Chapter 5

      EMILY RACED out of the rest room and up the stairs before she had a chance to think better of it. A bizarre cocktail of bravado and excitement flowed through her veins, catapulting her up those stairs, and all she could think of was that Emily Chaplin was ready to kick some butt, baby. As she got closer, the sounds of shouting and thrashing got louder, but she wasn’t frightened. The idea that there might be danger at the top of the stairs only spurred her on.

      When she got there, she knew she was in the right place. The door had been smashed completely off its hinges, leaving a gaping hole opening into a lavishly decorated apartment. Not her taste—very purple, pretty darn tacky—but hey, it was plush. Since there were full-size posters of Shanda Leer, exotic artiste, mounted on every possible surface, it was easy to guess who lived there.

      Although Emily slowed down and proceeded cautiously as she approached the door, no one glanced her way. They were too busy.

      Near the doorway, Slab and some guy were rolling around on the floor, grunting and socking at each other. Clutching a skimpy robe around her inflated curves, wearing a pair of spike heels and not much else, Shanda was sort of squealing and trying not to trip over the two of them.

      “Stop it! Stop it!” she cried. “You’re gonna wreck my place. You stop it right this minute!”

      At the moment, the other guy was getting the best of Slab, pummeling his head into the carpet and creating a minor earthquake. With a shriek of distress, Shanda secured a rickety end table loaded with framed photos and glass knickknacks, all of them shaking with the force of Slab’s head hitting the floor.

      Shanda and her knickknacks could fend for themselves—Emily had a more important mission. Steering past the wrestling match on the floor, she went straight for Tyler on the other side of the living room. He was holding up a chair like a lion tamer. Except the lion in this case was a short, stocky man with a twisted face. Tyler’s attacker wore a black pin-striped suit right out of a gangster movie, and he sliced a wicked-looking knife through the air in front of him, making a vicious snick-snick sound.

      Knife? Her heart was in her throat as she scanned Tyler from stem to stern, looking for wounds. But all she saw was a thin slash in one sleeve of his leather jacket and a slightly puffy area on his lower lip where he’d presumably been punched. She sighed with relief. All in one piece. No major damage. She’d arrived in time.

      “Put down the damn chair and fight like a man!” Mr. Pinstripes bellowed.

      Since Tyler had a definite height advantage, Emily would have put her money on him in a fair fight, but the presence of the knife changed the odds somewhat. She wasn’t taking any chances.

      Weapon, weapon! She didn’t have a weapon, she reminded herself, then decided she’d figure something out on the way.

      Hugging the wall, she snagged one of her new shoes out of the bag and held it in front of her. The men were too intent on macho posturing to notice one small woman brandishing a shoe, so it wasn’t hard at all to sneak up behind the pin-striped creep, rap the back of his nasty little head hard with the wooden base of her sandal, and watch him plop to the floor like a ripe tomato falling off a vine. The knife clattered beside him.

      “Yes!” she cheered. “I knew I could do it!”

      “Emily?” Tyler yelled. “What the hell are you doing here?”

      “Rescuing you,” she returned sharply. Seizing the knife, she stuck it and her sandal back into the bag with her new clothes and undies. But she stopped, gaping down at the man on the floor. “I didn’t kill him, did I?”

      “Nah. He’s moaning.” Tyler grabbed her hand, backing away. “In fact, I don’t think you hit him hard enough. He’s starting to come around. Let’s boogie, shall we?”

      “I’m with you.”

      Hanging on to Tyler for dear life, she hopped over Slab, who was lying apparently unconscious in the doorway. The two of them headed straight for the stairwell, not even stopping to breathe or synchronize watches. Tyler let her lead the way down, and she took the steps at a dizzying pace, trying to ignore the sound of pounding footsteps coming after them from above. By the time they hit the ground floor, shoving open a thick door that opened into an alley, she was gasping for breath.

      Over the sound of approaching sirens, she shouted, “Rescuing good guys and escaping from bad guys is a lot less strenuous in the books.”

      “We haven’t escaped yet.” Tyler’s expression was grim. “He’s not going to let us get away that easily. I suggest we—”

      But a flashlight caught them where they stood in the alley.

      “You folks okay down here?” a cool voice called to them.

      “Oh, yes, Officer.” Emily straightened, putting on her perkiest I-am-a-Chaplin smile, rolling her pearls between her fingers so that the cop with the flashlight would be sure to notice she was a woman of quality and not some alley cat. “We were just wondering what all the commotion’s about. Did someone trip a fire alarm?”

      “Nah. Place is busted. Bunch of underage kids getting tattoos. Plus we tripped over a domestic disturbance upstairs. You didn’t see anyone come out this way, did you?”

      “No, sir, we didn’t,” she said with all due innocence. With Tyler’s hand in hers, she strolled nonchalantly out toward the sidewalk. “Oh, my, look at that.” She lifted an eyebrow Tyler’s way, assuming he’d want to stay clear of the authorities milling around The Flesh Pit. “That’s a lot of policemen, isn’t it, dear?”

      “Quite a lot, darling,” he returned smoothly. “Makes a body feel safe, doesn’t it?”

      “Indeed.”

      Luckily, all the cops seemed to be flooding into The Flesh Pit through the front door, and nobody paid them any attention when they curved around the building and blended in with pedestrian traffic.

      “I suggest we make tracks,” Tyler whispered in her ear.

      “Agreed.”

      Zigging and zagging, they sped up one street and down another, through an alley or two, across a courtyard, doubling back and branching out, finally zipping in the front and out the back of a Chinese restaurant.

      “Couldn’t I just steal one little pot sticker off a tray?” she begged. “I didn’t have any dinner. I’m starving. I deserve something for my rescue effort, don’t I? I mean, I was awesome, wasn’t I?”

      “Yeah. Awesome.” Tyler scanned the street one more time, for what she guessed was any sign of a pinstripe. “But we don’t have time for pot stickers just yet. Let’s make sure we’ve ditched Mack and his knife before we start celebrating.”

      “Mack? Is that really his name?”

      Tyler’s gaze was sardonic. “Are you kidding? How would I know his name? I’m not even sure what your name is.”

      “That’s not true. You called me Emily,” she said