Wreckless (5 page)

“
For what? We won’t be
here all night; we have to find somewhere to get rid of them before
daybreak.”

“
You still don’t want to
leave her in the car? What if someone pulls up?”

“
I doubt that. Have you
taken a look around? This place is deserted and it’s late. I can’t
imagine anybody pulling up.”

“
Still, we have to be
safe,” he said.

“
Whatever -- you get her
out.”

Maurice opened the back door and pulled
Saundra out, throwing her over his shoulder. He walked to the room,
which only took him five steps. He heard Jasmine slam the car door.
He slid the key card in and went inside. Jasmine walked in behind
him, closing the door.

“
Put her in the bathroom.
I don’t want to have to look at her face.”

He took her in and sat her down on the cold
tile floor. She wiggled into a corner next to the tub, pulling her
legs to her chest. Maurice felt horrible. Saundra looked and acted
like a scared child folded up in the corner. Tears were steadily
streaming down her face and her eyes were red. Her face was
completely wet and the duct tape around her mouth glistened. There
were no shoes on her battered and dry feet. Saundra mumbled.
Maurice took the tape off of her mouth so she could speak.

“
Pa - pa - pa - please don
- don’t kill me,” she stuttered.

“
I’m not going to kill
you,” he promised. Maurice looked over his shoulder, then back to
Saundra. “I’m going to get you out of here. I don’t know how yet,
but I’m working on it.”

Saundra cried harder. She didn’t believe
him. Why would he help her now? She felt certain that he was
telling her what she needed to hear to calm her down.

“
I thought you would be
happy about that,” he said.

“
You - you’re lying,” she
said. “Don’t lie to me! Oh, my God! My mother, my brother --
they’ll never see me again. They’ll wonder what happened. I won’t
be able to tell them. Oh, God! I don’t want to die! I promise I
won’t tell anybody. Please! You’ve got to believe me!” she
begged.

“
Well, we don’t believe
you, so just shut up!” Jasmine said. She walked around Maurice and
stretched the tape back over Saundra’s mouth. “Why would you take
the tape off her mouth? Do you want her to scream?” she
asked.

“
She was trying to speak.
I can’t hear what she need to say with tape around her mouth,
Jasmine.”

“
Who cares what she has to
say?” she said, walking out of the bathroom.

Maurice followed her, “You know, you need to
show more compassion. Where is your humanity?”

Jasmine turned to him and took off her
shirt, wiggling out of her jeans and flipping off her shoes.

“
What’s human about
compassion? I’m tired of that, it never got me anywhere so
compassion no longer lives here,” she said.

With that, Maurice was convinced she was
pure evil. Jasmine claimed that it was all an accident, but she
acted as if it wasn’t. Besides, he’d seen the rage in her when she
burst through Teresa’s bedroom door.

Her panty and bra set was lace, see-through,
and matching, which would’ve turned him on in an ordinary situation
where he wasn’t repulsed by the girl.

“
Would you like to do the
honors?” she said.

“
You know what? I’ve got
just the thing to set this off.” Jasmine’s eyebrows arched,
intrigued by what he meant. “There is a bottle of Lanson Champagne
in the trunk of my truck and I saw an ice machine on the first
floor on the front side.”

A smile creased her face. Jasmine was in
Heaven. Looking into his eyes was more than a dream for her now. To
have the pleasure to experience his smile and sexiness was all she
ever wanted.

“
I’ll go get it,” he
said.

“
No,” Jasmine said softly.
“I’ll go get it. When I get back, I want you comfortable and
waiting for me. We’ve got more than enough time to enjoy each other
and still get rid of our problems.”

She walked closer to him and kissed his
lips. Her arms stretched around his neck and she embraced him,
bringing him closer. Going along with it, Maurice put his arms
around her and kissed her like she was the love of his life. For
more than half a minute, they stood in each other’s arms kissing.
Maurice was the one who came up for air because had it been left up
to Jasmine, she would’ve never stopped.

“
Come back,” she said,
going in to kiss him again.

“
The champagne,” he
whispered.

Jasmine giggled. “Oh yeah. I almost
forgot.”

“
That quick?” he
said.

“
Yes. I tell you no lies.
You sure know how to mesmerize a sista.”

Giving him a quick kiss once more, she
grabbed the ice bucket off of the bathroom counter, stepped back in
her black jeans, buttoned up her shirt, and went out the door
barefoot leaving her shoes in the room. Annoyed, Maurice walked to
the window and watched as Jasmine went down the steps. He hurried
into the bathroom and took the tape off Saundra. Once her hands
were free, she rubbed her wrists, which were sore with indentions
where the tape had been wrapped tightly. Maurice pulled the tape
off of her mouth.

“
Where’s Jasmine?” she
asked.

“
I sent her to get
champagne and ice. Now listen, we are about to make a run for it.
When I say go, I need you to run to my truck’s passenger side. I’ll
be right behind you. This girl is crazy, so you can’t mess this up.
This might be our only chance to get you out of here
alive.”

Saundra nodded.

“
Come on, put her shoes
on,” he said.

Saundra did as she was told. They went to
the door and he saw Jasmine close his trunk, all smiles with the
champagne in her hand. He waited for her to walk around the side of
the building to the front. When she was no longer in view, he
counted to ten. When he reached ten, he opened the door . . .

“
Go!”

Part 5

Saundra took off running down the steps to
the passenger side door. She pulled the door handle and it opened.
She climbed in. Maurice hopped in the driver’s seat and stuck the
keys in, waking up his engine.

“
Put your seatbelt on!” he
told Saundra.

She didn’t hesitate, instantly buckling up.
So did Maurice. As he rounded the corner quickly, he came to a
staggering halt, almost running Jasmine over. She stood in front of
the car with the ice bucket full and clutched in her fist.
Immediately, everything dropped from her hands.

“
Where do you think you’re
going, MAURICE?” she yelled.

The crazed look in her eyes let him know
Jasmine had checked out. She seemed like the type of girl to kill
herself trying to hurt somebody else. Out of horrified terror,
Saundra screamed;

“
Run her over!”

Maurice hit the gas petal, his tires spun,
and the truck swerved side to side before shooting off. Jasmine
jumped out of the way, making an effort to save herself before
becoming a part of the road. She rolled to a hard stop and screamed
as she rose to her feet.

“
Ugh! You want to play
games, huh?” she yelled into the midnight air.

Jasmine ran to Teresa’s car and got in. She
took off after Maurice and Saundra, desperate to catch them. When
she got her hands on Saundra, it would take an army to get her off.
Not only had she ruined Jasmine’s night, but she ran off with her
man.

“
Why does everyone want to
take my man from me? You can’t have him!” she yelled, rounding the
corner and seeing the truck further down the road. Jasmine’s foot
took the petal to the floor board. The car caught speed and went
past forty, then fifty, then sixty. She was flying down a state
highway like she didn’t have a care in the world. Teresa’s corpse
rolled in the trunk of the car. Jasmine could hear it hitting the
front and then rolling to the back.

“
Don’t worry!” Jasmine
yelled, as if Teresa could hear her, “You won’t feel a thing,” she
snickered.

Thoughts of murder ran through her mind. She
imagined digging Saundra’s grave. This time, if Maurice wanted some
alone time, Saundra would have to be dead first.

Jasmine was delusional; she actually thought
Maurice had taken interest in her. The kiss he’d given her before
she left the room put her in wonderment. With a one-track mind,
Jasmine’s speed increased as she hit eighty by the time she caught
up with the GMC Sierra.

Maurice looked in the rear view mirror.
“This girl is nuts,” he said. “She’s caught up with us
already.”

“
That’s because you’re
driving the speed limit!” Saundra shouted. “Who drives the speed
limit when a maniac is after him?”

“
It’s dark on this road;
what if we hit a deer or something?” he said.

“
Look, I love all of God’s
creatures, but if it’s just chilin’ in the middle of the street,
then go around him! We are the only ones driving this late, so
punch it, man!”

Maurice did a double take at Saundra. The
scared feeble woman was no more. There was a rush over her face and
she was focused on survival. Maurice increased his speed, leaving
Jasmine behind. She still had a nice gain on them, but Teresa’s car
was no match for his GMC Sierra.

“
What’s your role in all
this?” Saundra asked. “I mean, it seems to me you were in this with
her. I thought you were going to help me, then all of a sudden you
hand me over to her. What’s up with that?” she said.

“
Didn’t I get you out of
it?”

Saundra looked behind them, Jasmine was
getting closer. “Not really,” she said. She shook her head and
threw her hands up, “Okay, I get it. You’re helping me out now, but
you weren’t at first. I need to know -- did you help her kill
Teresa?”

“
Are you
crazy?”

“
I’m not, but I don’t know
about you,” she said.

Maurice gave her a stern look, cutting his
eyes at her. He sucked his teeth and shook his head. He could
understand how she felt, so he cut her some slack.

“
I would never do anything
like that,” he said. “If I was a killer, you would’ve been dead.”
He cut his eyes at her again. Saundra’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah,
that’s right.”

“
You know, Teresa and I
talked on the phone every now and then. She approached me when I
was on my way to the car one day. Teresa’s a beautiful girl, so of
course, I talked to her. We exchanged numbers, but we didn’t talk
on a regular basis. With me on the football team and in the
fraternity, I didn’t have much time. Neither did she. Whenever I
saw her, she was doing a fundraising event or with her sorors.
There were many things to keep us occupied. It was only two weeks
ago when we started getting closer. I took her to a drive-in movie
and we went bowling. A couple of days later, there was a party on
campus I met up with her at (where I met up with her). We left that
night together and I drove her home. Then there was the auction
event.”

Maurice’s eyes went to the rearview mirror
Jasmine was catching up, then she lost speed and fell back. It had
taken them an hour to get to that motel. Jasmine handpicked it
because she wanted to be far away from civilization. As he drove,
the night seem to grow darker and darker. The only thing he could
truly see was the road in front of him and the blur of the trees
from the woods on the side of the road as they passed them. Maurice
continued with his explanation.

“
A couple of days after
that, we took my two nephews to the aquarium.” Maurice smiled
remembering the day. “They tried to hit on her,” he laughed.
“Telling her she was fine and all that.” He shook his head. “Those
boys are just like their daddy. We had a good time. I felt like we
were growing a relationship, but neither of us wanted to move fast
into anything.”

He cleared his throat and continued. “From
then on, we continued to see each other; doing different things,
going different places. Then today, she called me over to her
house.” He paused thinking about it. “When I came in, she had a
fire lit and some wine. I had a beer. We talked for a brief minute
and drank. Then she got up and grabbed my hand.” His eyes were
searching the rearview mirror again. “We went to her room and she
seduced me.”

Saundra folded her arms and twisted her
lips, as if he needed much seducing. She knew his reputation. He
was a ladies’ man. Maurice caught the side look and smirked.

“
We had sex, but a few
minutes into it, Jasmine comes bursting through the door singing a
Whitney Houston song. It was crazy. I was wondering what was up
with this chick. I mean, I knew Teresa had a roommate and I had
seen Jasmine before, but from afar. I never knew she had feelings
for me. I think that’s high school, anyway. We’re grown. If you
like me, ask me out.”