Masks (Out of the Box Book 9) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Helpless, that’s what we were—helpless to prevent a killing halfway across the country.

7.
Nadine
    “It doesn’t look like New York’s other hero is going to show up,” the reporter said on the screen, “and the NYPD is holding their position, waiting to see what happens here on Wall Street this morning. The stock exchange has announced that it will suspend trading for the day while this crisis plays out …”
    “So long, six million dollars,” Nadine muttered under her breath. There went the fortune she could have made this morning if she’d been able to place trades. But she couldn’t, so it didn’t matter anyway, except as an exercise in her head, keeping her sharp while this idiocy ran its course.
    “I don’t think this is gonna work out,” Tannen said, shuffling to his feet. “I just don’t think they’re gonna pay.”
    Nadine held in a scream, mostly out of self-preservation, and though she’d called him names, she held back what she was thinking, which was, Of course they’re not, you idiot! “I could have told you that,” she said instead. “Why would you even pick me for this dumbass plan, anyway?” she asked instead.
    Tannen spun her around so she could look right down the dark barrel of the gun. He wasn’t smiling. His round face was completely void of any expression. “Everyone knows your name, don’t they? And you had your own bucks.”
    “ Had being the operative word,” she said. This was going down in flames fast. It might even be time for really drastic measures. She certainly had some overseas funds she could try and access, if it came to that, but they would be damned hard to get to—and like she’d told him before, it wasn’t like he was walking away from this. Even mentioning them to him would land her in deeper shit with the authorities once this thing settled out, and they’d be zero use to this moron other than to keep him happy for all of five minutes before he realized he was trapped and probably offed her anyway. “Look, if you kill me, it does you no good.”
    Tannen seemed to give this one a thought, the wheels clunking along visibly in his head as he chewed it over. “Yeah, but it’ll be fun and I’ll have some street cred on the inside.”
    “Wait—” she started to say, but it was too late. Tannen’s finger was already on the trigger and she could see it squeezing. Nadine closed her eyes tight, not wanting to see it coming, but she couldn’t block out the sound of the gunshot as it filled the room.
    Nadine just stood there, waiting for the pressure on her forehead to suggest her brains had been dashed out the back, and when the sound faded, a thousand rough thudding noises followed, like rain on a hard roof, and she opened her eyes to see Tannen in flight, his mouth open and hands empty and splayed out like he was falling off a building as he shot toward the glass windows that partitioned Nadine’s office off from the bullpen.
    Tannen hit one of the support beams that held the glass panes in place and his head snapped up. He slid to the floor, dazed, and Nadine looked around for his gun. It was just … gone?
    She spun to find the glass window between her and the street was missing, a thousand glittering fragments embedded in the walls to either side like diamonds, catching the sunlight as she turned to the figure standing on the edge, between her and the open air.
    It was her, that other hero, in her black and white leotard and with the mask that extended around her eyes and nose, hiding her cheekbones but letting her long hair whip around her in the wind.
    “That … has got to be the silliest superhero suit ever,” Nadine said, looking at her savior in contempt. It was Spandex, for crying out loud, black and white, and while the lady clearly worked out to keep her tall frame in good shape, she didn’t exactly have the figure of a supermodel. “Also, those ‘shoes’—”
    “I just saved your life,” Gravity Gal said, watching her through