Page 3 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
With my peripheral vision, I see a hand shoot through the gap.
I jump back, heart relocating to my throat, as the doors bounce open and a man steps in. His head is down, and he doesn’t look at me. Fine by me. I’m too tired for rando-stranger eye contact tonight anyway.
I turn back to the gloomy view, watching in my peripheral vision as he punches the lobby level. His other hand loosens his tie another inch, like the fabric personally offended him. Then he sighs like a man wishing to be anywhere other than here.
Yeah, you and me both, slick.
In the three seconds before the doors close, I spare a glance. I get a profile view—the jaw, the cheekbone, the curl of hair at his temple—and something in my brain fires a warning shot. Something’s familiar…
I do notice that he smells good. Cedar and sandalwood.
Then the doors close. The elevator lurches downward.
And the lights go out.
Yes. I said Go. Out. As in, not a flicker of hope. Out. Completely. Gobbling up the light, leaving us in pitch darkness. The elevator shudders, groans like a mechanical animal in pain, then stops.
My hand flies to the handrail, cold metal biting into my palm.
Silence. Did he move? Sounded a little like he moved toward me.
And then, “Well. That’s not ideal.”
The voice hits me somewhere between my ribs and my spine. Deep. A little rough. The kind that, if I were writing it, I’d describe as handsome.
Which is an absolutely insane thing to think about a disembodied voice in a dark elevator dangling precariously over my likely death.
What can I say? I’m a thriller writer.
I grip the handrail tighter. “Maybe it just needed a little time-out. Like, it’s catching its breath.”
A soft exhale. Almost a laugh. “I’m going to choose optimism.”
“Great. I’m an optimist.” I pause. “That was a lie. I’m a catastrophist. I’ve already planned three escape routes and two worst-case scenarios.”
“What’s the worst case?”
“We’re trapped until morning and resort to cannibalism.”
He laughs. The sound envelopes me like a blanket straight from the dryer. Warm and familiar.
And something about that laugh makes the thriller writer in me go quiet and the romance writer sit up very, very straight.
Okay, suddenly I can think of worse places to be.
Call it the romantic in me.
BECKETT
All things considered, there are worse places I could be than trapped in an elevator with a stranger making jokes about cannibalism. Say…a fundraising event, surrounded by sponsors and media reps who have hook, line, and sinker believed the lies about me.
Yeah, give me snarky cannibal girl any day.
Anything to help me forget I’m having the worst night of my life.
Which, for the record, is saying something. Because ten minutes ago, I was standing in the Hotel Ivy bathroom, adjusting a tie that was trying to strangle me and telling my reflection to get it together, having been chased (almost) into the men’s room by some online blogger who just wanted the “real story.”
Right. Smile, Benson. Shake hands. Don’t let them see you sweat.
