One Last Night (2 page)

“What happened, honey? Fight with your ‘boyfriend’?”

I rolled my eyes at the implication. “Something like that.”

“Well, unless you got someone to pick you up there’s no way back into the city until the morning.”

“Right. Okay then, I need a room,” I said.

“Major credit card and picture ID.”

I walked over to the window and slid both of the requested items under the little glass partition.

With the ease of many years of practice, he scanned in my cards and shoved a form for me to sign back through, all without dropping the newspaper.

I scrawled my name and hoped there was enough of a balance on my card to cover a few hours in a room.

I thought about Sam again, so nearby. “Can I get something upstairs and far away from the lot?”

“Sure, not busy tonight,” he said politely but clearly bored as he tapped away at a keyboard for a few seconds and then handed me a keycard. “Got you way in the back corner.”

“Perfect. Thank you.”

Five breathless minutes of waiting to run into Sam, I was safely locked behind the door of a room almost identical to the one I’d fled.

I dropped my things and sank down into the bed. Suddenly so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open, I rolled over and looked at the clock. I had at least six hours until I could get back into the city. I started to drift off, but the sound of a door down the hall slamming jolted me awake again.

I sat up and looked down at my hands. They were shaking. I reached over and flipped on the light with a sigh. Maybe sleep wasn’t such a good idea. But I needed something to take my mind off of the situation, so I turned on the television. Crappy old movies and infomercials weren’t helping, so I did the one thing that always made me feel better. I picked up the hotel room phone and called Anna.

Just listening to her phone ring calmed me a little bit. Which was good, because she didn’t answer. I smiled slightly as her voicemail message sang over the line, and hung up. I thought about what she’d say if she was with me. Probably something like, “Get it together, C. Come home and we’ll kick this thing’s ass together. We’ll be Sam and Dean with more boobs and less Daddy issues.”

That got a real smile and I turned off the light again, settling to sleep with the television playing softly in the background. Its low drone was soothing and I fell into the freedom of a deep sleep.

I woke up quickly, all the evens of the night rushing through my brain. The television was replaying last night’s news and my back was sore. I stretched and twisted trying to loosen it, wondering what had jolted me awake. Peering around the room I saw nothing out of place and shrugged.

It was barely dawn, but I didn’t want to risk sleeping any longer. There was a lot to do. I could rest when all of this was over.

I was padding slowly over to the bathroom when the door behind me exploded open, spinning me around with shock.

My brain was silently cursing Sam’s name when my eyes noticed he was not the man standing in the doorway.

Instead, the creepy thin man who’d threatened me in that parking lot stood there, framed against the rising sun, light glinting off the very large handgun he was pointing at me.

“Ms. Chase, it seems we meet again.”

I held my hands up and started backing away from him.

“Please don’t move. I’d really rather not shoot you.”

I froze. “What do you want?”

“I think you know. Every file, disk and record. If there are copies, tell me where. The time for playing nice has ended. You hand over the evidence or I will end your life right here.” His eyes roamed the room. “What a shame for you to die in such a dingy, sorry excuse for a motel.”

The casual way he discussed murdering me chilled me to my bones enough that I barely registered the rest of what he’d said.

“Please, don’t hurt me.”

“Tell me what I want to know and you’ll be fine. We will go and fetch the items I requested and this will all be over for you.”

The way he said it spoke volumes. Even if I did as he asked, I wasn’t surviving any trips with this man. “I don’t know what you think I have, but I swear, I’ve got nothing. I don’t even know what records you want.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes before pointing at something attached to the end of the barrel of his gun. “Do you know what this is, Ms. Chase?”

“Um, I silencer?”

“Very good. They’re called suppressors, actually. They muffle, but do not completely erase the sound of a gun firing.”

“Oh,” was all I could manage.

“I am telling you this because you should know I can shoot you. In the leg or arm, or gut. It will hurt quite a lot. You might even scream. But I don’t expect anyone will come running in this establishment. I will have plenty of time to get you into my car and take you somewhere more…private to continue this conversation.”

“Please, no.”

“I would prefer not to do that. It can be messy. And, no offense, you’re not exactly a small girl. Carrying you out of here will require effort and probably ruin my clothes. Not to mention the agony you’d be experiencing.”

I hugged myself, trying to contain the shaking that reverberated out from the pit of my stomach to my entire body. The only thing that kept me from going completely hysterical was noting that he, in the middle of threatening to kill me, was making cracks about my weight.
Fucking asshole
.

Struggling to make my brain work well enough to think of a way out of this, I decided to stall. “Ho-how did you find me?”

“Quite easily. Obviously your little friend isn’t doing a very good job hiding you away from us.”

“My friend?”

“Detective Rollins. I don’t see him around. May I assume you’ve parted ways?”

My eyes narrowed. “I’m sure you know all about it by now.”

“Actually, no. Nor do I care. He will be dealt with in due time. You are my priority right now, Ms. Chase.”

“Lucky me,” I muttered.

“Ah, some of that spirit is returning. Excellent. Now, are you going to tell me what I want to know willingly, or in the throes of excruciating pain?”

“I’ll tell you anything I know. But that isn’t much.”

He frowned and his fade reddened, except for the scar that traced a jagged line down his cheek. “My patience is wearing thin.” His finger curled around the trigger.

“Wait. Please, I am telling you the truth. I don’t have any records or whatever the hell you said. I don’t
have
anything.”

“Fine. I hoped it wouldn’t come to this. Walk slowly towards me. We’ll take this little chat elsewhere. Some place a maid won’t interrupt to empty the trash cans.”

Facing the real threat that he would kill me did something strange. Instead of making me more afraid, the fear drained away. In some way I’d been waiting for this ever since that terrible night in Phillip’s car. The end. Dead is dead either way, I couldn’t control that. He was going to kill me. But I could choose how. I could go quietly, or fight. There really was no decision to make.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Then you’ll die in this flea-infested pit.”

“So be it.”

I saw a shadow flit behind him inside the tattered remains of the door before the man with the scar started to squeeze the trigger of his gun. Time slowed down to a crawl and everything looked to sharp, so clear, like when I first got contacts and went outside. The world was crisp and vivid in a way I’d never experienced.

I dove to the side, ignoring my aches and pains, hoping I could at least make him expend a few bullets trying to catch me.

The first shot rang out and shattered the glass on the mirror over the dresser as I knelt down on the other side of the bed. The second shot never came.

Instead there was a roar and the sound of crashing bodies. I peeked out and saw the man grappling with a dark form. As they turned over and over on the floor, wrestling for control of the gun, the new figure’s face turned to me. It was Sam.

“Get in the bathtub. Lock yourself in.”

I hesitated for an instant and then obeyed his command, slamming the bathroom door behind me and locking it. For the second time in a few hours.

Flat on my belly in the tub I couldn’t really hear much of what was going on in the room beyond the door. An occasional thud as they collided with furniture, and a loud curse here and there. It couldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes, but it felt like hours before I heard the sound I’d been holding my breath for. The muffled
whuff
of the gun going off. Then another spate of grappling sounds.

And then nothing. A silence full of questions and fear. Was Sam okay? Did I want him to be? I couldn’t stand to wait anymore and I unlocked the door, sliding it open, crouched down low to the ground.

My eyes roamed over the devastation in the motel room. It looked like a tornado had blown through the tiny space. The bed was shoved over, blankets askew. The door still hung in pieces, barely swinging from its hinges. The dresser and TV stand were battered and they contents spilled all over the floor. The floor that held two shapes. One lay still on the ground. The other was bent over, holding his abdomen, dark curly hair hiding his eyes.

My whole body shook as I barely managed to get out a single word. “Sam?”

He looked up at me, shirt covered in blood. “Carly, get back in there.”

“Are you…did he shoot you?”

Sam shook his head and then looked down. “This is his blood. My stomach just hurts where he kicked me.”

I stood up and took a step forward. “Is he dead?”

“No. Just grazed his arm. Might not even need stitches.”

“Why isn’t he moving?”

“I knocked him out.”

“The blood?”

“From his nose, mostly. And the arm.”

“I see.” My hands were gripping the door so hard it creaked, but I couldn’t seem to let go of it. “So I guess you’re not working with him then.”

“No, baby,” he whispered. “I’m not. Are you okay?”

I nodded. “What do we do now?”

“Get out of here. We made quite a racket up here.”

“Okay.”

“First, hand me a sheet from the bed. But stay back in case he wakes up.”

I finally let go of the bathroom door and skirted the walls to do as Sam had asked. Yanking a sheet off the bed I held it out enough for him to reach and then retreated again.

Sam tucked the gun into the back of his jeans and tore the sheet into strips. I watched with rapt attention as he bound the man’s arms and legs carefully, but securely.

“I need to go in the bathroom and clean up a bit. Don’t get too close to him, okay?”

I nodded.

Sam stood up slowly, still holding his stomach, and shuffled past me. My eyes flitted over the broken motel room door and I briefly considered running. But where would I go, and how? I wasn’t sure if I could trust Sam, but I knew I was no match for whoever was after me on my own. For the moment, he was by far the lesser of two evils. And if he’d wanted me dead he could have let it happen. Or helped out, but he didn’t. Whatever his real agenda, it didn’t seem to involve my death, which made him an ally for the moment. And I couldn’t ignore the moment of absolute terror when I saw him bloody. When I thought he might really be hurt. I needed to think and process everything but there just wasn’t time. I had to concentrate on keeping myself alive, save unpacking my complicated feelings about Sam for later.

He came out of the bathroom shirtless, jeans hung low on his hips, muscles rippling as he rubbed at his curly hair with a small towel. I turned away and looked down at the man on the flood.

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” I said absently. “Do we need to wipe off the door handles and stuff?”

Sam walked through my field of vision and picked my purse up from the floor. Even in my current state I couldn’t keep from sneaking a look at his ass. Breathtaking, as I remembered.

“Wipe off? Why?” He looked up and caught my staring. A smirk curled his lips.

“Um…in case the cops dust for prints.”

He chuckled, handed over my bad and jerked his chin to suggest I head towards the door. “You’ve been watching too many TV shows, Carly. No one’s dusting a motel room for prints in a case like this. Considering the less than stellar cleaning my room got, there are probably a month’s worth of prints on every surface.”

“Oh. And, gross.”

“It would cost the whole year’s evidence budget to collect and run all the prints in that room, I bet,” he continued as we left the room. Sam shut the door behind him and looked around. “Now, this is important. Stay behind me, okay? I’m pretty sure that guy was alone but we can’t know for sure. We’re heading down to my car fast, but carefully. If I stop, you stop. If I tell you to run, you run. Got it?”

All of the color drained from my face at the reminder of the real danger I was facing. “Got it.”

Sam pulled the gun out of his pants and held it in front of him as he rounded the corner and stepped lightly down the corridor, eyes sweeping from side to side. It was almost funny to see him in tough cop mode with no shirt on and still wet hair, but I was once again impressed, and embarrassingly, kind of turned on by the intensity and professionalism he displayed.

It took forever to actually make it down the stairs and to the other end of the motel where his car was parked. But when we finally arrived, he unlocked the doors and I climbed inside, buckling myself in while Sam put a shirt on before sliding into the driver’s seat.

“Where are we going?” I asked as he pulled smoothly out of the parking lot and onto the road.

“Away. Farther out this time.”

“Oh. Hey, Sam?”

“Yeah?” His voice was distracted as he drove up the ramp leading to the highway.

“How in the world did that guy find me?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I used my credit card to pay for the room. Was that it?”

“I doubt it. Tracking cards like that is harder than you’d think. Maybe they were searching all the motels in the area. I should have made sure we put more distance between us and the city.”

“Oh.”

“Really the only other way would be if he tracked a phone call. That would lead them right to your room.”