The Society by Karen Guyler (best ebook reader android txt) 📕

She could maybe get through the door ahead of him. But he’d be on her before she got halfway down the corridor, and she was completely empty-handed. The papers on the desk were useless as a weapon. The Professor had no handy paperweights or letter openers, not so much as a stained tea mug.

“Open the window, Dad.” Steinman’s son looked at her from the open doorway. “I know what you’re thinking.”

Eva could feel hysteria bubbling up inside her. He had no idea unless it was all the swear words.

“I’m sure you don’t but go ahead, we can play guessing games.”

“We’re only one floor up, me throwing you out there isn’t likely to kill you, but it’s enough for what’s that lovely euphemism? Life-changing injuries, but that’ll only be a problem until I pay you a visit in your hospital bed. I’ll even let you choose - heart attack like Tony Banks? Suffocation like Nancy Seymour? Bomb like Hunter Malone?”

“Finished?” Eva raised her eyebrows at him. “Like I said, amateurs. Here’s another learned maxim for you, Professor. If you want something done, do it yourself.” Steeling her knee, she whipped around the desk, swept up the office chair. It was surprisingly heavy, but somehow she hefted it high enough that the act of letting it go crashed it through the window.

Steinman’s son roared and charged after her, but she grabbed his father, spun him in between them. “Stop or he follows.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I’m The Society, you really think I’m here to be nice? We don’t take kindly to what you’ve done.”

He stopped. “It wasn’t our idea.”

Eva’s mind raced faster than her heartbeat, trying to put the pieces together so they made sense. “Then why do it?”

“To obfuscate clearly,” the Professor’s breathing was faster, shallower, but still he struggled against her.

“Who instructed you?”

“Brett, stop poncing about and deal with her.”

Eva pinched his neck hard, shutting him up as he became lightheaded. She shuffled him round to keep him her barrier between her and Steinman Junior, backing right up to the gaping window. The professor’s legs became weaker, he sagged. She released her hold on his neck and reached behind her, pincer-grabbing one of the shards of glass left in the frame. But it had stayed there for a reason. It resisted. The Professor straightened, pushed against her. Eva pinched his neck again, harder.

“I have your father’s life in my hands, literally. I’m pressing on his carotid artery, just enough to make him lightheaded at the moment. But I’m not a doctor,” her hands were cramping, his weight on her too heavy. She loosened her grip. “I don’t know how much pressure is too much, will cause a stroke, brain damage, how long he can stand for me to do this. How far do you want to push it?”

Eva felt the wall of the office against her right shoulder. The gaping blackness of the car park below pulled at her. Freezing air flooded the hothouse room. It was a standoff until she grew too tired to hold the professor up, until she misjudged it, until he retaliated or until the son charged her.

Lose, lose.

48

Eva stared at the killer as though her gaze could hold him there. He looked from her to his father, to the desk, still nothing there to use as a weapon, to her. He took a half-step inside the office.

“I’m warning you.” she growled.

The blip made her start. Outside, it was a car being unlocked.

“Help,” she screamed, “Call an ambulance, Professor Steinman’s having a heart attack. He needs help. His son Brett Steinman is in here with me.”

The man looking up at her from beside his unlocked car was already on the phone, directing his colleague to the first floor.

“You might think you can disappear,” Eva told Steinman Junior. “But we’re after you. You need to be made a lesson of. Who instructed you?”

She squeezed harder at the Professor’s neck. He sagged against her and his legs gave way.

“Who instructed you?” She glared at Steinman Junior but he stayed silent, ready to pounce, just looking for his chance.

She lost her battle holding the Professor vertical and she landed on the floor with him. She tensed against another onslaught from his son but he’d vanished.

The Professor looked harmless, an old man collapsed. ‘Deal with her.’ She’d done what she had to.

She had never been so glad to see anyone as she was the guy who charged into the office on his phone summoning campus security and first aiders.

The shaking hit her as the man who’d made the 999 call rounded the office door and a security guard made the room too crowded.

Eva manoeuvred her way out even as the siren of incoming help tore in through the broken window. She tucked her hair in the neck of her fleece, kept her head down as she limped away from the campus. Her heart hammered at every bush and parked car, every corner and doorway, every likely place for ambush until she found a cab. The cabbie who took her back to St George’s Grove definitely wasn’t Steinman but still Eva’s heart thundered a warning at her the whole journey that she wasn’t safe.

Her adrenaline-fuelled strength left her as she stumbled out of the airlock and slumped onto the bottom step of the stairs, not entirely sure she shouldn’t be running for the ladies.

“Eva, come on up.” Gordon’s voice filled the corridor. They still worked long hours there.

He buzzed her into his office and pushed a whisky across his desk before she sat down. “You look like you need it.” He let her sip at it. “Tell.”

It fell out of her, a dam bursting, everything that had happened since she’d met Eric, the things she’d done that would haunt her. She left out her deal with CJ, embarrassed that she’d agreed to something that could burn her.

“That’s quite something. So next step, you need to contact The Society to tell them what you’ve found?” Gordon asked.

Eva opened her mouth, closed it again. She