The Ex Who Wouldn't Die (3 page)

Jenny lifted one dainty hand and touched Amanda's cheek. "How do you feel?"

"Rotten. How do you feel?"

"Worried! We've been so scared ever since M
other
got the call that you'd been hurt on that terrible motorcycle! We always knew eventually you'd have a wreck. Just the other day we saw a motorcycle wreck on the news, and Davey said, that could be Amanda. Thank God you're okay. Well, I mean, you will be okay. Of course you're not okay right now, not with your ankle sprained and your shoulder out of socket. It
'
s not out of socket anymore, but it was, and you have a lot of bruises. At first they thought they'd have to operate on your head, but they gave you some kind of medicine that made the swelling in your brain go down. It's a good thing those people in that van found you when they did! Much longer and you might have died! Dad
dy tried to give them a reward—
"

"Jenny, slow down." If she had to listen to the babbling much longer, her head would surely explode. "In short, specific sentences, tell me where I am."

"In a hospital."

Amanda sighed. "And in which city or state does this hospital reside? I was in
Oklahoma
when I crashed."

"Yes, you were. But Daddy pulled some strings and got you moved to a private hospital in
Dallas
as soon as we found out you weren't going to die. You're in Graham General. Daddy's friend is your doctor. He—"

"How long was I unconscious?"

"Two whole
days. They said you'd probably be out longer, but look at you! Wide awake! You're—"

"
I know, I
'
m okay. What time is it?"

Jenny checked the diamond-studded watch on her wrist. "Seven minutes past one. They brought your lunch—" She indicated a tray with a glass of milk, bread and a stainless steel cover hiding something on a plate…something that likely should remain hidden. "I made them leave it because I had a feeling you were going to wake up today, and I knew you'd be starving—"

"What about the motorcycle?"

Jenny blinked rapidly, never a good sign
. "The…motorcycle?"

"Shiny black machine with two wheels. Makes this loud VROOM VROOM noise. Where is t
he motorcycle? They did bring back
my bike, didn
'
t they?"

Jenny folded then unfolded her hands and fluttered nervously. "Yes. The police have it."

"The police? What are they doing with my bike? This has something to do with Charley, doesn't it?"

Jenny's nervous look changed to startled distre
ss, her small eyes widening, one
hand flying to her mouth. "Oh, Amanda!"

Amanda groaned. She had been a little surprised that Charley wasn't looming at her bedside, especially after that scene on the mountain. Her accident and confinement to a hospital bed would have been the perfect opportunity for him to prove his devotion
, try to convince her to drop the divorce proceedings
. But if one of his scams had landed him in trouble with the authorities again, naturally he'd be hiding out.

Her father, a prominent attorney who'd attained a judgeship a
few
year
s
ago, had managed to keep Charley out of jail
during their marriage. However,
there had been plenty of close calls, plenty of times the police had shown up on her front porch and plenty of times Amanda had hoped her father wouldn't find out and intervene, when she had looked forward to viewing Charley behind bars. But Charley had always appealed to his father-in-law who
didn't want to
"
see the family's reputation blackened.
"

N
ow, probably because Charley had been caught at the scene of her accident, the cops had decided her bike might be involved
in something illegal he'd done
and had taken it. Damn! She
'
d bought that bike almost new just a few months ago, added pipes
,
made adjustments
to rev it up
, and Dawson, her assistant, had added some great detailing to the paint job. It was the hottest bike she
'
d
ever owned. She loved that bike. N
ow,
thank you, Charley,
the cops had it
. They'd
probably already taken it
apart looking for evidence.
It would never be the same.

But
something had gone wrong with the bike even before
her
accident.
The horrifying details washed over her
in a rush
…the loss of control, the sensation of sliding on a slick surface that hadn
'
t been slick,
falling over the side of the mountain, then
abandoning the bike to save her life.

Had Charley tampered with it? She
'
d left it outside when she went into his third floor apartment for the latest in a series of confrontations that had, as usual, ended with her storming out, jumping on the bike and riding hard and fast to get away from everything.

No, that wasn't possible.
Not that she thought him incapable of it, but
he
'
d been inside with her the entire time she was away from the bike, arguing with her, shouting at her.

Still, it was a huge coincidence that he'd suddenly appeared
right
after she crashed. She
'
d been riding fast for a couple of hours. The only way he could have been there was if he
'
d followed
close behind
her
for the entire trip
.

Damn him!
She was going to get her bike back, find out what was wrong with it, put it back together and then she was going to kill Charley.

"Where's a nurse? Jenny, get me a nurse. Please," she added before Jenny could upbraid her for her lack of courtesy.

"Oh, dear! Are you in pain? Do you need more medication?"

"Yes, I'm in pain. No, I don't need more medication. I need my clothes. I need to get out of here. I've got things I have to do."
Kill Charley.

Jenny fluttered, one hand touching her cheek, then drifting to her hair. "I don't think you can do that."

Amanda had a few doubts of her own what with her left leg swathed in bandages and her head pounding with every fraction of a movement, but she was going to give it her best shot. "Jenny, please, get me a nurse or, better yet, get me Dad's friend, the doctor." She rolled to the side of the bed, putting her good foot on the floor. The process was painfully reminiscent of her climb up that blasted mountain.

"I have to call Daddy
," Jenny said
.
"
I told him I
'd
call him
as soon as you woke up."

The old
I'm going to tell on you!
Jenny
had always been good at that one.

Amanda
ceased her efforts to get out of bed
, more from the pain than from any acquiescence to
Jenny
's threat to call their father
. "Fine," she said resignedly, and lay back down.

Jenny was the obedient daughter. She did whatever their parents told her to do. She
'
d graduated from college with a
2.5
average in education, but of course she
'
d never teach. She
'
d promptly married a young lawyer
and tak
en her rightful place in Highland Park society
.
David
Carter
,
Esq.

Jenny
, and only Jenny,
called him
"
Davey.
"
Well, Amanda called him that
sometimes
just to annoy him. To the rest of the world he was
"
David
"
or
"
Mr.
Carter
."
He was,
Amanda
thought, as boring as day-old white bread. He was the perfect son-in-law.
Jenny
was the perfect daughter.

Amanda, with a 4.0 average, dropped out of college in her junior year and
spent the next twelve months biking across the country
. She
'
d returned
home
to take one ultimately
boring job after another, then, at the advanced
(according to her mother)
age of
thirty
, had married Charley and opened a motorcycle repair shop. She was the disappointing daughter.

Amanda loved her little sister, had since her unexpected birth when Amanda was seven and their parents were already in their early forties. But Amanda
'
s life would have been a lot easier without Jenny
'
s staunch alliance with their parents.
As she listened to
Jenny
on the phone to their father,
Amanda
thought it would have been nice to have a rebel sister, someone who would have "forgotten" to call their father until she'd made her escape.

But no one got to choose their relatives. If they did, Amanda reflected wryly, she would likely be the one not chosen for inclusion in this family.

While the two sisters waited for
their father
to arrive, Amanda consumed the cold, unappetizing food hidden beneath the stainless steel cover. Most likely it had once been part of an animal. Which part, which animal, that was anybody's guess, but it was sustenance, and she would need sustenance to give her the energy to deal with her family
and to eventually escape from this place
.

"Is Mom coming with Dad?" she asked around a mouthful of the questionable food.