Free Blue Maneuver by Linda Andrews

Almost there. My gaze darted to the French door. Could I make it? Maybe if I wasn’t still tied up.
    “I don’t care.” He bent over me as the chair righted itself. Using his arms, he bracketed me in and pushed the legs onto the floor. “You’re a means to an end.”
    “Gee, I feel so special.” I pressed against the chair back. The man smelled like newly mown grass and mesquite, probably part of his Parks and Rec disguise to mask his real stench of doggy doo. “Let me guess, you’re going to use me to get to Konstantin.”
    “If the occasion arises, I will kill him.” A spark of pleasure blazed in his green eyes.
    Great. The man was a homicidal maniac. Was he really going to let me go? “And if I don’t bait your honey trap.”
    “I’ll kill you.”
    There seemed to be a common theme here. Could I live with being an accessory to murder? I knew I couldn’t live without it. Still…
    “Then kill me now because I can’t…I won’t lure him to his death.” There. I’d been noble and brave. I raised my chin and ignored my heart trying to pummel its way out of my chest.
    “Does he mean so much to you then, obecht ?” He lifted my left hand and stroked the fingers, up and down.
    My heart changed its rhythm to a more primitive beat. I tugged my hand free. “He’s a person, a human being. You can’t go around killing people you don’t like!”
    Tobias stepped away from my chair. “He won’t hesitate to kill you, obecht .”
    I snorted. This coming from a man who attacked me, tied me up, and threatened to torture and kill me? Yeah, he was a reliable source. I sidled out of the chair and backed up. “Are we finished here? Am I free to leave now that you have your Rae tracking device working?”
    One side of his mouth curved up. “No.”
    The breath rushed from my body as if he’d punched me. I glanced at the French door. Five steps. Six tops, then I’d be free. “But you said I could live.”
    He sidestepped, planting himself between me and the exit. “True. Your fate is much, much worse.”

Chapter Five
     
     
    Was he serious? Sidling across the tile, I placed the dining room chair between me and Tobias Werner UED. There was no way I’d make it to the French door behind him but the front one lay wide open. Too open. He would be on me like a hungry cheetah, before I made it halfway across the great room. I was stuck and I knew it. So did he. I eyed the man. “There’s nothing worse than death.”
    He flashed his pearly white eye teeth. “You haven’t heard what your fate is to be.”
    No, I hadn’t heard about my fate. The sadistic prick kept that nugget to himself. I placed my hands on the chair back. My damp palms slipped on the polished cherry. Maybe I could smack him upside the head with the cane back chair, before running away.
    And the Rae-tracking device provided by the CeeBees?
    He could have lied about that. I mentally shook the stupid from my thoughts. Why would he? Telling me about my impending death gave him so much pleasure. I dried my hands on my baggy shorts.
    “So if you aren’t going to kill me, what are you going to do to me?”
    His teeth disappeared behind stiff lips. For a moment, his green-eyed gaze wandered to somewhere over my left shoulder and his jaw clamped shut.
    Fear dried my mouth and my toes pointed toward the front door. Holy Toledo! Maybe there was something worse than death.
    When he turned his attention back to me, his face shifted into a death mask. “You’re my new partner.”
    “P—partner?” That didn’t sound too bad. Tension released my body and my muscles liquefied. I locked my arms and tightened my grip on the chair to keep from puddling onto the tile. Brain check.
    The man was a killer who enjoyed his work.
    “In what?” The questions squeaked out of my tight throat and landed in the space between us. What had I been thinking? I needed full body armor not a stupid chair for a defense. He would probably impale me on the spindles. I jerked my