Page 68 of Ice Cold Christmas

She jumped.

But it was just the detective. “You okay?” he demanded.

She nodded over and over, jerky movements as fear poured through her veins.

“Get behind me.” A sharp order.

She scrambled up. Moved behind the detective with the gun and heard him yell, “Police! Freeze!”

Only Victor didn’t freeze. He kept right on punching the assailant. Over and over, even though the man in the mask didn’t appear to be fighting back.

“I said for you to freeze!” Angus shouted. “Victor, move away from him, now!”

Victor’s hand flew once more.

A thudding impact.

“Victor!” Melody cried out.

His head whipped toward her. His hand froze in mid-air.

“He was trying to stab me,” Melody said quickly, not sure what all Angus had seen. “The car’s tires were slashed. Victor told me to go inside, and this guy came at me with a knife.” An attack right beside the police station? You had to be bold as hell to pull off a stunt like that.

Except…

I think he was waiting for me. The slashing tires had been deliberate. And the attacker hadn’t gone for Victor. He’d come straight at her.

Victor’s hand fell. He stepped to the side. The man in the black ski mask immediately fell.

“Get over here!” Angus barked at Victor. “Move away from the perp!”

Where had the knife gone? It had fallen before, but she didn’t know where it was any longer.

Victor didn’t move away. “Melody?”

“I’m okay.” Her teeth chattered. From the cold and from straight-up terror.

“Move away,” Angus snarled.

The man on the ground lunged upward. He gripped the knife in his hand—The same knife? A second one?—and he swung it out toward Victor.

“Drop it! Drop—” Angus fired his gun.

Chapter Eighteen

The bastard yelled when the bullet tore into his shoulder. The knife clattered from his fingers and fell, and then the prick—he ran. He turned, and he lunged away from Victor. Away from the station. He plunged into the darkness.

Oh, the hell, no.

Victor chased after him. That sonofabitch had just tried to attack Melody. No way did he get to just escape into the night.

And Victor wasn’t the only one giving chase. He could hear the pounding footsteps behind him. Angus. Melody. Angus was bellowing for the perp to stop.

Spoiler alert, he wasn’t stopping. If anything, he just ran faster. Victor looked down. Beneath the street lamps, he could see spots of blood on patches of snow that still lingered on the pavement.

“Dammit, stop!” Angus’s order. “Don’t make me shoot you, too!”

What the fuck?