your mouth closed, you hear, bitch?" the man threatened as he pried her legs further apart with his knees.

Her whole body was tense, waiting for the invasion, for the pain and the humiliation to utterly destroy her. Gritting her teeth until her jaws ached, Sarah kept her eyes squeezed shut and prayed it would be over soon.

The roar that descended upon them sounded like nothing she had ever heard before. No man could make such a blood-freezing sound. And there were no animals nearby that could have cried out like that. She was faintly aware of the man behind her pausing. Then suddenly his weight was lifted off of her. Her wrists were released; the pain disappeared. She heard a scream, high and shrill, until it abruptly stopped with a dull, wet, cracking sound. There was thud, followed by ...

the complete lack of sound.

Humid air blew across her skin. It caressed her bared buttocks like a lover's touch, but she forced herself to keep her legs parted wide, afraid that if she drew them tight against her body, her attacker would retaliate in anger.

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The world grew silent. Slowly the crickets resumed their chirping. She didn't move, didn't dare twitch a muscle to give the rapist any reason to hurt her further ... but her wrists were free. The pressure on them was gone. Sarah started to flex her arms when a hand lightly touched her shoulder and a soft voice gently said, "You're safe now. He's gone."

For a moment she wondered if it was some sort of sadistic trick the rapist was playing when her brain gave her common sense a nudge. It wasn't the same man standing behind her.

It wasn't the same man's voice she was hearing.

Bringing her arms down, she slowly turned over and glanced at the person bent over and offering his hand to help her up. In the shadows it was hard to make him out, but the thick accent told her he must be a foreign exchange student.

"What happened to h—"

The man moved toward her, closer to the light. His features glowed like golden candlelight.

Oh, dearest God ... not him!

The Greek god gave her a worried smile. Her gaze was riveted on it and on the way his mouth moved as he spoke to her again. Sarah blinked as she tried to drag her mind back to the present. Back to the reality of what had almost happened to her. Except this man had intervened when she'd most needed it.

"Are you all right? Did he hurt you?"

She watched his hand descending toward her arm.

Instinctively she jerked away from his touch, unaware that she whimpered again from the sudden movement. Her emotions were wrapped in a fog. She wanted to trust him.

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She wanted to believe him when he offered help. More than that, she hoped he wouldn't try to do to her what the other man had attempted.

Dimly she realized the Greek god was pulling down her skirt and brushing off the dirt, grass, and leaves that clung to her. She had grass stains and mud on her clothes and skin ...

but she was alive and unharmed, thanks to him.

"Come on. Let's get you something to drink."

"Drink?" She tried to focus with bleary eyes on the man's beautiful face. He took her elbow and gently led her toward the parking lot. This time she let him. His touch was strangely comforting. Solid. Her heart made another little lurchy move, but she got the impression it wasn't meant to frighten her.

"We need ... that man..." A glance back at where the attack had occurred revealed nothing. The landscape lights weren't adequate enough to reveal anything. Neither could she remember exactly where it had taken place. The lawn and surrounding pseudo-forest all blended together. What happened to the knife?

Mr. Gorgeous gently turned her back around as he continued to urge her toward the parking lot. "That man won't hurt you anymore. I promise. Where are your car keys?"

Keys. Purse. At least her mind could work in automatic.

Pretty soon she knew she would wake up in her office and find she'd fallen asleep at her desk like she'd done in the past. Reaching inside her purse, she pulled out the small NASA keychain and handed it to him.

"The silver one?" he asked.

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She answered with a bob of her head. He wasn't really here. Not this mouth-watering man whom she had been secretly ogling for the past three months. Besides, she must look like something the dog forgot to bury. Nowhere near attractive, much less the sort of woman he usually kept company with.

He unlocked the passenger door and helped her into the front seat. He took the driver's side, backing out of the slot reserved for faculty, then took the main road leading out of University Square. Within a couple of minutes they were heading toward downtown. Then he turned off onto a side street and pulled into a parking lot behind a building. No, an eatery. Sarah recognized the reflection of the blinking sign on the wet pavement. They were at Peet's.