Road Tripping (26 page)

Ashley
screamed, but no one seemed to care.

They kept
kicking and punching Ethan, even after his body went limp. They were evidently
working out a couple of weeks' worth of frustration. But eventually, Hostage
Taker said, “Enough. We need him alive to take to Jones.”

So they dragged
Ethan’s limp body up and hauled him to the back seat of one of the two black
sedans. Ethan was still conscious—although his face was bloodied and
battered—and he met Ashley’s gaze. Ashley began to cry when she saw what Ethan’s
eyes were saying.

He was saying
I’m
sorry
. Saying
it’s my fault.
Saying
I love you. Goodbye. I love
you. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Sobbing, she
struggled against Hostage Taker’s ruthless grip, caring nothing about the
loaded gun.

 She couldn’t
get away from him, but she kept struggling.

Eventually, Cute
Guy came over and slammed his fist into her face.

It almost
knocked her out, but not quite. The waves of pain took a minute to register in
her frantic brain. They hit suddenly. She slumped over and would have fallen
had it not been for Hostage Taker’s arms.

“Put her in the
trunk,” Cute Guy said sharply. “Take her somewhere and eliminate her. I’m sick
of this whole mess. We’ll take Moore to Jones. Meet us at the Valley Inn.”

Ashley almost
passed out yet again, from the combination of pain, grief, and fright. Hostage
Taker picked her up and deposited her in the trunk of the second dark sedan.

Before Ashley
could even think about what to do, they had shut the trunk and turned the
bright, sun-lit world into pitch-blackness.

She heard
voices from outside the trunk. “Idiot,” one of the men said—she couldn’t
recognize the muffled voice. “Tie her hands first.”

And so it got
even worse. The trunk was opened, and they tied her hands behind her back with
a large roll of silver duct tape. Then all the light vanished again when they
slammed the trunk closed.

Eventually, she
felt the car start to move.

“Don’t panic,”
she told herself, out loud since no one else was around to think she was crazy.
“Don’t panic. Don’t panic.”

Trying to fight
off the looming terror, she made herself think. She’d read zillions of books
about people being trapped in the trunks of cars. Some of them had gotten out
alive. How had they done it?

Her mind was a
complete blank, made up of nothing but darkness, fear, and Ethan’s bloody face.
His mournful, loving eyes.

She told
herself not to cry and not to think about Ethan.

There was
supposed to be a glow-in-the-dark safety latch in car trunks now, but there
didn’t appear to be one in this trunk.

Instead on
dwelling on that, she racked her brain and suddenly remembered some random
bestseller she’d read several years ago. The female lead character had been
locked in a trunk and had recalled a possible means of escape. The suggested
strategy didn’t require the use of one’s hands.

Ashley
repositioned her body and started kicking out where she hoped the taillights
were located. She kicked and kicked and kicked and kicked. And finally she heard
something that sounded like the shattering of glass.

Her erratic
movements and the motion of the car were making her feel a little sick, but she
made herself continue kicking her foot where she’d heard the lights breaking.

Suddenly, her
foot was free. She could feel the last bit of covering on the taillights give
way, and one of her feet was sticking out the back of the car.

This was
supposed to draw attention to the fact that someone was in the trunk. Without
the driver being able to see it.

Assuming, of
course, that anyone was behind them to see her foot.

It was the
middle of the day, and they were in the middle of downtown. She thought her
chances were pretty good.

So she shook
her foot around as much as she could, then tried to pull it back in so she
could get closer to the hole in order to extend her foot out even farther.

Her foot didn’t
want to come back into the trunk. Ashley adjusted her leg and felt her wet
tennis shoe start to pull off as she drew the foot in.

She drew back,
tried it again.

Her shoe fell
off entirely. Probably landed with a splat on the street.

This was not
the way it had worked in the book.

But still, her
foot was hanging out the back of the car. Surely someone would notice it and
call the police or something.

Then, out of
nowhere, she miraculously heard a police siren behind her. Maybe the police
hadn’t needed to be called. Maybe they had been in the car behind her.

The sedan
pulled to a stop, probably not knowing that there was a suspicious foot
sticking out the back. Ashley heard a lot of noise. Some yelling. Something
shook the car. And then finally, she was blinded again as the trunk swung open
above her.

Maybe the kind
policemen who was peering down at her would help her retrieve her foot from the
hole.

***

Several hours later, Ashley sat glumly
on a bed in a local hospital. The police, concerned by her bruised face, had
insisted on taking her to the emergency room. There, they had used a rape kit
on her, even though she insisted that she’d only been punched.

She’d been
asked hundreds of questions by dozens of different people. Two police officers,
two police detectives, a doctor, a counselor, and several different nurses.

Ashley had
answered their questions truthfully, telling them everything she knew about the
situation. It didn’t matter now that they had stolen a couple of cars. Ethan
might be getting killed at any moment. If he wasn’t already dead.

The police
assured her that they would search for Ethan, the hired guns, Buster Jones, and
the black sedan. But she wasn’t sure how much they actually believed of her
story.

If she was
honest with herself, she wasn’t sure she could believe it herself. It was all
so implausible that she would have laughed, had she not been close to crying.

She had to find
Ethan.

She was waiting
for someone to come and take her to the police station, so she could go through
who knew how much more questioning and paperwork.

Suddenly, she
couldn’t stand it anymore. Ethan might need her. Now. At this very moment. So
she got off of the bed, walked down the hall, and exited the hospital without
anyone noticing her at all.

It was starting
to get dark, so she peered around in the evening light. She had no idea what to
do. Where to go. What she really wanted to do was call her father.

But she didn’t
have a phone at the moment.

She wandered
across the street aimlessly—ignoring the fact that she was wearing only one
shoe—and stared at the old motel in front of her. It didn’t look like the most
luxurious accommodations in the world, but Ashley was so dazed, sick, and
exhausted that she would have been happy to crash anywhere.

Anywhere with a
phone.

Except she
didn’t have any money.

The motel was
called the Valley Inn.

That triggered
a memory. One of the bad guys had something about it, when she’d been too dazed
and terrified to remember a lot of details.

She walked by
the side of the motel. It consisted of two buildings, and there was a dark
sedan parked in front of the second building.

She wasn’t
positive, but the hair on the back of her neck stood erect at the sight. It
looked just like the bad guys’ car.

Maybe the
Valley Inn was where they’d taken Ethan.

Without thinking,
she headed for the door and caught it just as someone was exiting. She had no
idea what to do or even where to begin looking. If she found Ethan or the bad
guys, there wouldn’t be anything she could do on her own, so she’d go to the
lobby and call the cops.

She wasn’t
going to wait to find Ethan, though. They might be torturing or killing him
right now. So she started walking through the hallways.

On the third floor,
she saw a door propped open further down the hall, so she hurried over to it
and peeked inside.

Gasping at what
she saw, she took a few steps into the room.

She saw Ethan.
Her
Ethan. The dear, sweet, funny, intelligent man she was desperately in love
with. The man she’d known all her life. The man who got so grouchy whenever she
teased him. The man who had held her in his arms for so many nights in the last
two weeks. Who had helped her, taken care of her, protected her, relied on her.
Who had shown her vast, unexpected depths of tenderness.

It was Ethan.
Her
Ethan. With bruises and dried blood on his face. With so much more blood—still
wet and not his—all over his shirt. His pants. His arms. His hands. The hunting
knife he was holding.

And there was a
body on the floor at his feet.

It was Ethan.
Her
Ethan.

And it was also
just about the end of the twelfth day.

Sioux
Falls, South Dakota

Her first reaction was absolute
shock, even before the shattering relief that washed over her at the knowledge
that Ethan was still alive.

And then it was
kind of a stunned nausea. There was a lot of blood.

“Ethan?” she
said softly, when he’d done nothing but stand there like a statue, staring at
her.

She actually
saw the sequence of emotions finally flicker over his face. Astonishment.
Disbelief. Joy. Knowledge. Guilt. Retreat.

He choked out a
single word in awed relief. “Ashley.”

But before she
could reach out for him, he looked down at his bloody hands. The sticky weapon
he was holding. The body on the floor.

He made a
strangled noise and turned his back to her.

She knelt down
next to the body and realized it was Buster Jones. He must have flown up to
Sioux Falls to take care of both Ethan and the other guy at the same time.

He’d been cut
in the shoulder, which was where all the blood was coming from. And it looked
like he’d also been punched in the face. He was knocked out cold.

But he was
breathing.

“He’s alive,”
she said, feeling suddenly better, like her world hadn’t turned into a macabre
movie.

“Yeah. I wanted
to kill him, but I didn’t.” Ethan still hadn’t turned around.

“We should call
an ambulance, since he’s losing a lot of blood. The hospital is just across the
street.”

The room door,
which hadn’t clicked shut, swung open all the way. Cute Guy and Other Guy came
rushing in, dragging a middle-aged man she’d never seen with them.

On their
appearance, Ethan pulled himself together with impressive speed. “Too late,” he
said. “Jones is out of commission, and he’s going to be turned over to the
authorities. That means you’re not going to get paid by him. And there’s no
reason to hold onto Smith either.” He nodded toward the middle-aged man, who
had obviously not come in here willingly.

Smith must be
the guy from Sioux Falls. They must have found him and brought him to Jones
too.

She assumed
that meant he hadn’t informed on them. The bad guys must have just followed Smith
to their meeting place.

Cute Guy stared
at Jones’s unconscious body on the floor, his face more annoyed than anything
else.

“There’s nothing
to be gained now from working against me,” Ethan continued. “And, in fact…”

That must be
some sort of covert message that only mercenaries, thugs, and Ethan understood.
Because both men looked immediately alert. “We’re listening,” said Cute Guy.

“I’ll cover the
rest of what Jones was going to pay you for this job. I need Jones taken over
to the hospital and this mess cleaned up.” Ethan gestured to the room.
“Entirely cleaned up. No prints or other evidence left behind. And, as soon as
Smith and I have time to talk, we’ll have some information that needs to be
given to the ATF. They’ve been after Jones for a while but never had concrete
evidence against him. We’ll have that, but you’ll need to get it to them
without tying it in any way to me or Smith.”

“Agreed,” Other
Guy said immediately. They might occasionally act like doofuses, and they had
indeed had a run of bad luck. But they clearly weren’t fools.

Ashley saw the
sense in Ethan's plan, but she couldn’t forget these two men beating him up.
And Cute Guy had shot Ethan not so many days ago. “You’re just going to let
them go?”

Ethan met her
eyes. “I can’t turn them into the police without turning myself in too. And
there are things they can do that would be very difficult for me to do. This
way, we can turn in Jones without being dragged into the case ourselves.”

“Can you trust
them?” she asked quietly, giving Cute Guy a bitter, slanting look.

“If I pay them.
They’re hired guns, after all. No loyalties. They work for who pays them. This
is what they do.”

Turning away
from her at last, Ethan said to the waiting men, “All right. Do you have
another room here? I need to clean up.”

“No problem,” Other
Guy said again, reaching into his pocket and handing Ethan a key. “Across the
hall.”

“Thank God it’s
over,” Cute Guy groaned. “This has been a fucking disaster from the very beginning.
Chasing you two halfway across the country. Those are two weeks of my life that
I’ll never get back. It’s like a damned slapstick comedy. If I never—”

He wasn’t able
to finish his litany of complaints. Ethan had taken the four steps over to him
and slugged him in the face.

Cute Guy fell
backwards, making pained exclamations of surprise and anger.

Ethan stood
over him and said in his most frigid voice, “That’s for punching Ashley. Be
thankful you’re still of some use to me.”

Ashley felt the
most ridiculous thrill run through her body at this bit of byplay. It seemed
strange that the guys that had been chasing them all this time were now working
for Ethan, but maybe that was what happened when you hired out your services.
She was glad that she and Ethan would have help to clean this whole mess up.

She was also
glad that Buster Jones was still alive and would be handed over to the
authorities.

There was an
hour or so of hassle, as the guys took Jones to the hospital and Ethan and
Smith went over the information they had as evidence. Ashley was shaky and
impatient, but she waited quietly until they’d gotten the details of their plan
sorted out.

Finally, the
most urgent stuff was taken care of, and Ethan and Ashley could go clean up
across the hall.

Ethan had been
business-like and efficient when they were taking care of the crisis, but she
knew something was off with him. This was proven when he went into the bathroom
and closed the door behind him. Practically in her face.

She followed
him, of course.

Ethan was
washing his hands in the sink, the water mingling with the blood and running
swiftly down the drain.

She grabbed a
hand towel and then sort of pushed Ethan out of the way so she could check the
temperature of the water. It was too cold, so she turned it warmer. “Let me
help you with your face. It looks terrible.”

“I’m fine,” he
muttered, standing awkwardly, as if he wasn’t sure what to do. “I can take care
of myself.”

“I know you
can,” she replied lightly. “But I want to help.” When the water had warmed up,
she stuck the towel under the faucet until it was wet. Squeezing it out a
little, she lifted it up to the dried blood on Ethan’s face.

He flinched as
she touched him, but she knew it wasn’t from pain. She remembered that night
when he’d been shot, when it had been so hard for him to let her help him. To
admit that he was weak. Even though some things had changed, even though they
were together now, his nature was still so alone.

He let her wipe
the warm, wet towel over his face, and once the dried blood was removed, she
discovered that most of it had come from one gash over his left eyebrow. He had
some bruises, but the one cut must have bled profusely. “Not as bad as it
looked,” she said casually, putting the reddened towel in the sink. She moved
past him and turned on the shower. “Let’s get rid of those disgusting clothes.”

Ethan stood and
watched her until she had actually started to pull up his bloody T-shirt. Then
he jerked away from her again. “No, Ashley. I know how to undress myself.”

“But I like to
undress you.” Her response was smooth and casual, but inside she was starting
to shake. She reached back toward his shirt.

He grabbed her
hands before they touched him. “I mean it. I don’t want you to.” His face was
almost twisted in his struggle to control his rising emotions.

“Why not?” she
asked bluntly, ready to have it out, so they could get over it. “Tell me why
not.”

He tried to
answer. She could see his mouth open and his lips try to form words.

“Tell me.”

Ethan turned
his face away from her. Looked so helpless that Ashley’s heart went out to him.

But something
very important was being decided here—something that went far deeper than
blood-stained clothes—so she made her voice firm as she repeated, “Tell me.”

“I don’t want
you to see me like this,” he managed to say at last.

She sighed in
relief that he'd admitted the truth. “We’ve been over this before. This is an
equal partnership. That goes for everything. I should be dead, but I managed to
rescue myself and find you. I think I’m strong enough to help you get cleaned
up. I love you, Ethan Moore. Even when you’re covered with blood. You believe
that, right?”

After a tense
moment, his face finally relaxed and something warm ignited in his eyes. “Yeah.
I definitely don’t deserve you.”

“If we got what
we deserved, every person in the world would be living in misery. We don’t
deserve for good things to happen, but sometimes they happen anyway.” She
grinned at him and was rewarded for her efforts—for all of her efforts—when he
reluctantly smiled back. “You never did ask me how I managed to escape.” This
time he didn’t resist when she started pulling off his shirt.

When they had
gotten it over his head, Ethan responded, “I didn’t even think about it. It
just seemed perfectly natural that you could elude certain death without even
breaking a sweat.” He brushed her cheek with his thumb. “Although I do wonder
how you came away wearing only one shoe.”

Ashley gave a
start and looked down at her dirty sock. She’d almost forgotten about that.
“I’ll tell you later,” she said, unfastening his pants. “Let’s get you cleaned
up right now.”

When they had
gotten Ethan’s clothes off, he stepped under the shower, and Ashley took
advantage of his distraction to rid herself of her own clothes. Then she got
into the shower with him.

“Ashley,” Ethan
said hoarsely, “I’m perfectly fine in here by myself. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Are we
starting that again? I thought we just got it settled.”

“That’s not what
I mean. I just mean that if you get in here naked with me, I won’t be able to
control my reactions.”

She grinned at
him wetly. “I can live with that.” Then she picked up the bar of soap and
worked up a lather before she started to soap up his chest.

“Ashley.” There
was a hint of warning in his voice. “I’m serious. I have enough trouble keeping
my hands off you when you have clothes on.”

“Well, that’s
okay. Since we’re both safe, and Jones is taken care of, I’m feeling a lot
better.” She scrubbed him up some more, then put the soap down, turned him
around, and pushed him under the fall of water. Her hands firmly massaging his
shoulders, she pressed herself into his back. She lowered her hands and felt
that he was already starting to get aroused. “I’m so glad you’re still alive.”

“Ashley,” he
repeated thickly. She felt his whole body tense up. “I thought you were dead.
It was like the end of…everything.”

“Well, I wasn’t
dead. We’re both alive. And I think it’s finally over. I think we’re going to
be okay.” She moved one hand up to caress his wet hair. She kissed the back of
his shoulder.

He made a long,
guttural sound and turned around to pull her toward him, hugging her so tightly
she momentarily couldn’t breathe.

But she wanted
it. So much.

“I thought I’d
lost you,” he murmured into her hair.

“I’m still
here.”

She managed to
pull away enough to look up at his face, but she only got a brief look at the
tidal wave of feeling in his eyes before he was claiming her lips with his
mouth. She let his lips, tongue and teeth have temporary control, and just
relished the fact that she had gotten him back. Alive. And truly whole.

But her state
of blissful, satisfied peace didn’t last very long as Ethan’s mouth and hands
continued to move over her. Soon, he had her bent backward, one of his hands
supporting her from behind. His mouth was on one nipple and his free hand on
the other. The moisture on both of their bodies just added another layer to the
sensations.

She couldn’t
help but writhe beneath Ethan’s touch, but that was a mistake. Her foot slipped
a little on the wet shower floor and she felt like she was falling backwards.

She let out a
loud shriek.

Ethan held her
body stable, so she didn’t actually fall, but she clutched at him frantically
and then pressed herself against him as she tried to recover her balance.

And then Ethan
actually had the gall to laugh at her. She had rarely seen him laugh so
uninhibitedly. He stood under the shower spray, holding onto her, wheezing with
amusement.

“It’s not
funny. I might have knocked myself out.”

“I had you,” he
assured her, sliding his hands down to her butt. “I wasn’t going to let you
go.”

She sighed and
laid her cheek against his chest. “That better apply in every way.”

“It does,” he
murmured, now stroking her wet hair. “I’m never going to let you go.”

“That sounds
about right.”

They soon got
out of the shower, and they both seemed to be overwhelmed by the effects of
adrenaline and relief. He picked her up and carried her into the bedroom
without even bothering to stop for a towel. He laid her gently down on the bed
and moved over her immediately, his mouth devouring a path over her body again.

When they were
both aroused, he put on a condom and entered her fully as she kissed him. She
immediately wrapped her legs around his waist, although her feet kept slipping
on his wet skin.

He started
thrusting, strong and deep.

Ashley had to
pull her mouth away so she could suck in air.

“Is it good?”
he asked thickly, his face revealing that he’d already lost the battle for self-control.

“Oh, yeah,” she
panted, trying to get her legs higher up his back. “Good. So good. Want more. Harder.”