Free What She Doesn't Know by Tina Wainscott

what you know,” he said behind her.
    She needed to get away from him. He’d pin her down and force her to tell him everything, and then she’d really come off as more than a little nuts. Since he hadn’t mentioned the coma connection, she assumed the detective hadn’t told Christopher about it. She needed time to think this through, to figure out what her next step was and who she could trust.
    She pushed through the ground floor doors and headed straight for the entrance. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. “Leave me alone,” she said in a strained voice.
    “Or what, you’ll call security?”
    Of course she couldn’t call security. He hadn’t done anything wrong. The cold air embraced her. She headed to her car where she could lock him out. If he tried to follow her, she’d head straight to the police station.
    “Dammit, woman, if you know something, I’m the one to tell it to.”
    She spotted her car in the near distance. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t accost her in the parking lot, not with people in the vicinity. She dared a sideways glance back and saw that he was a few feet behind her.  
    Her car wasn’t far away now. Impending relief was only an illusion, as she found out. She heard tires squealing on the pavement first and then spotted the car tearing around the corner. Someone tackled her from behind at the same moment the car veered toward her. She screamed as the strong arms clamped around her pulled her off-balance. They went rolling beneath the back of a truck. She had only a moment to realize it was Christopher wrapped around her, rolling her on top of him as they hit the wet asphalt. The car screeched past them.
    He was big and solid, like a shield.
    “You all right?” he asked as he disentangled from her.
    She could only nod before he crawled out and jumped to his feet. She scrambled out behind him, feeling dazed. He was searching for the car, the muscles in his jaw and neck rigid with concentration. The car was gone.
    “Bastard,” he muttered to the absent driver and turned his attention to her. He reached out and rubbed asphalt crumbles from her cheek as he seemed to survey her for injuries. He knelt down, grabbed her cashmere hat and handed it to her, doing another scan of the lot.
    She played the scene through her mind. What little she’d seen, anyway. She was shivering as she stared at where the car had been. It seemed unreal to her, but something was very real.
    She turned to him. “You knew he was going to hit me, didn’t you?”
    “I didn’t grab you for the fun of it.” He rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. “Did you happen to see the license plate?”
    “No, but it was a beige sedan, late eighties, I’d guess. Did you see anything else?”
    He took the hat she was scrunching in her hands and placed it on her head. “I was too busy trying to figure out where we were going to land. Come on, let’s go inside and call the police. That guy needs to be taken off the road. And you should have someone look you over, make sure you’re okay.”
    He guided her toward the entrance with his hand on her back. She fought the urge to move away, considering he’d likely saved her life. “How did you know he was coming at me? When I looked up, he was going fast but straight.”
    His expression darkened. “Call it a sixth sense.”
    Once they got to the lobby, Rita instructed one of the women behind the desk to call the police and ask for Detective Connard. Then Christopher insisted she be checked out by one of the emergency room doctors.
    “You should be checked, too. You took a harder fall than I did.” He’d pulled her on top of him so he’d take the brunt of the fall. She needed to thank him, as soon as she got her bearings.  
    A doctor checked both of them over, though Rita had to insist Christopher remain for his examination. Her elbow was sore, and she suspected she’d have a nice bruise before long. He had a scrape on the back of his hand and fingers.