BITCH (A Romantic Suspense Novel) (18 page)

Thirty-Six

"Get up."

Erin did. There were times for fighting back, but Erin didn't feel as if this were one of them. Staring down a man twice her size who looked like he could wrestle a bear and do all right for himself, moments after she woke up, might not be the best time.

She tried to see without looking if her gun was still on the bedside table, with the hope that he might have overlooked it. If he had, which was unlikely, and she got a chance, which was equally unlikely, it would do more than even the odds.

But the table was empty. No miracles today, she thought. Sad, because things could have been going so well. She pushed herself all the way upright.

"Hands where I can see them."

She moved her hands on top of the blanket. She was extremely aware of how little clothing she was wearing, little more than a shirt over… well, nothing at all, really.

She had to hope that someone was going to come and check on her. Someone had to, right? Craig had spent so much damn time keeping check on her that it was absurd that he wouldn't look in on her. Then again, perhaps he'd sent this guy.

Erin tried to draw her breaths evenly, but they came in unsteady waves.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"What are your intentions with my brother?"

Erin blinked and screwed up her face.

"Intentions? Brother?"

He slapped her. It wasn't hot or fun. His hand came across her face like a club, and left her face feeling like someone had lit it on fire.

"What are your intentions with my brother?"

The question didn't make any more sense the second time. Erin tried to figure out what answer he wanted, but she couldn't answer a question she didn't understand.

"Who is your brother? I don't underst—"

The second hit was somehow harder than the first, and sent her sprawling down onto the bed, folded in half like a barbie doll. It took her a second to figure out which way 'up' was before she managed to get herself back into a seated position.

"You goddamn bitches are all the same. You don't know the first thing about relationships, do you?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You don't know one God damned thing about decency or respect for other people. Nothing about morality."

"What?"

Part of her knew that she should be trying to placate him. Every thing she was saying was just making him angrier, and it was only a matter of time before things started going very bad. She needed to figure out what he wanted to hear. Morality? Decency and respect? Intentions?

He sounded like he was straight out of the fifties, with this 'what are your intentions with my daughter' crap. But with my brother? She hadn't ever heard anyone even suggest it.

He raised his hand again. "Wait! Wait, okay, please. One second. I just woke up."

"Talk fast, girly."

"Give me a second, please. I just need a minute."

"You have ten seconds."

She used them to rub her eyes clear. The guy wore his hair very short. It might have been to hide the fact that he was thinning on top. She was confident that she'd recognize him if she saw the guy again, and she was doubly confident that she had never seen the man before in her life. If she knew his brother, then there wasn't an incredible amount of family resemblance.

"I'm sorry. Intentions, you said. Intentions. I mean—I don't know, do I? I've only been seeing him a couple of days."

"Don't you bull-shit me, bitch."

So much for decency and respect, Erin thought glumly.

"I'm not! I only met him a week ago or so. It's not exactly time to start talking about marriage, right? We're still…"

She trailed off when she saw exactly how little effect this argument was having on the man in front of her. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up out of bed. When he saw the clothes she was—or wasn't—wearing, he looked her up and down with increasing disgust.

"Get dressed."

He sat down in one of the hotel-room chairs watched her dress. Erin could feel his eyes on her every instant, as if he might see if she even thought about reaching for something. He didn't have to pay such close attention; she didn't have anything to reach for.

Erin dressed quickly and tried to do her best not to put anything on display for him. Something about the way that he looked at her, like she was human filth, told her that he wouldn't have gotten much enjoyment out of it if she'd put on a proper show. That didn't change how she felt about it.

"Let's go," he said. He tapped the blade of a knife against a chair. "And don't try anything, or you'll find out what happens."

Erin didn't put up a fight. She couldn't afford to show any sort of resistance, not when he was holding that knife. And she knew better than to assume that he was going to put it down.

They made their way side-by-side toward the elevator. Someone had to check on her, right? If the F.B.I. hadn't caught Craig by now, then things should have settled down enough to at least send someone by to make sure she was settled in alright. If they had, then Roy would come by any minute now. Roy, with his pistol.

She took a deep breath and tried not to think about it. She could only jinx her chances, if she gave it too much hope. Just look for an opportunity to make a break for it. The guy has a knife, that limits his range pretty badly. Erin took a breath.

The elevator doors opened on a cleaning lady who smiled at them in the way that service employees smile at someone who they won't remember the face of in ten minutes. There went another hope for getting out of here. She got into the elevator next to the guy because he told her to.

The trip down was in silence. She was too afraid to break it, and he didn't seem that interested in talking. She didn't know where they were going, but she knew she wasn't going to like it.

"We'll take your car," he said softly.

"My keys—I mean, I didn't bring them. You didn't tell me to—"

"Don't lie to me."

She zipped her lips. She could feel her keys, suddenly heavier in her pocket, as if the weight of his knowing about them had just been added.

"I'm sorry," she said. Soft, de-escalating. Demure, even. It was a struggle, with this asshole. On her home turf, in her city, and she was playing the mewling kitten with a guy who would normally have her pumps ankle-deep in his ass for treating her like this.

Erin took a breath and started out across the lot. She looked around for a government car, looked for a motorcycle, looked for anything that was going to help her get out of this god damned situation unscathed. She couldn't take a good look without being conspicuous, but she didn't see anything.

She slipped into the driver's seat of the Jeep, he slipped into the passenger side. He took the knife back out of his pocket, pressed the blade edge against her.

"Drive real careful, now." He dug it a little into the thin fabric of her shirt, enough to let her feel the razor-edge burr on the blade. "And don't forget to wear your seatbelt."

Thirty-Seven

The thug beside her noticed the tail a few seconds after Erin did. She had tried not to notice, but that didn't change anything when he muttered, "We got someone following us. God damnit. Turn left here."

She turned left, still unsure where in the hell they were going, except that she didn't want to go there with this guy no matter where it was.

"Step on it."

She put the power down in the car after her momentary hesitation led to another sharp poke in the belly that reminded her exactly what was at stake here. It was all fun and games, all playful pokes, until that knife slipped hilt-deep into her stomach. Because at that point, if she didn't make a hospital in a matter of minutes, the game would be over. It would be a slow death, but even the first stab would do it, if he gave it a good effort.

The Jeep made the sort of unhappy roar that cars with their mufflers only-half-attached made, and sped off. She lifted when they hit the speed limit. He jabbed her again, and she broke it.

The car behind them—that is, the truck behind them—sped up to match. Whoever was responsible for this tail, if they knew how to hide, they also knew when they were made. They came up hard and fast, but didn't try to overtake. Instead, they just slotted in behind her and waited.

Why couldn't they get their god damned acts together and figure out what was happening here? Couldn't someone deal with this psychopath?

She took a breath in that pressed her belly against the blade again, and her breath hitched in her lungs, not wanting to go in and not wanting to breathe out.

She forced the air out of her lungs. With that knife there, she couldn't afford to take any risks with the car, not even if she wanted to. Not this far from a hospital. Not if she couldn't be absolutely certain that the guy was going to eat it.

The truck was close enough now that when she looked into it she could see. Roy was sitting in the driver's seat, his expression almost bored. Someone was behind him in the extended cab, but she couldn't make him out besides that he was big. She had her guesses, though.

"Faster," the man with the knife growled, pushing hard enough to draw blood and stain her white shirt.

"I can't go any faster. I'm already going as fast as it goes."

He cursed and pulled the knife back a moment. Erin looked in the mirror at Roy, hoping that he would somehow pick up on her body language.

"A right here." She jerked the wheel right. She could feel the car threatening to tip and roll over on its lid. This driving was a hundred times too aggressive for the already-ruined suspension on this Jeep, but if she really wanted to, she could have made damn sure it flipped. The truck blew past at seventy miles an hour.

Erin's eyes dropped to the big man's waist, and she held back a curse. Wearing his seatbelt? What kind of psycho did that? She had been hoping that she could flip it and send him head-first into the concrete. But that wasn't going to happen now.

Erin slowed the car, and noted that the guy didn't tell her to speed up.

"Pull over here."

She did what she was told. Not much else choice, after all. They weren't in the slums like her sister had been, or the other women. By itself, that helped, but somehow Erin didn't get the feeling that it mattered all that much to this guy.

"Let's go."

She slid out of the car. An industrial district, though. Nowhere to run, and nobody to run to. She could hope that she could outrun the guy, of course. She'd always been fit. But looking the guy up and down one more time told her that she would do well not to rely on his being in poor fitness.

She did what she was told, followed where he directed.

He fished a key out of his pocket and pushed it into a keyhole until it clicked home, and then unlocked the door. He grabbed her arm and pushed her in hard enough that Erin nearly stumbled over her own feet.

"You should have stayed away," he growled.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"No, you didn't. They raise you like this. Sluts and whores. They tell you that it's fine to fuck around until you're in your thirties, and you hear that for your entire life—you get to believing it. Well, not any more. Not around my family."

Erin wasn't worried about dying any more. It was a strange sensation. She wasn't ready. There were a thousand things that she had left to do, people she needed to talk to, things she needed to correct.

None of those things were going to convince this guy that she should live. None of them were going to change the fact that she was absolutely going to die, and her mind seemed to decide that that meant there wasn't much point in worrying after all.

Instead, she looked around. There was a large section cleared here, but all around was glassware and folding tables. It didn't take a genius to recognize a meth lab in the halfway light.

"Say your prayers. You can have sixty seconds to make your peace with God."

Erin shifted to sit up and closed her eyes, folded her hands. She didn't have anything to say to God. It was God who took Mom away. Erin hadn't been inside a church since the funeral, and she wasn't planning on taking the practice back up.

She prayed anyways, if only to get the man to give her just one more minute. Erin heard the noise of steps outside, and then everything exploded all around.

A gunshot sounded, and an instant later she heard the door slam open. In the time it took for her brain to register what she was hearing she heard the noise of a grenade hitting the ground, heard the loud pop that made it so she wouldn't be able to hear anything else for the better part of half an hour.

Her eyes were closed, but even that couldn't keep out the bright white flash of light that burned itself onto her retinas in spite of her closed eyes. A trillion miles away, someone shouted something about getting down. She didn't move. Arms scooped her up and set her on her feet.

She opened her eyes, her vision swimming, on Roy Schafer. He was saying something, but she couldn't hear him. She blinked, hoping that would help her hearing, but it didn't.

She shouted as loud as she could that she couldn't hear him. It sounded a little louder than a whisper over the sound of the ringing in her ears.

Roy pulled her in tight, held her there for what felt like an eternity, but when he pulled back she wanted that eternity back. As soon as her hearing came back, she would be back on her  way to the hotel, and he would be getting the hell out of town.

So the longer that her hearing stayed gone, the longer that they stood there together in that stinking meth-lab warehouse, the better, because as much as she didn't want to admit it to herself, she wasn't going to get another chance at it.