He laughed again.
“She can be taught!” He shouted those words at the pretend audience he apparently wished was witnessing our showdown.
“Why would anyone go to these lengths to help you, though? Help any of you. Yeah, you can play football, but that’s it. I highly doubt whoever is behind this is backing you so you can play college ball.…”
“You don’t get to know the why, Danners. And even if I told you, it wouldn’t matter. You won’t be able to talk once I’m done with you.”
He pulled a baseball bat out from the cab of his truck and my body went stiff. The devastation to Garrett’s body made a whole lot more sense. He hadn’t just beaten him up. He’d nearly bludgeoned him to death.
Twirling it around on the palm of his hand, he approached me, making a spectacle of what he was about to do. I crab-walked backward, trying to get away from him, but I knew my efforts were futile. I couldn’t outrun him. I couldn’t effectively stand and face him. All I could do was dodge the blows for as long as possible before the inevitable occurred—they started landing.
Holding the bat with both hands, he raised it over his head, prepared to slam it down on me. I stared up at him with fear in my eyes—the fear that racked my body. I’d always thought I’d go down with a fight. Thought I’d never give up. But as I looked up at his hate-filled expression, I knew it was over.
So I screamed.
I screamed so loud that I thought my eardrums would rupture. Even Donovan winced at the shrill sound of it. It was enough to buy me a precious few seconds. The seconds I needed to save my life.
“Drop the weapon!” I heard off to my left. Donovan’s gaze fell to the far side of the truck, where Agent Dawson stood, gun drawn and pointed right at him. “I said, drop your weapon. NOW!” Donovan did no such thing. Instead, he looked back down at me and smiled—a twisted, ugly smile that illustrated just how far he had devolved. “Last warning, Shipman. Drop it and back away from the girl, or bullets start flying. Do you understand me?”
“I just need to finish up here first,” he replied, coiling to hit me with the bat. In utter disbelief, I watched him swing it down toward me with unimaginable force. I closed my eyes, poised for the killing blow. But it never came. Instead, an earsplitting sound rang out through the clearing. I rolled to my side, covering my head. Moments later, a limp body collapsed to the ground beside me, arms and legs akimbo. Donovan’s empty eyes stared at me unblinking, and I could not force myself to look away.
I started to scream once again.
“Kylene?” a voice called. I could barely hear it over my hysterics. “Kylene? Are you okay? Look at me! Look. At. Me!” Agent Dawson grabbed my face and turned it away from the body lying next to me. Instead of a cold, dead stare, I found one filled with anger and concern. The combination was strange on him. Irritation and indifference seemed more natural. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” My reply was weak and shaky, and the perfect representation of how I felt in that moment. “Is he…?”
“No, he’s not dead. He’s unconscious. I shot him in the leg, then pistol-whipped him. He’ll live. For now. Let me see where you’re injured.”
He reached for my arm to guide me up, and I yelped from the pain. Realizing that I wasn’t as okay as I’d claimed, he gingerly scooped me up in his arms and placed me in the driver’s seat of Donovan’s truck.
“Garrett! We have to get him to a hospital right away. Donovan beat him so badly—he must have internal bleeding.”
“Where is he?” Dawson asked, his tight expression all business.
“Over that way. Get in. I’ll drive us there. It’ll be easier.”
Without the argument I’d anticipated, he got in the passenger side, and the two of us sped to Garrett. The storm had let up slightly, but the yard was still a muddy mess. I had to slow to a roll as we approached for fear I wouldn’t be able to stop and would run him over.
Dawson shot out of the passenger side and ran to Garrett. He assessed him quickly, then picked him up as best he could and brought him to the truck. I hopped out and opened the door to the back seat. Dawson and I worked together to ease Garrett on the bench. I climbed in with him and sat so his head could rest in my lap. Dawson drove us back around to the front of the house, where flashing red and blue lights met us.
“Sheriff’s department is here,” he announced.
“I called them.”
“What about me?”
“I did! You didn’t answer!”
“No,” he shouted before regaining his composure. “I mean you should have told me what you were doing before you even came out here.”
“You wanted me to tell you that I intended to break a few laws in order to obtain information I needed to figure out who is behind the scandal I refused to tell you about? That seems totally legit. I’m sure you would have been all-in on that one.”
“No. I wouldn’t have. I would have told you to sit your ass at home and leave these things to the professionals.”
“Yeah, well … my dad did that, and it didn’t turn out so well for him.”
“So now you’re a vigilante? Taking the law into your own hands? Because that didn’t seem to turn out so well for you, either.”
With no clever comeback, I kept my mouth shut and focused my attention on Garrett. He was breathing, but it was shallow and labored. I was worried about him. And I had good reason to be.
“We need to get him to a hospital.”
“I’ll take him, but I’ve got to talk to the sheriff before I leave. I’ll be quick.”
“No, Dawson. He needs a doctor now. If you’re not taking him, then I am.”
“And how do you propose to do that? The bridge is flooded and almost impassible.”
“How did you get here, then? Fly?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“I crossed it.”
“Then if your car could get across, I can get this beast across, too.”
Dawson put the truck in park next to the two hopped-up sheriff’s department SUVs. Instead of getting out, he gripped the wheel and took a deep breath. He looked at me in the rearview mirror, his eyes sharp and narrowed.
“I didn’t drive over it,” he said. His voice was low and cold, and it made my heart stop for just a second. If he didn’t drive across it then …
“Oh my God—”
“I don’t suggest you try throwing Garrett over your shoulder and walking along the railing, like I did. The current is nasty and the water’s cold. It’s probably too high now to even attempt it. You’d get washed away for sure. And I really don’t feel like launching a search-and-rescue party for you tonight. I think you’ve made things eventful enough already.”
I stared at him in the dark of the truck’s cab, trying to make sense of what he was telling me. His car hadn’t been able to get over the bridge, so he braved the growing water to get to me. To come to my aid.
The look of surprise on my face made him laugh.
“Close your mouth, Ms. Danners. You look like a cartoon.”
With that, he jumped out of the truck and made his way over to the deputies that were attending to Donovan. Sheriff Higgins himself was nowhere to be seen. There were no ambulances there, which told me the water really was dangerously high, but I figured if the sheriff’s SUVs could make it, then Donovan’s truck could too.
I crawled into the driver’s seat and threw on my seat belt. Then I said a little prayer to the God I no longer believed in, and put the truck in gear. I could see the flash of anger in Dawson’s face when I spun the tires in the mud, peeling out until I hit the firm ground of the driveway. He yelled something at me—something I couldn’t make out—but I saw him run after me as I pulled out onto the road and sped away.
Committing grand theft auto in the process.
“It’ll be okay, Garrett. I’ll get you to the hospital.”
It seemed to take forever to navigate my way down to the overflowing creek, but once there, I knew I could make it. I sw
allowed down my fear and revved the engine, thinking my best bet was to gun it and hope the weight of the truck and its momentum would carry us across the short span before the water affected us too badly.
Gripping the wheel, I hammered the gas, and we sped toward the creek-turned-river. The splash when we hit it was tremendous, launching up around the sides of the vehicle, temporarily blinding me. But I kept my foot on the gas and powered through. I could hear the metal grinding along the guardrail—the one I was glad was still in place. Donovan’s truck wasn’t going to make it out of my stunt unscathed, but I didn’t care. I just needed Garrett to make it.
I felt the front wheels grip the edge of the road on the far side, and I squealed with delight. I knew we were in the clear. Once the truck was fully out, I hammered the gas yet again and raced off toward the hospital.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, I was standing at the nurses’ station, yelling for someone to bring a gurney to the truck I’d illegally parked in the emergency drop-off lane reserved for ambulances. As far as I was concerned, in that moment, I was one.
A flood of scrub-wearing staff came out with the requested gurney and loaded Garrett onto it. I moved the truck, then hurried back into the hospital. Because I wasn’t family, I wasn’t allowed back to the examination room. Relegated to the waiting room, I plopped myself down in a corner chair and immediately grabbed my ribs.
Then I remembered the phone in my back pocket. I took it out to find that my call with dispatch had been disconnected. I tried to see when the call had ended, but my touch screen was cracked and behaving erratically—probably from getting soaked. I was amazed the damn thing was working at all.
It was functional enough, however, to call and leave a message for Gramps, telling him that Garrett had been hurt and that I was at the hospital, waiting to learn more. I’d be there as long as I needed to be. Then I called Tabby. I’d explain what happened later, but, for now, I just wanted to let her know that we were okay.
Or at least I hoped we would be.
I stood up to go outside and make the call, wincing at the pain in my ribs. A nurse at the front desk noticed my pain and came out to me.
“You need to be seen,” she said matter-of-factly, shoving a clipboard into my hands. “You can fill these out in the exam room. Follow me.”
She stormed off past the intake desk down a hall to the left. Not wanting to pick a fight with her after everything I’d been through, I let her lead me to a run-of-the-mill exam room, fully equipped with light-green-curtain surround. She drew it back and pointed to the bed, indicating she wanted me to sit on it, so I did. I hitched a hip up on there carefully, holding my ribs as I did.
As she walked away, I asked for directions to the bathroom. She rattled them off while I gingerly climbed down from the bed. The second my feet hit the cool concrete floor, a flash of cold shot through my body, and I broke out in a sweat. My head felt like it was going to explode. Either my adrenaline just crashed or I’d been hurt far worse than I’d imagined. Before the darker implications of my potential shocklike symptoms could fully settle in, I made my way down the hall as the nurse had instructed. There was a rush of hospital staff hurrying about, making me feel dizzy with their movements. The place was busier than I’d expected. I wondered if there’d been a bunch of accidents with the storm.
The pain abated slightly, and I could see the first hall on my left coming up, so I carefully maneuvered around the wheelchairs and gurneys lining the corridor, ready to turn and get out of the chaos of the main hallway. My body swayed hard in the direction—a little too hard—but before I crashed into the wall, I felt a hand on my elbow, stabilizing me.
“Kylene,” Luke said, pulling me into his body. “You don’t look well. You need to sit down.”
He ushered me down the hall to the right, away from the bathroom, and into a private room. It appeared unoccupied, which really didn’t matter to me in that moment. I just wanted to sit down and catch my breath. I felt weak and clammy, and I started to let the worry about potential injuries seep through to my conscious mind.
“I need to call the nurse,” I said, my voice thin and thready like my racing pulse. I reached toward the call button, but Luke intercepted my hand. He held it in his as he looked down at me. The dark scrutiny in his eyes pulled me from my deteriorating state.
“You just had to get involved, didn’t you? Too much like your father, I imagine.” I tried to wrench my arm from his grip but I couldn’t. He was too strong for me.
“You knew,” I wheezed, the pain in my chest making it harder to catch my breath.
“Knew? Ah, c’mon, kiddo. Give me a little more credit than that. I engineered the whole thing. You know how much I like football. I especially like betting on it. I saw an opportunity and I took it. Thanks for giving me the perfect chance, by the way. Couldn’t have done it without you.”
My eyes went wide.
“You’re the one that bought them off—that threatened Jaime!”
“Correct.”
“Did you send those threats, too?” I asked, disbelief in my tone. How could I have been so wrong about him?
“C’mon. That’s beneath me and you know it. I don’t do grunt work. I pay others to do it for me.”
Realization slapped me hard.
“You’re the Advocatus Diaboli.…”
At that, he laughed.
“Hardly. He’s a few steps higher up the food chain than me.”
I coughed and collapsed in on myself, clutching my ribs as best I could as my strength waned. My traitorous eyes darted over to the nurses’ call button once again, but Luke stepped to my side, making it impossible to reach.
“You knew Donovan took those pictures, didn’t you?” I said.
He gave me an ambivalent shrug.
“I did. There was evidence enough to prove it. Evidence that never saw the light of day. As for the others, I did what I needed to in order to make sure they all got off. I knew in a year or two, they’d make it worth my while. With that many players under my thumb, I could dictate whether we won or lost—maybe throw a game or two here and there when it suited my purposes.”
“You’re Donovan’s get-out-of-jail-free card—not the sheriff.”
“If you want to call it that.…”
I craned my neck to look up at him as he loomed above me, a harbinger of doom.
“Why would you admit that?” I asked, though the cold sensation crawling up my back had already answered that question for me. He told me because he could. Because I wouldn’t be a liability. I wouldn’t be leaving that hospital alive.
The fear that shone in my eyes must have given me away. All he did was smile down at me with a wickedness that made my blood run cold.
“Looks like Donovan might have punctured your lung, Ky. You’ve got to be careful with injuries like that. You could throw a clot … get an embolism.…” He withdrew a syringe from his pocket and flicked at it several times with his finger. “I had this ready just in case Donovan didn’t finish the job for me. He’s a bit unreliable at times—but he sure did a number on your friend. He’ll be lucky to make it out of surgery alive.” His grin widened. “And if he does…” He shook the needle in the air in warning.
I took as deep a breath as possible, mustering what little bit of energy I could, and shot off the bed to the door, hoping I could get there before he stopped me. I didn’t have the capacity to scream—nobody would have heard me through the door—but if I could have opened it, I would have had a chance. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it more than three steps before Luke hooked an arm around my chest—crushing my injury further—and pulled me against him. I could see the door—my means of escape—but I couldn’t reach it. I couldn’t even cry out in agony as he squeezed me harder. I just felt the tears run down my face as my mouth flew open, my silent scream unheard.
“This will all be over soon,” he said in my ear, holding me with one arm while he flipped the cap off the needle with his free hand. I wa
tched, helpless, as the sharp tip of it came toward my arm. “It’ll be over for your dad soon, too.…”
My eyes went wide at his words. While my brain absorbed his threat, I saw a familiar face pass by the narrow window in the door. It came back into view, peering in the room. Before I realized what was happening, Sheriff Higgins threw the door open, his gun drawn and trained on Luke.
“I’m gonna need you to put that down, Luke,” Sheriff Higgins said. There was a fearful determination in his eyes as he stared down my would-be murderer.
“Let’s not give the girl a false sense of hope now, Sheriff. We both know how this is going to end. How it has to end.…”
Higgins’ grip on his gun twitched before it clamped down even tighter.
“She’s too high profile,” the sheriff said. “You kill her and it’ll come out. He won’t be happy about that. We’ll all go down.”
“Not if you do your job. She’s troubled. Girls her age disappear all the time around these parts.…”
The sheriff’s expression went slack.
“And my son…?”
“I think you know the answer to that question already, Jack.”
“Shoot him,” I said weakly, drawing Sheriff Higgins’ attention to me.
“He knows he can’t do that,” Luke said, condescension dripping from his tone.
I looked down at the needle looming dangerously near my arm. All I needed was a distraction—just a little time to get away from him.
“Whatever they have on you,” I started, pinning my stare on Garrett’s dad, “it can’t be worth your son’s life. You already lost your wife. What’s left for you if you lose him, too?”
Sheriff Higgins’ eyes darted from me to Luke and back to me again. Then he took a step closer, his gun aimed at Luke’s head.
“You shoot and you’ll end up taking her out, too,” Luke said. “And nobody will be coming to your aid. You’ll find yourself in the cell next to her father.”
He took another step.
“My aim is pretty damn good.”
“You’d better hope so.”
I could feel Luke’s heart racing against my back, and I knew that time was running out. I looked up at the sheriff, begging him to focus on me. When his eyes met mine, I mouthed the words “on three.” Then I silently counted down.
Dare You to Lie Page 29
