by Chanel Ivy
It was after one in the morning, so calling Todd was out of the question. I decided to at least text him about Emma.
‘I found Emma. No need for you to worry. She has a broken leg and some other superficial wounds, but she’ll be okay. She’s at her beach house so as soon as I can come and get you, I will. It’ll probably be tomorrow afternoon. At least you’ll have tomorrow with your friends at school, and we’ll have the weekend to move your stuff to my house. I love you, little man!’
The read receipt showed up faster than I expected it to as well as the three dots showing me that Todd was responding.
‘Thanks for the update, Mom. I was so worried I couldn’t sleep. I’m glad she’s okay. Tell her I said to get better fast and that I can’t wait to see her and make fun of her hobbling around on crutches. Good night, Mom. I love you too.’
As I turned the corner of the parking lot to leave, I glanced at the back of the lot and saw the men hefting a sizeable black bag into the end of the white unmarked van. I said a quick goodbye to Mila as I pulled onto the one laned street.
The drive to Emma’s beach house was peaceful, unlike most of my hectic day. I reveled in the silence of the calm evening and the fresh air blowing through the windows. I enjoyed my solitude, but I couldn’t wait to make sure Emma was okay and slip into bed next to her.
I pulled into her driveway, and the white van Dr. Jenkins had loaded Emma into was still parked in front. I walked inside, and Nurse Simpson was in the kitchen washing her hands.
She nodded to me in greeting. “Miss. Cross is upstairs in the master bedroom, resting. You can go in, Miss. Blackburn.”
“How is she?” I asked.
“She’ll be fine. She has some minor burns on her arms, small cuts, and abrasions, only one of which required three stitches. The worst of her injuries are her broken left tibia and fibula. She’s going to require open reduction and internal fixation surgery to install screws and rods to hold the bones together, so they’ll heal properly. Dr. Jenkins has the surgery scheduled for first thing tomorrow morning. We’ve given her some pain medication, so she might be a little loopy, but as I said, you can go up.”
I had so many more questions, but they could wait. “Thank you, Jackie. I truly appreciate you and Dr. Jenkins taking care of her.”
“Our pleasure, Miss. Blackburn.”
It was hard to think that Nurse Jackie Simpson and Dr. Jenkins worked for The Company and were profiting off of human trafficking and child slavery. They seemed like such great people. I wanted to believe that The Company somehow forced them to work for them, or maybe, they didn’t know precisely what The Company was involved with.
I made my way upstairs to Emma’s room, and Dr. Jenkins was just leaving.
“Emma, how have you been? Your abrasions are healing well,” he said, grasping my shoulder gently.
I smiled up at him, “I’ve been doing well, Dr. Jenkins, thank you. I appreciate your amazing stitch work for leaving little to no marks. I’m putting vitamin e oil on the cuts daily, so I’m hoping they don’t leave any permanent scarring.”
“Very good. Be sure to share that vitamin e with Miss. Cross after her stitches come out. You and I know better than anyone how sensitive she is about her scars,” he reminded me.
“I know,” I replied solemnly.
“Well, Nurse Simpson and I will be downstairs for a while if you need me, but Nurse Simpson will be staying the night in the bedroom across the hall since we have Emma on morphine. Don’t be alarmed if Emma is a little out of it. It’s the medication. Rest assured that I’ll be by first thing in the morning to take her to my surgical clinic in Charlotte. I can text you the address if you’d like to be there when she comes out of surgery.”
“Yes, please. I appreciate that, doctor. How long will she be admitted for?” I asked.
“As long as her vitals are stable and there are no complications with the anesthesia, she’ll be transported home later in the afternoon. Jackie will stay at Emma’s house for a week or so after to make sure she’s okay with wound care, and there’s no infection and such.”
“Okay, thank you, Dr. Jenkins.”
“It’s my pleasure, my dear. Now, go be with her, and get some rest. You look tired, Mia.”
“I am. Have a good night, and I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“Until tomorrow, Mia. Good night.”
Shortly after he walked away, I got a text message from an unknown number with an address in Charlotte for a Surgical Center. I guess this is Dr. Jenkins’s cell number. I saved him in my contacts as ‘Doc J’ and pushed quietly through Emma’s bedroom door using the ambient light from my phone to navigate the room.
I found the bathroom and washed up as much as possible. I still had Mila’s crusted blood in the creases of my fingers. The memory of the bullet passing through her head spraying blood everywhere and Matt making me shove the screwdriver through her open wound made my skin crawl.
I scrubbed my face over and over again, trying to rub the memories away. Unfortunately, they remained. I decided that I couldn’t get into bed next to Emma with anything on my body that had been with us tonight, so I took a quick scalding hot shower. My flesh was bright pink from the hot water when I was done, but I felt slightly better as I put on a clean t-shirt from Emma’s closet.
I slowly crawled into the bed next to Emma, thankfully the side she was on kept her heavily bandaged left leg at the edge of the bed, so I wouldn’t accidentally bump it. My eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room, and I could clearly see Emma’s beautiful face in the dim moonlight. I brushed her hair away from her forehead gently, and she stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, and I whispered to her, “It’s okay, Emma. I’m here now. You’re safe. Go back to sleep.”
“No... no... not safe,” Emma mumbled as she battled the heaviness of her eyelids. “They...”
I rubbed my fingers down the side of her face trying to soothe her. “You’re safe, Emma. We’re at your beech house, in your bed. You’ve got a badly broken leg, and Dr. Jenkins has you on morphine, so you’re going to be out of it for a while. They’re going to do surgery in the morning to fix your leg, and I’ll be there when you wake up. I love you, Emma. Go back to sleep, sweetie.”
Emma’s head rocked back and forth like she was fighting the medication as hard as she could to stay awake. Her hand reached up and grasped my arm as tightly as she could before her eyes opened quickly, and she whispered, “They know...”
To be Continued...
HER
CARNAL UNDOING
Book Three of the
Her Carnal Games Series
By
Chanel Ivy
Copyright © 2019 by Forever Morris Publishing, LLC
This book is a work of fiction. The name, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, business establishments, or actual events, or organization(s) is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without written permission of the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of any author’s rights.
First Edition December 2019
Published by Forever Morris Publishing, LLC
ForeverMorrisPublishing.com
®
ISBN: 9781674771311
Chapter 1
I lay in bed next to a heavily sedated Emma. Her leg was badly broken from a helicopter crash that happened yesterday afternoon, and she had struggled through the fog of medication she was given long enough to tell me, “They know.” Then she passed out again. Thanks for the cryptic message, Emma.
They who, though? And what was it that they knew?
There were so many things going on at the moment; her warning could be for any number of circumstances curren
tly whirling around our orbit. The detectives might have figured out that Stuart’s murder wasn’t actually committed by his ex-girlfriend, who mysteriously died from an aneurysm her first night in custody. Or it could be The Company found out, according to Matt, that Emma had been working with him and Innocence Inc. to bring their trafficking empire down for the last few years. Or maybe it was the police figuring out that Ben’s recent home invasion wasn’t random, and the death of the perpetrators they caught wasn’t just some accidental overdose. Perhaps the cops knew about Ben’s illegal business. Could it be that Ben’s business partners knew he had incriminating evidence on them that was stolen, and now there’s a bounty on Ben’s head? Or was it that The Company found out I lied to them and I hadn’t killed Mila Muller with the screwdriver as I told them? Did they know it was actually Matt who shot her in the head?
There were just too many things going on to know for sure, and I was definitely too tired to entertain any of the possibilities. I was going to drive myself crazy if I tried to prepare for every conceivable situation, so I gave up and decided that sleep was my best option. It was already two in the morning, and I was exhausted. I curled up next to Emma, kissed her shoulder gently, and closed my eyes.
I think I had a dream about someone telling me they were giving me something to help me sleep, but I couldn’t be sure. I can only assume it may have actually happened because when I woke up the next morning, the sun was shining brightly through the windows, and Emma was gone. There was no way Nurse Simpson and Dr. Jenkins could have moved her out of the room from the bed next to me without waking me up if I wasn’t drugged. But why would they do that?
I looked at the clock, and it was already after ten. Shit.
I grabbed a pair of jeans from the drawer and a sweatshirt. I threw on the clothes quickly before grabbing my phone from the charging station next to the bed. I had a message from Todd checking on Emma, and one from Doctor Jenkins at eight this morning saying they were taking Emma into surgery and then one from a few minutes ago saying they were wheeling Emma to the recovery room now and that the operation was successful with no complications.
The news was a huge relief and helped to lower my blood pressure significantly. I quickly typed a text response to Todd first.
‘Emma needed surgery to set her broken leg, but the doctors just finished up, and all is well. I’m going to see her now in recovery, but she’s in Charlotte. I’ll touch base with you later today about what time I’ll be by to pick you up later tonight. Have a good day at school. I love you.’
Todd was already in class by now, so I didn’t expect a response until at least lunchtime. Cliffton High is very strict with its cell phone policy, as I would expect any school to be nowadays.
My next message was to Dr. Jenkins, letting him know that I was on my way from the beach house now. I was not looking forward to a four-hour drive to Charlotte, but I didn’t think I could ever entertain the thought of getting on a helicopter again. Not after what happened to Anna, Jack, and Emma yesterday. I also still wondered what had caused the crash. Matt did say the accident was suspicious. I’d have to remember to talk to him about that later.
I ran through the empty house, making my way to the garage, being sure to lock all of the doors behind me. As I was about to get into my car, I saw a dark figure from my peripheral vision, quickly filling my gut with dread. I grabbed my keys in my fist, each key pointing out from between my clenched knuckles like daggers prepared to strike at any possible threat.
A familiar voice laughed, “Chill, Mia. It’s just me, Matt.”
I sighed with relief as I released my death-grip on my key chain. “What the hell are you doing here? You know Emma has cameras all over her property, and The Company probably has access to them, right?”
Matt smiled before hugging me, “Come on now, girl. Do you take me for some kind of idiot? I’ve been doing this long enough that I know where every camera’s blind spot is, and I can ‘stay in the shadows,’” Matt said, using a fake spooky voice with air quotes, making me laugh.
“Well, until yesterday, I only thought you were my assistant and not some super-spy, double agent person.”
“If I teach you anything, young grasshopper, it should be that looks can be deceiving. Trust must be earned and never given away freely.” Matt said with his version of a debonair smirk.
“What? I’m older than you. Stop pretending to be wise beyond your years, you, Mr. Miyagi wannabe.”
“Oh, you think it’s funny, huh? Then how did I sneak into your room last night and drug you, so we’d be able to have this conversation?” he said, straightening his back and puffing up his chest like he was proud of himself.
“What? That was you? What the hell, Matt? I needed to drive to Charlotte as early as possible, so I could be there when Emma woke up. Now she’s going to wake up all alone and think I abandoned her. The last thing she might remember before Mila kidnapped her was that we had a huge fight. She probably still thinks I’m mad at her. Damn it, Matt.”
“Don’t worry, you two will work it all out. Now listen, I need you to keep the tracker on your car, so if you get a new vehicle, I need you to know where it is so you can take it off and transfer it to your new one.”
“How... how did you... never mind.”
“Yeah, listening in on your phone calls means reading your text’s too.”
“Is nothing I do private anymore? Do you know what kind of tampons I use?” I said sarcastically.
“I’d prefer not to answer that,” Matt smiled.
“Damn, really?”
“We’re getting off-topic. When you get to the end of the street up here,” Matt pointed to the end of Emma’s private road, “make a left and follow that all the way down. There’s a storage place on the right, pull in that parking lot, and I’ll meet you there to show you exactly where the tracker is and how to take it off and put it back on. Lastly, we need to think of a codeword that if you text it to your ex-husband, that will be a red flag to me that you’re in trouble, and I need to come get you.”
I looked at Matt questioningly. “Codeword? And why would I send it to my ex-husband and not you?”
“I’m monitoring your text’s so I can set up an alert to flag that particular word and your ex-husband, so it doesn’t tie back to me. The Company’s already looking into Ben for various reasons, so if you text him something odd when you’re in trouble, it’ll throw them off of me.”
“I may hate Ben, but I’m not willing to put him in any further danger than he’s already in. Especially with The Company. I’ve seen their handiwork and as much negative history as Ben and I have, I don’t want to see my son’s father in a body bag.”
“Well, then who?” Matt asked, shrugging his shoulders.
“How about some random non-working number? Will you get the notification even if the text doesn’t go through?”
“That’s actually a great idea, Mia. I told you you were smart as hell,” Matt laughed. “So, what’s the word I should be looking for? It should be something easy for you to text in a stressful situation, but not something you would typically send as a one-word text to anyone, so I don’t get false notifications and come running, blowing my cover for no good reason.”
I stared at my phone for a while, thinking of the right word before it popped into my head, “Bent. It’s a quick four-letter word to type, and I would never send it to anyone usually.”
“Weird, but bent, it is. Now, let’s go. Meet me in that parking lot, so you can get to Emma’s side and make sure our girl is okay,” Matt said before turning to leave.
“Wait! I yelled. “Emma said something to me last night before she fell back into her morphine-induced slumber. She said, ‘they know.’ Does that mean anything to you? It could mean a ton of things to me, but I don’t have the brain capacity at the moment or the information to piece it together. I figured you might.”
“Hmm,” Matt mumbled as he froze in place with his hand to his chin, thinking. “I can’t t
hink of any specific chatter I’ve heard about anything that would pinpoint who ‘they’ are and what they would know. See if you can get Emma alone and ask her if she remembers what she was talking about. Until then, we can’t worry about it since we don’t have enough information. See you in the parking lot.”
And with that, Matt was gone, and I was left standing alone next to my car and a lot more unanswered questions.
Chapter 2
I met Matt in the parking lot as he requested, and he showed me how to remove and reinstall the tracking device. It seemed easy enough. I just wondered how I was going to manage to get it off of the Maserati and onto whatever new car I bought without looking like a weirdo at the dealership.
“So, now that I have you here where I assume we can speak freely...” I whispered just in case.
“Yeah, we’re safe. What’s up?”
“What isn’t up is probably an easier question to answer at the moment. You mentioned that The Company is looking into Ben for various reasons. Explain that a little more, please.”
Mat looked at me like he’d rather be anywhere but here answering my questions, but he conceded defeat and began spilling the details I needed. “As we all know, The Company traffics kids and other various commodities to wealthy buyers on the black market. Because of this, they’re always looking for a new way to move things across state lines in order to get them to ports where they can be shipped overseas. Ben has been running liquor illegally for several years and has yet to be caught, so he’s doing something right. After doing some background on you, which included Ben, they figured out how he was making his money. The Company had someone approach him to do business, but I guess Ben wasn’t getting good vibes or whatever and denied having anything to do with shipping illegal goods threatening to call the police on The Companies representative. In their eyes, that left them no choice but to find out his methods another way. That’s why they hired those idiots who broke into Ben’s house. They were instructed to steal all of his computers and everything out of his safe for The Company. Anything else they nabbed would be theirs to keep.”
