Crash Into You (34 page)

             
As he turned to go, he saw a huge man enter, followed by a scrappy little guy covered with tattoos.  The guy smirked at him, his eyes as cold as slate.

             
“My name is Carlos, and that money is mine.”

The phone rang. Seth answered.   “You got it?” he demanded.   

              Aimee held her breath and set up a prayer to the Goddess of Terrified Alpha Girls.

             
A grotesque smile broke out on Seth’s face.  “Excellent.  Bring it here.”

             
Aimee nearly melted to the floor with gratitude.  
Thank you, Mark.  Thank you for knowing me, for knowing the right thing to do.

Mark had been up these narrow mountain roads countless times, but everything looked different now.   Brighter.   Sharper focused.   He could see the detail in every leaf as though it was under a microscope.  He noticed it all, even as he drove faster than he had ever dared on the narrow, steep roads that led to the Starlight Resort.   He had to slow only once or twice to give a chance for Carlos’s driver to catch up.   In the rear-view mirror, he was only two car lengths away.

             
He could not allow Aimee to die.  He simply could not live without her.    His flesh withered at the thought of Aimee in the resort with Seth, at his mercy.  He would have to get her out of there alive.  Beyond that, it was entirely up to Aimee.

It had taken him thirty-five years to find her, a woman he had not even believed existed, the mythical One.  The wife.  The woman he wanted to dedicate his life to, the woman who made him laugh and think and love.  Oh God, yes.  Love.  He loved her until he was just sick with it. Until it was the only thing he really cared about.  It was a huge shock to discover that love really existed. 

He wasn’t about to surrender her to fate – or to Seth.

He leaned over, checking the glove box for a gun.  No dice.  Well, he’d have to perform a rescue unarmed.   Big deal.

He steered the truck to the edge of the road and waited for Carlos’s SUV to do the same.

Mark dialed the reception number.  

“Yeah?”  Seth answered.  He sounded a little drunk.  That might work in his favor if Seth’s reactions and thinking were slowed.  On the other hand, Mark had known some drunks who were mean as the devil, irrational, violent, and had no impulse control.  He put Seth in the second category.

“I’m about half an hour away,” Mark said.   It was a ruse to relax him.    To defuse the tension that must be thick in the resort, with Aimee held hostage and them both waiting for the money.

“Get here in the next ten minutes or I swear to God I will blow her away.  I do not give a fuck about her, I just want my money.  Do not push me.”

Mark shut his eyes, clenching his teeth.  “Don’t touch her.”

“You’re not calling the shots here, asshole.  Just get here in the next ten minutes.”

The line went dead.

Mark drove up two more switchbacks.   He turned down the road that led to the resort, but pulled over halfway there.   With Carlos following, he drove a little way into the aspens and shut off the engine.   

Behind him, he watched the big guy and Carlos get out of the SUV.    Mark stepped out.    He was nervous about trusting these guys.  They were lawless fuckups.   But maybe that was just the type of guy he needed.

Grabbing the empty Nike bag, he slung it over his shoulder and got out of the truck.   The road was pretty much a straight shot, which was bad luck in case Seth was watching for him.  If he saw him with Carlos he might just kill Aimee on general principle.

Mark tried to navigate the trio close the trees as they approached, but at this altitude, trees were sparse.

“It’s fucking cold up here,” Carlos groused.

Mark didn’t answer.  

Reaching the resort, he directed them around to the staff entrance.  The key unlocked the heavy metal door, and slowly he opened it, anticipating Seth or bears or worse.

It was just a smelly corridor, though there were bear footprints on the linoleum.   Mark walked toward the main lobby, reasoning that is where Aimee and Seth probably were, but paused when he heard Aimee shout, “No, Seth!”

He stood stock still, his heart squeezing so tight it stole his breath.    Carlos frowned, then smiled when he realized the person he’d been trying to kill for weeks was within striking distance.

From the back office where the accountants worked, Mark peeked around and saw them in the musty light.   Seth was holding a length of rope and hauling Aimee by the arm to a chair while she wriggled and writhed and tried to free herself from his clawing grasp. 

Mark looked at Carlos, who nodded.

Mark stepped into the room.  “Don’t.”

              A sickening grin oozed across Seth’s face.  “So here he is.  Your rescuer.  Superman.”  He laughed.

             
Mark’s focus was on Aimee’s tearstained face.  She stood shaking near the chair.   Only then did he notice that her shirt was torn, her pants were pulled down to her knees.    Oh fuck.

             
Black spots danced in front of his eyes.   He had no idea he was capable of the depth of rage that screamed through his body.  He wanted to murder Seth Sabich.    And yet the gun in Seth’s hand put Mark at a distinct disadvantage.  He would have to strategize through this with psychology, not muscle. 

             
Mark walked casually into the room.  “I’m here,” he said.   “I have the money.”

             
Aimee’s exhaled a shaky breath as her eyes laserlocked on him.  He tried to throw her a little smile, something to let her know it was all under control.    Her expression gave nothing away.  

             
“Open the bag, pour out the cash.”

             
Of course.  Of course that would be the very first thing he would demand.

             
“Sure,” Mark said calmly.  He inched toward Aimee.  

             
Seth dropped the rope and held the gun up, directly at Mark’s head.

             
“Seth don’t,” Aimee whispered.

             
“It’s okay,” Mark said calmly just as Seth shouted again, demanding Aimee shut up.

             
“Open the bag.”

             
“Aimee, pull your pants up,” Mark said.

             
Slowly she bent over and began to work them back over her hips.

             
“The money!” Seth shouted.

             
Mark took the bag off his shoulder and held it by the thick strap.  “Let Aimee walk out the door and I’ll give you the money.”

             
“Listen dickhead, you’re not calling the shots here.   I’m in control.  Not you.  Certainly not that bitch.”

             
“Sure, Seth, you’re in control.  I’m asking your permission to let Aimee walk out before I give you the money.   This has nothing to do with her anymore.  It’s just you and me.”

             
Seth’s eyes narrowed to wet slits.  “Dump the cash on the floor right now or I’ll put a bullet in her head and then yours.”

             
Mark opened the bag, his heart pounding.   “Let her go.”

             
Aimee suddenly grabbed the bag from Mark’s hand, and dashed for the stairs.  As soon as Seth spun around to grab her, Mark lunged, grabbing Seth by the throat with his powerful forearm, yanking him back into the lobby.

             
Mark heard a shot go off, then suddenly felt himself being dragged downward. 

             
Through suddenly fuzzy vision, he saw Aimee and Seth scuffling, and he tried to rally, get up to help, but gravity was holding him in place.   He started to slide down a long, painless slope.  “Love you Aimee,” he said before he lost consciousness.

Aimee stood beside Mark, her gaze fixed on the gun.   It was directly at Mark’s heart.   She heard Seth antagonizing, threatening, bullying, demanding.  It was ridiculous to discover it at that exact moment, but she was so sick of it.  Same old Seth, same old playbook.

             
But she was not the same old Aimee.

             
She grabbed the bag and ran for the stairs.   The next instant, a shot rang out, and she saw Mark stoop over.    What happened next was automatic.  She wasn’t thinking, for if she had, she might have gone directly to Mark.  But she saw that Seth was in shock, looking at Mark.  She grabbed the strap of the bag and looped it around his throat, pulling him away from Mark, and choking him.   The gun clattered to the ground as both his hands reached up to his neck to relieve the terrible pressure of the strangling strap.

             
“Let him go,” a man said as he walked inside the room.    He was holding up a bag.

             
The visage was so unexpected that she simply did as he commanded.   He was frankly ugly, with huge crawling tattoos and a scar on his cheek.

             
“Hey Seth, looks like we finally met up.”

             
Aimee looked to Seth, who had never looked more terrified.  She wasn’t sure she had ever seen anyone look so scared.

             
“I finally got my money back,” the man said.  He looked at Aimee and said, “Thanks for taking care of most of it.”

             
She stood still.

             
“Love you Aimee.”

             
The whispered words brought her attention back to Mark.   Shocked, she fell to the floor and lifted up Mark’s shirt.  Blood was seeping from a wound to his left side, about four inches under his ribs.

             
“Tell me what to do,” she said.

             
“Pressure.”

             
She put her hands to the wound, trying to stanch the bleeding.   She had thought that the tender feelings she had for him could not be any more intense.  Wrong.  Dead wrong.   The wound to his body was like a wound to her own flesh.

She pressed her hands to the wound.   Mark’s color wasn’t good.   He was very pale.  “You’re okay,” she said, remembering that he had said the same thing when she had a lacerated spleen, when she was hours from death.   Believing that had saved her then.   She wanted to be okay. She trusted him even then.

              “You’re going to be just fine.  Really.  It isn’t very bad.”

             
His hand reached up to touch her face.  “Know it.  I love you.”

              She turned desperately to Seth and saw that he too was lying on the floor, his arm and nose broken.   She felt nothing, even seeing his desperation.  “I need help,” she said to the man who had beat up Seth.  “I need to get him to the hospital.”

             
“Okay.”  He held a gun over Seth, moving it from his shattered face to his crotch.

             
“You be okay if we leave you here, Seth?” he taunted.  

             
Seth didn’t answer.

             
Carlos pulled the trigger.  Aimee jumped back, scared.   Carlos shrugged.  “It’s just his foot for now.”  To Seth, he said, “You wait here, asshole.  I’ll be back after I take this dude to the hospital.”

Aimee sat in the backseat, next to Mark, her tears flowing down her face.   She had so many questions, so many things to say, and in the end, she could voice none of them.  She just bent over Mark, willing him to live.

             
The SUV seemed to be on rails.  She was glad for the speed; at least there was no question that they had to hurry.  She glanced at the driver once or twice, and the man in the passenger seat, the man who had beaten up and shot Seth.  

             
He was the man Seth stole the money from.  She wondered if he knew that she had lost most of it in the airplane crash, and if he would come after her once he figured it out.

The SUV stopped in front of the emergency room and Aimee ran inside, screaming for help.     The nurses and doctors hustled Mark out of the truck and into surgery, leaving her feeling bereft and at loose ends.

             
She walked back to the lobby and sat down.   This was the same hospital Mark had brought her to when he’d found her.   The same doctors might be working on Mark.   She silently prayed that they would have as much luck with him as they had with her.

             
She bent over and held her head in her hands, fighting back tears.

             
A hand appeared on her shoulder.  “Miss Baxter?”

             
Startled, she looked up to see five dark suited agents towering over her.  “Ma’am, we are with the Secret Service.  We’d like a word with you.”