My Kind Of Crazy (19 page)

“Ana, Jonah, what a pleasure! Do you care if I come in?” I
narrow my eyes, and the façade of patience and kindness is gone from my face.
Jonah puts his hand on the door above mine and towers over me, no doubt to look
impeding.

“We do, actually.” He answers for me. I don’t mind in the
least that he’s taken over here. Mark Taylor can be a very imposing person at
times.

“Well that’s too bad! Because if you don’t move away from
the door and get inside right now, I’ll have to shoot Anastasia first! Now be a
good boy and
back off
!” I’m beginning to think this hotel room is
cursed. If I make it out of this alive, I’m not returning for anything, not
even my
clothes
.

He’s wearing a sports jacket over a nice pair of slacks and
a white, button up shirt. The black jacket matches the gun he pulls from his
side. I feel Jonah flinch beside me as if he’s going to tackle Mr. Taylor, but
we’re both too late for that. I take a hesitant step back into the suite, but I
try to keep a hand on the door.

“Get back, and sit on the couch. I think we need to have a
discussion, Ana.” When I get a good look at the gun, I realize why it looks
funny. He has a silencer on the end of it. I idly wonder if it’s registered and
they’ll be able to tell that he shot Jonah and me after this discussion. But
that’s not much use to me now. My cellphone is sitting on the end table by the
sofa, and Jonah’s is on the kitchen counter. His is too far away, but if I could
just get my hands on my own, I could call the police.

As I sit down, Jonah sits down next to me. Mr. Taylor has
closed the door behind us, and as he’s doing so I try to grab my phone. It
slides off the table, onto the sofa, and between the cushions. With an inward
curse fest, I try to fish it out before Mark gets to us. Just as he starts back
towards the sofa, I manage to slip the phone under my thigh with my hand. I put
my other hand under the other thigh to make it look like I’m sitting this way
because I’m nervous.

Mark turns away from us for an instant, and I realize I have
my chance. I position the phone between my legs and click the emergency call
button, dial nine-one-one and turn the volume all the way down. My hand covers
the phone as Mark settles onto the table in front of us. The look of contempt
on his face frightens me, and I pull my hands out from under my thighs in case
I have to use them.

“What do you want?” My voice comes out a lot steadier than I
had imagined it.

“Oh, the same thing everyone’s been nagging you for, Ana!” He
sounds as if he’s talking to a five year old, and I don’t have a chance to look
bewildered before he moves on. “I want the tape, Anastasia! Don’t give me that
look. I know there’s a brain in that pretty little head of yours somewhere!”
Jonah’s breathing heavily beside me and I reach a hand across the couch to take
his. “Oh, how sweet! The mentally fucked up man and the emotionally ravaged
woman! You two will make a great couple in Hell.” He laughs, but the gun
remains steadily pointed at me.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” I try to
remain calm and reasonable. It’s hard to do with a maniac pointing the second
gun at you in the past twenty four hours.

“Which part? The part where you’re emotionally fucked up
from being raped as a child or the part where you’re hiding your father’s
security camera tape?” My face flushes, but not because of the fact that he
knows. If the cellphone is working, the dispatcher, and hopefully the police
are listening, now know
something
happened to me when I was under the
age of eighteen.

“The security camera tape? He didn’t have one. I thought-”
He shoves the gun in my face, and suddenly his eyes are bulging from his head
as he forces me back into the cushions. My fingers tighten around Jonah’s, and
I feel him about to spring into action.

“You thought what? That Henry and Benjamin Cooper were
working alone?” He sounds disbelieving. “Those two fools could do nothing
alone! Henry came back because he lost his chance at the championship in the
underground fight club, and Benjamin never went anywhere! They needed money,
and I hired those fools to do what they did to you before. I hired them to beat
the living shit out of you so that you would talk! Do I have to shoot Jonah for
you to talk? Hm?” Now he’s pointing the gun in Jonah’s face. The vein on his
neck is bulging and pumping radically as purple splotches start to show up on
his cheeks. The man is piping mad, and I have no idea what he’s talking about!

“Jesus! I don’t know what you’re talking about! What’s on
the damn tape anyway?” And as I ask the question, it dawns on me. Before he
even opens his mouth to answer me, I understand what is on the security tape. I
had no idea my father had a security camera, and apparently neither did the
police. He would never install one of those for the protection of personal
belongings, but for the protection of his life.

“You!” My heartbeat is pounding in my chest. “You killed my
father, and you stole the security camera! But you couldn’t find the tape.” I
start to laugh. It’s a maniacal sound that makes Jonah look worried for my
sanity, but he doesn’t have to worry. If I don’t laugh right now, I’ll either
cry or wrap my fingers around Mark Taylor’s neck myself.

“Yes, I killed your pathetic father because he was going to
embarrass me! ME! Mr. Mark Taylor, the famous entrepreneur real estate agent
and developer that could buy and sell anything! He
knew
I would not be
able to procure a loan for the amount I signed the papers for, but he signed
anyway so that he could make a
point
! Well, I made a point! Boy oh boy I
made one! With a stolen shot gun from the Cooper farm. Now I’m going to shoot
you with this gun I bought off a thug in the city if you don’t tell me where
that tape is!” His body swivels as he points the weapon in my face, and I hear
the telltale sirens in the distance. For a millisecond, his face turns towards
the door, and Jonah takes his chance.

The gun doesn’t make a sound as it goes off, but I do. My scream
ricochets off the wall as the bullet slices through my flesh. I can’t tell
where it enters because the burning, searing pain is overtaking me as I fall
back to the cushions. Jonah doesn’t stop his assault on Mark Taylor until the
man is lying bloodied, beaten, and almost dead on the floor of the suite room.
The only thought I can procure is that the woman who owns this place is going
to be
pissed
when she realizes she’ll need to hire a professional
cleaner. She might even have to buy a new sofa.

My hand is covering the wound by the time Jonah climbs off Mark’s
limp body. He has a bruise developing on his cheek, and his nose is bloodied. I
can’t stop the panicked, ragged breathing erupting from me in short gasps.
Blood,
my
blood, is seeping through my fingers and trailing down my arm.
The smell of it makes me want to vomit, but I’m too weak to move.

“Anastasia? Hey, it’s a flesh wound, alright? HEY!” The last
word is not aimed at me, but someone barreling through the suite door. Two
paramedics push Jonah aside, and one has to struggle with him to keep him away
as the other starts to ask me questions. I’m too dazed to answer.

My eyes flutter to Mark’s limp body as they lift him onto a
stretcher, and then I watch as Chief Robertson cuffs Jonah and pulls him from
the room. I open my mouth to say his name, but nothing comes out. As they’re
lifting me onto the stretcher, the pain is too much and my vision fades. I
vaguely remember waking up in the ambulance twice as they inserted the IV, and
the second time as they were opening up the doors.

After that, things get pretty blurry. It might be the
painkillers they’ve spiked the fluids bag with, or the fact that I don’t want
to open my eyes and not see Jonah again. Unsure of how much time goes by, I
open my eyes for the final time to see a familiar face by my side. Chief
Robertson immediately takes my hand when I inhale deeply, and he rubs back and
forth as if he’s comforting a child.

“Finally! It’s been five
hours
! We thought you were
never going to wake up.” I scrunch up my eyebrows at the word ‘we’, and glance
around the room for whoever else he’s talking about. Jonah is sitting on the
other side of my hospital bed with one hand cuffed to the armrest. He doesn’t
smile until I do, and then he’s crushing down on my lips with his. I part them
when he asks permission with his tongue grazing across the seam, and then I
hear the sound of someone clearing their throat.

Jonah ignores it, but I use my good arm to gently push him
back. We’ll have plenty of time for that later, but right now I need to know
what happened while I was out. So I turn my attention in the direction of the
Chief, but it’s the doctor standing in the doorway with a clipboard who cleared
his throat. My heart monitor must have been going off the charts. Oops.

“I see that you’re awake and feeling better, Ms.
D’Salvatore.” I nod, and then I turn my attention to the Chief quickly.

“Why is he cuffed?” I ask the man accusingly. He throws up
his hands as if to say that he surrenders, and leans away from my bedside.

“Don’t look at me! I told him that if he didn’t behave
himself, we’d cuff him. So we did.” I throw a glare in Jonah’s direction, and
he responds with an impish grin. My heart flutters at that wry twist of his
lips.

“I’m not even going to ask what you did.” The doctor clears
his throat again, interrupting my verbal reunion with Quinton.

“Ms. D’Salvatore, if you would be kind enough to allow me to
go over your charts with you? Then I’ll be out of your hair.” I currently have
two fingers twining in it that are not my own, and if Jonah doesn’t stop
touching me this way I’m going to embarrass myself further.

“Okay, so how long am I out of commission?” My shoulder only
aches mildly, but I’m so high on morphine I’m starting not to care. The doctor
flips up a piece of paper and glances at the machines before he actually
speaks.

“You need to stay here for at least four days while we
monitor your healing.” I sit up in the bed rather abruptly, and the doctor
hurries to push me back down as slowly as he can without injuring my arm
further.

“Why on Earth do I need to stay here for
four
days?”
My voice is shrill and high, and I attract the attention of a few nurses
walking past my room door.

“You’re lucky the bullet didn’t hit bone, and it was a clean
wound. We found no shrapnel of any kind because the bullet went all the way
through. If not, you’d be here for weeks. You will need to discontinue the use
of your arm for a few more days after that, and then we’ll see about physical
therapy.” He drones on about how many months it will take for the wound to
sufficiently heal, but all I can think about is the fact that I won’t be able
to return home for four days. I barely even know where home is anymore.

Jonah takes my good hand in his across the bed, and smiles
at me reassuringly as the doctor explains about the sling that I am and will be
wearing for a few weeks. He goes on about muscle tissue healing rates and
drones about how I’m a healthy, young patient. So I should heal quickly.
Great,
but what am I going to do in a hospital bed for
four
days?

“Great, thanks, I appreciate the update.” With those words
from my mouth halfway through his spiel, the doctor seems to catch my drift and
leaves me with a final warning that I only have one more shot of morphine
today. I’d better use it wisely. Just to be a smart ass, I push the button.

“You’re kind of a grump when you’re hurt.” Jonah sounds as
if he’s pointing out that the sky is blue. If my right arm weren’t injured, I’d
give him a good punch in the shoulder to get my point across.

“Well, I’m going to un-cuff Jonah and go find myself some
coffee. Promise to stay in the room, and don’t try to pummel anymore male
nurses. They have to look at the arm, and that requires removing the top half
of the hospital gown.” My face goes pale, and Chief Robertson retreats from the
room after he lives up to his promise of un-cuffing Jonah.

“The Hell they do!” I screech, using my good arm to wrap the
gown tighter around myself.

“Don’t worry. I made sure it was a female nurse who did it.
It took some persuasion, and I might be sued in the future, but for now
everything is fine.” I chuckle and lean into his hand when it comes to my face.
His earlier insult about being a grump has been forgotten, and I just want him
to kiss me again. Instead, he looks a little worried.

“There’s something we need to talk about.” His hand moves
down from my face and takes up the good one. I have to maneuver my arm across
my body so that it’s comfortable, and then I wait for him to spill whatever it
is that makes him look like he might die on the spot. “Mark Taylor is dead.”

Those four words turn my world upside down and right-side up
again in the span of a few seconds. It’s turned upside down because I’m worried
that Jonah will go to jail for killing someone, and then it’s righted when I
realize he was just exercising self-defense. Besides, if he were going to be in
jail, he would already be there.

Jonah’s fingers start to slip from mine as he sees the shock
on my face, and at the last second I squeeze mine tight around his hand so that
he cannot get away. Our eyes meet, and I don’t need to smile to let him know
that what he did doesn’t bother me. If I had the chance to do it, then I would
have killed the man with my bare hands myself.

“I did it for you, for your father, and for me. The only scumbag
left is Henry Cooper, but I’ll take care of that when he gets out of jail.” I
pull his bruised knuckles up to my lips and kiss them one by one, making his
entire body shudder.

“You won’t. Because then you’ll be in with him. If you do,
I’ll be out here all alone and poor, defenseless, little me will be vulnerable
to all the bad people in this world.” He chuckles and leans forward until his
lips are brushing against my forehead.