Read Edge of Sanity: An Edge Novel Online
Authors: Shannon K. Butcher
Edge of Sanity: An Edge Novel (12 page)
Buddy rolled away, holding his neck. His face turned red and his mouth gaped open as he struggled to suck in air. Clay didn’t wait for him to pass out. He slammed his elbow into the man’s temple, rendering him unconscious. Chances were his throat was crushed and he wouldn’t ever wake up, but after pointing a weapon at Leigh, it was exactly what he deserved.
Leigh scrambled from the brush and raced to where Clay stood. She was shaking hard, and so pale he could count every one of her freckles. Fear and horror haunted her dark eyes. Her hands fluttered over his face as if making sure she wasn’t seeing things.
“Are you okay?”
Clay gave a tight nod. Adrenaline and rage were still riding him hard, making him want to lash out and crush something with his bare hands. The buzzing roar in his head was quieting more with every breath, but it wasn’t gone yet. He had to fight it every step of the way, and until it was gone, he didn’t trust himself.
He took a long step back, moving out of her reach. “Stay here,” he barked. Then he went to each man, patting down their pockets. He found car keys, which he flung into the brush. The cash he pocketed. Their wallets, complete with their IDs, went into Clay’s pocket for disposal elsewhere.
Leigh bent over Buddy, feeling for a pulse. “He’s dead.”
Clay said nothing. He simply grabbed Buddy by the arms and started dragging him into the woods.
She followed him. “What are you doing?”
“Someone could walk by at any minute. I’m not leaving their bodies out in the open.”
“What about him?” she asked, pointingskee=" to Horseshoe Head. His ID had listed his name as Lew Argel, but the chances of that being his real name were slim.
Clay considered killing him—something he never would have done a few days ago. But a lot had happened in those few days, and Lew had seen Leigh. With Clay. If Lew was walking around, breathing, he was a threat to her.
“We could question him,” she said. “He’ll wake up in a few hours.”
“And just how am I going to get him to the car without someone seeing him? We’re sure as hell not going to hang out here for the next group of thugs to arrive. Whoever this doctor is, he apparently knows where I’ve been and that I’m retracing my steps. Staying here is too dangerous.”
Leigh bit her lip in indecision. “I’ve got some stimulants in my bag. I could wake him. It’s a risk, but seeing as how I’ve already assaulted him—”
“You’re not touching that car—not until we know what they did to it.”
“Okay. I’ll stay with him. You go back and check out the car.”
Clay wanted information. He wanted to know what Lew had meant when he’d talked about that thing the doctor had Clay do last month. Maybe knowing that would lead him back to the asshole pulling the strings.
And maybe it wouldn’t.
The longer they were here, the greater the risk. Without a guarantee of information, the reward wasn’t worth it. If it had been just Clay, he would have done it in a heartbeat, but Leigh was here, too. He had to remember that, even if it meant giving up a chance at information he desperately wanted.
Besides, he could tell she didn’t want to do it. Guilt plagued her expression, and her posture had closed in, making her look smaller. He didn’t want to be the jerk who pushed her to do illegal, unethical things simply because of something he wanted.
He’d find another way—one that didn’t force Leigh to do bad things. She’d already done enough of those for him.
Including risk her life to knock Lew out. Clay shoved the memory from his immediate thoughts. He couldn’t function with that kind of fear and fury churning through him. He had to concentrate on the job at hand and get both men out of sight of the trail before someone stumbled by.
Later, he promised himself, he’d let her know just how he felt about what she’d done. Later, he’d tell her how reckless she’d been, and how if she ever took that kind of risk again, he was going to tie her to a hote
l bed somewhere and leave her there for the maids to find. By then he’d be long gone.
Of course, once the image of her splayed on a bed was in his head, it took on a life of its own.
Leigh was fucking with his concentration. Maybe she didn’t mean to, but she was rattling him all the same. Cold and methodical. That’s what he needed to be right now, but instead, his blood was running hot, his mind churning with fear that had the power to weaken him and make him hesitate.
The only thing he could think tocou fo do was pretend she wasn’t there, so that’s what he did. He slung Lew’s limp body over his shoulder and hiked out into the woods.
Chapter Fourteen
L
eigh was not a child. She was not an idiot. She’d done what needed to be done, and if Clay was too angry to see that, then screw him.
She tromped back to her car, being careful to keep an eye out for more strange cars. The lot was as she’d left it, with a couple of RVs and the shiny black Mustang parked near the exit.
Her belongings were still in the bathroom where she’d left them. She found a long stick and used a hair tie to attach her compact mirror to it. She wasn’t sure what they’d done to her car, but that man hadn’t been under there long enough to do much.
There were no puddles of fuel, coolant, or brake fluid. As she used the mirror to scan the undercarriage, she saw no obvious wires or hoses cut. What she did find was a cell phone duct taped in a shallow recess. There was nothing connected to it—no wires or bricks of plastic explosives.
Leigh scooted under the car far enough to see it better. The ground beneath her was frigid, and a rock was digging into her back. As gently as she could, she peeled back one side of the tape. The phone flopped down, dangling from the remaining tape.
There was definitely nothing else holding it on to her car, so she eased the tape free and shimmied out with the phone in her hand.
It was on. The GPS had been activated. Her guess was that they were planning to use it to track her car’s location.
A quick scroll through text messages and calls revealed a fight with a girlfriend and a bet on some football game. There was voice mail, but without the password, Leigh couldn’t listen to it. But maybe Mira, in all her technical glory, could.
Leigh removed the battery and slipped the phone into her suitcase. She’d ship it, along with the other two phones she’d collected, to Mira as soon as she could.
Clay came into view, and she could tell by his walk that he was furious. His steps carried none of his usual grace, and his chin was down as if he were getting set to charge. Before he could start screaming and draw attention to them, she got into the car and started it up. She’d just adjusted the seat so she could reach the pedals when he got in beside her.
“Before you throw a fit, I want you to know that I checked the car. They’d taped a phone to it. My guess is that they wanted to use the GPS to track us.”
“I see,” he said, his tone frighteningly calm. “You just crawled under there and checked it out.”
“I used a mirror on a stick. I was careful.”
“Like you were when you stabbed that man in the ass? Was that the kind of careful you were, Leigh?”
He had no right to be mad at her. to be mth="eed the pI did what I had to do to make sure you didn’t get killed. Both of those men had guns. They would have shot you. I’ve seen gunshot wounds. I know what they can do to a body.” And she couldn’t tolerate the thought of seeing that kind of damage done to Clay. The mere idea made her stomach curl in with nausea.
“I had it under control.”
Now it was her turn to be mad. Anger burned under her skin, heating it until she could feel the flush sweep over her. When she spoke, her voice was hot as well, aiming her boiling frustration right at him. “Like hell you did. You haven’t been in control of yourself for weeks. Maybe longer. If you don’t believe that, then you’re fooling yourself and it’s going to get both of us killed.”
She put the car in gear and hit the road, too furious to sit still in the parking lot.
“You’re free to walk away whenever you like. Now is good,” he said.
“No. I do that and Garrett is doomed to stay in that prison forever. You’re my best shot at seeing him free, so like it or not, you’re stuck with me.”
“You’re just like the others, aren’t you? Willing to use anyone at any time so long as you get your way.”
“This isn’t some petulant whim,” she snapped, gripping the wheel tighter. “I already lost one brother, and I’m not going to let you force me to lose another.”
“So instead, you’re going to make him lose you, is that it?”
The speedometer hit eighty, and she eased up the pressure on the accelerator. “I’m the best chance he has, which means you’re the best chance he has. If that means using you, then consider yourself used.”
Clay fell silent. She didn’t know where she was going, and she was too angry about his questioning her ability to ask. The miles flew by as she headed back toward Dallas. At the first major town, they stopped and she shipped the phones overnight to Mira. When she got back in the car, he was watching her with expectation. He squinted and shielded his eyes from the sun.
She said nothing in a petty effort to get back at him. Let him wonder what she was doing. Served him right.
“You’re not going to tell me what that was about, are you?” he asked.
“Why should I? You’ve made it clear you don’t want my help.”
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat. His voice came out flat and defeated. “What I want and what I need are two different things.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I need you, as much as I hate the idea. You’re the only thing standing between me and a straitjacket.”
He still hadn’t looked at her. His eyes were closed, and his hand covered them as if the light hurt. Now that she looked at him closely, she could see brackets of pain etched around his mouth and a fine tremor in his fingers.
“Did you get hurt back there?”
“It’s just a headache.”
“I have aspirin in my purse.”
“No, I’ll puke those up. This one’s bad.”
“You say that like you’ve been through this before.”
“I have. It happens sometimes, after the blackouts.”
“But you didn’t black out. Did you?”
“No, but it was close.”
She pondered that, wondering about the implications. “Do you remember what made you feel like you were going to . . . you know.”
“Go batshit crazy?” he asked, not lifting his head. “Yeah. I saw that fucker pull a gun on you. I almost lost it right there.”
“You were afraid?”
“Understatement of the decade.”
“Do you think that it’s fear that makes you lose it?”
He let out a long sigh laced with pain. “I don’t know, Leigh. And don’t take this the wrong way, but right now, it’s all I can do to keep from puking all over your car. I’m not up for any complicated puzzles.”
Garrett and Hollis had headaches like this, too. None of the meds they’d tried had worked. All that helped was a cool, dark, quiet room.
Leigh found a small motel and got a room out of sight of the street. She got him inside, pulled the curtains. It was too dangerous to leave the door open, so she turned on the AC unit so that it poured cold air into the stuffy room. Clay put his gun on the bedside table and collapsed face-first onto the bed.
“I could give you something for the headache,” she told him.
“I’ll be fine in a few minutes, and I can’t afford to be slowed by drugs right now.”
She accepted his decision and pulled his boots and socks from his feet. She doused a washcloth in cold water and draped it over the back of his neck to help with the nausea.
He didn’t fight her, which told her louder than words just how much he was suffering.
Leigh felt helpless, and she was no good at that. She had to do something, to fix the problem. She couldn’t just sit around and watch him hurt.
His whole body was tense, which probably wasn’t helping matters. Minute vibrations ran through his forearms, tightening muscles and tendons.
Leigh stroked his arm, hoping her light touch would soothe him in some small way.
He groaned into the pillow, giving her wordless permission to keep touching.
The hair along his arm was soft. His skin was hot beneath her fingertips. She inertuching.
Clay sat up enough to pull both shirts off over his head, stripping himself to the waist.
Leigh’s breath caught in her throat. It wasn’t his action that surprised her as much as it was the trust he’d offered. He hated doctors. He knew she had the power to disable him and that she’d already done so twice. It would be nothing for her to do so again.
The temptation to go against his wishes and give him something for the pain was nearly a compulsion. She hated his suffering. But if she drugged him, she’d snap that fragile thread of trust he’d extended to her, likely forever. So rather than following her need to ease his pain, Leigh followed her instincts and simply accepted his silent invitation to touch him.
The wide expanse of his back should not have been as intriguing as it was. She’d seen plenty of naked men before, but never had they made her feel this kind of quivering weakness. As cold as the room was, he seemed to radiate heat. The aging AC unit hummed beneath the window, as loud as her frantic pulse beating in her ears.
Leigh stroked his back, petting him. She was careful of the colorful bruises along his ribs, barely grazing over them. The tightly corded muscles flanking his spine began to loosen after a few minutes. His breathing deepened and evened into that of sleep.
She could have stopped touching him. She probably should have stopped touching him. But she liked the feel of his skin beneath her hand too much. The subtle dips and contours of his back and the changes in the temperature of his skin intrigued her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been with a man like this. Maybe she never had. It wasn’t wholly sexual, but it wasn’t completely innocent, either. At least not if the tingling heat sliding through her was any indication.
Leigh was no longer chilly, even with the arctic air blowing from the vents. A melting warmth spread through her limbs and curled in her belly. The feeling was as intoxicating as it was inconvenient. Desire had been absent from her life for a long time. She’d been focused solely on finding help for Garrett, with little time for a social life. And the few dates she’d been on hadn’t evoked even a fraction of the languid need she felt now.
Not that she would act on it. Wanting something and taking it were two distinct and separate things, and she refused to do anything that might jeopardize Garrett’s freedom. Or Clay’s. If they failed to find the person behind his blackouts, she knew that Clay would end up locked in a cell next to her brother’s.
That hard fact cooled her libido and sent blood racing to her brain, where it belonged.
The best thing for Clay now was sleep. And it was best for her, too. Knowing he was no longer suffering eased something inside her, allowing her to relax fractionally.
Leigh forced herself to leave his side and got off the bed. There wasn’t a whole lot she could do, so she grabbed the thick stack of pages of data Mira had compiled and sat down at the little round table by the window. She crackeow.atid the curtains open to let in enough light to read and started scanning the numbers.
A few hours later, she started noticing a pattern. The tiny notepad by the phone became filled with coordinates and dates as she made connections from one week to the next. She was so excited by her discovery that she briefly considered waking Clay to tell him. Even as she discarded the idea, her gaze strayed from the pages to where he lay sleeping on the bed. Only he wasn’t sleeping anymore. He was watching her.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Better.”
He was on his side, his arm curled under the pillow. The sight of his bare chest captured her attention. She’d seen it before but was still mesmerized by how beautifully he was built. Lean muscles shifted along his ribs and abdomen as he sat up, making her fingers itch with the need to touch him again.
She cast her gaze back to the paper in front of her, seeing none of the numbers she knew were there. His image still blazed in her mind, so bright it cast a shadow over everything else.
“You’re cold,” he said.
She had been a moment ago, but not any longer. Her internal thermostat had kicked in, heating her from the inside out. “I’m okay.”
He got off the bed and reached past her to turn off the AC unit. She felt his warmth, smelled his skin, as he drew close. His was a familiar scent now—one that had the power to excite her in ways no other man’s ever had. She knew he was dangerous, but she’d also seen the gentler side of him. The wounded side.
It called to her on a deep level—one she hated admitting she had. She was too smart to want a broken man in her life, and yet the idea of turning him away left her dissatisfied and empty.
Maybe she was the one who was broken.
Leigh could feel him hovering nearby. He hadn’t moved away. She could see his bare feet in her peripheral vision and had to steel herself against the need to let her gaze wander up his legs.
Her hair shifted, and it took her a second to realize that he’d touched it. She froze, unsure of what she felt. The strands tugged against her scalp again, and his fingertips brushed across the nape of her neck.
Her hair was probably a wreck. It always was when she didn’t keep it tied back and under control.
Self-conscious of her appearance, she glanced up at him. Rather than finding an amused grin at how ridiculous she looked, what greeted her was an expression of sheer enjoyment.
