Chapter Twenty-one
Dana
I woke up feeling lethargic so I lay in bed several minutes, my eyes closed, listening. I didn’t hear sounds of movement in the apartment so extended my arm to reach for Brady, but he was no longer in bed. His spot was no longer warm, so I figured he’d gone to the office. I shifted to roll over, my sense of contentment and pleasure of dreamless sleep immediately overridden by the return of reality.
I was pregnant. Truly pregnant. What was I going to do? I should have expected it, but expecting something and having it become reality are two different things. I recalled Brady’s words to me last night. He’d told me that he loved me. Was it true? Could somebody really fall in love in a matter of three months? I smiled. Of course they could. Because I felt that way about Brady.
I hadn’t said anything to him last night, hadn’t responded to his proclamation of love. I wanted to, but something held me back. Fear? Uncertainty? I wasn’t sure, but I resolved that by the end of the day, I would tell Brady how I felt about him as well.
Go figure. I had entered into this arrangement with completely different expectations and yet… and yet.
I snuggled deeper into bed, pulling the sheet up to my chin. It smelled like Brady. And sex. After we had gone to bed last night, we’d had sex. Gentle, tender, slow sex. Like Brady had been worshiping me with his body. No words necessary. I had clung to him, close to desperation, seeking some solace from his words and the sensations and comfort his arms, mouth, and body had given me. Had he meant those words, or had he been fooling himself?
And what about me? I knew how I felt about Brady, but I also knew that we came from two different worlds. Would it be possible for me to live in his world or him in mine? I doubted that; those worlds were so different. But perhaps, in time, we could meet somewhere in the middle. Still—
My cell phone rang. I sighed and turned to the bedside table, where I usually left it. It wasn’t there. I realized that the ringing came from the living room. Thinking it was probably Brady and he might want to talk about last night, I quickly scrambled out of bed. I threw the covers off me and headed into the living room in my T-shirt and underwear, where I spied my phone on the coffee table, the screen lit with a soft whitish-blue.
I quickly snatched it up lest Brady hang up before I answered. I wasn’t in time. The call had not come from Brady, but Charlie. Just as I began to dial him back, I heard the ding that notified me of an incoming text message. I glanced at the clock. Nine-thirty. Pretty early for Charlie to be up and about. Still, I was pleased. More often than not of late, I had been the one to reach out to him, not the other way around.
Then again, my pleasure dissipated as I accessed my messages. Did he need something? Had he gotten into trouble? Sad way to acknowledge the communication, but fairly typical.
Need to talk.
Meet me at the coffee shop on the corner across from your apartment.
One hour.
What was that about? It sounded important, and I tried to call him back, but the call went to voicemail. I then texted him back, asking what was up, but I didn’t get a response. With a sigh, I headed back into the bedroom to get dressed. I would have to take a taxi. He didn’t know I was living with Brady full time. He thought I still had my old studio near the campus. I had to get to the coffee shop before Charlie. If I did, maybe I’d have some coffee and a Danish while I waited. The thought brought a rumble in my stomach. If he was already sitting there, watching the apartment building where I used to live, I would have to come up with some excuse why I had arrived in a taxi.
So many secrets. They were wearing on me. Then again, why should I lie? I had already told Charlie that I was moving in with Brady, and maybe it was time to tell him about our ‘engagement’. I wouldn’t tell him everything, of course, not what had brought us together. That I would definitely have to lie about. How had I met Brady? Maybe I could say I met him at school, or at the hospital. He would believe that.
Soon, I would also have to tell him that I was pregnant.
I quickly dressed and left the apartment. I was lucky this morning and hailed a taxi within a minute or two. I had the driver drop me off down the street from the coffee shop and walked the rest of the way. I entered and swept my gaze over diners at the counter and then in the booths lining the windows. I didn’t see Charlie. The waitress came to my table, and I started to order an espresso and a Danish. Then remembered. “I’ll just take a cup of decaf coffee, please,” I said.
Starting now, I had plenty of adjustments to make in my nutritional choices, that was for sure. With a sigh, I sipped the coffee, declining a refill. Growing impatient, I glanced up at the clock on the wall. Just about an hour had passed since he texted me. He should be here by now. He didn’t live that far away. I texted him.
Where are you?
Less than a minute later I received a text message.
I’m in the dark green sedan out front.
I frowned and looked out the window. Sure enough, a few parking spaces down from the coffee shop entrance, I saw a dark green sedan. What was Charlie doing? He didn’t have a car, and certainly not a new car like that. Frowning, I left my seat, placed a few singles on the table to pay for the coffee and the tip, and exited the coffee shop.
Though only mid-morning, the temperature had risen sharply, the air warm and humid. It was going to be hot today. Good thing I had decided on a sundress and sandals. I walked up the sidewalk toward the car, approaching it from the passenger side. The window was rolled down. Frowning, confused, and wondering what Charlie was up to now, I bent down to peer inside.
A myriad of emotions struck me at once—anger, fear, frustration. Charlie wasn’t in the car, but Slim Pete was. I immediately turned to walk away when Pete called after me.
“You want to see Charlie again, Dana, you might want to get in the car.”
I froze, then slowly turned, staring at Pete staring back at me through the windshield. He lifted his hands in a questioning gesture. Slowly, I moved back to the passenger door. “What did you say?”
“I said that if you want to see Charlie… alive… you’d better get into the car.”
My heart in my throat, I stared at him, my stomach churning with disgust. Did I dare get into that car? Should I believe him? What the hell was going on now?
“You got five seconds, Dana.”
For four of those seconds I stood on the sidewalk, trying to run pros and cons of doing what he said through my head. Maybe I should just go to the police. But if I did—the engine turned over.
“Suit yourself,” Slim Pete muttered. He put the car in drive and started to pull away from the curb.
“Wait!” Damning Slim Pete, Charlie, and myself for being so stupid, I reached for the car door, opened it, and slid inside. I crunched my back against the passenger door, my left hand reaching over my shoulder to make sure that the door lock didn’t engage. Pete merely laughed.
“You don’t trust me, do you, Dana?”
I shook my head. “No further than I can spit.” Pete pulled away from the curb, slowly picking up speed as he merged into street traffic. “Where are we going? Where’s Charlie? What’s going on?”
Slim Pete smiled. “Charlie owes me money again.”
To say that my disappointment was great was an understatement. I shook my head and closed my eyes for a second. Why did Charlie keep doing this to me? I glanced at Pete, whose eyes remained focused on the street and side traffic as we pulled up to a stoplight. “I told you I didn’t want you to accept any more bets from him.” That did prompt a glance.
“And I recall telling you that I’m a bookie. You seriously expect me to turn down the means of my livelihood?”
That pissed me off. “You prey on vulnerable people, you bastard. You take advantage of them. You—”
“I might admit to the first, but not the second. No one twisted Charlie’s arm.”
As reluctant as I was to acknowledge that, I knew it was true. While I certainly didn’t like the fact that Slim Pete made his living this way, it was Charlie’s doing. I sighed and asked the dreaded question, my voice soft with hesitance. “How much does he owe you this time?”
“One-hundred-fifty grand.”
I couldn’t stop the startled exclamation that erupted from my throat. “One-hundred-fifty thousand dollars?” I stared at Slim Pete with wide eyes, my stomach roiling with nausea as a cold sensation swept through my body. “How is that possible? Why would you let him—”
“What do you care, Dana? I know you can get your hands on the money. Just ask your rich boyfriend.”
I sputtered for several moments. “He’s not a fucking bank, Pete!” I shook my head. “And what makes you think he’s got that kind of money anyway?”
Again, Pete merely grinned. “I know who he is, Dana. He’s Brady Shaw. He’s worth millions. A hundred-fifty grand for him is a drop in the bucket.”
“And what makes you think he’s going to give me that kind of money?” I couldn’t believe this. Dammit, Charlie! Why are you doing this to me? To us?
“I’ll give you the same time as I did last time to come up with the money. Five days…”
I had already stopped listening, stunned to my core. I turned to stare out the window, swallowing the nausea and the fear rising inside me. I was so angry, so infuriated with Charlie, with Pete, with the way life turned out that I could hardly… I turned to him, my voice rough with anger. “Where the hell is Charlie?”
Pete glanced at me then winked. “He couldn’t hide from me this time. He’s in a safe place… for now.”
“Where is he, Pete?” I repeated, wishing I had the power and the guts to rip his eyes out.
“I’ll tell you where he is once I have the money in hand, Dana, and not before.”
Pete pulled up to another stoplight. Frustrated, my heart pounding, I glanced in the side view mirror. I frowned when I thought I recognized that car. I shifted my position slightly to turn and look through the back window. It was the same car that I’d seen several times over the past few months, the first time when I signed the contract with Brady. I turned to glare at Pete.
“There’s no reason for you to be following me around day and night,” I growled. Pete looked at me, an eyebrow lifted in surprise.
“What?”
I gestured to the car behind us. “Why is one of your crew following us, following me?”
Pete glanced in the rearview mirror, his side mirror, and then like me, over the back seat and through the rearview window. He frowned.
“I don’t have anyone following you, Dana. No reason to. Charlie has been coming to me. I don’t have to go chasing after him.”
I processed that for a few seconds and glanced back at the car again. The driver had his head down so I couldn’t get a good look at him. “Then who is it?”
“The hell should I know? Maybe a cop.”
As soon as the light turned green, Pete accelerated and took the first side street he came to. Sure enough, the car followed. He muttered under his breath and sped up even more, blowing through a stop sign before hanging another sharp left. I reached for the dashboard and the door handle to brace myself. “Slow down!”
He ignored me. After a few more turns, Pete got onto a frontage road that headed through the factory district. The road would eventually provide access to the interstate. The area was relatively quiet, mostly trafficked by workers at the factories and supply trucks heading to and from.
Pete swore. “He’s still following us!”
The car sped faster. I glanced at Pete, my heart thumping now, more from fear at the moment than Charlie’s gambling. “Pete, slow down!” He was going nearly eighty miles an hour, and the speedometer kept increasing until he zoomed down the frontage road at nearly one hundred miles an hour, dust billowing behind the car as he occasionally left the asphalt and drove on the dirt shoulder to hamper the car following them.
“Pete! Slow down!”
An intersection was coming up, just before the onramp to the Interstate. A yellow sign flashed by, warning of trucks turning onto the highway. My grip on the door handle so tight I couldn’t feel the blood in my fingers, I stared wide-eyed ahead. The landscape swept past in a blur. The engine roared. I risked a glance in the side view mirror, saw the car pursuing, maybe fifty yards behind. Who the hell was that?
“Pete—”
Everything happened at once. The deep, blasting horn of a semi. Screeching brakes. Pete sped through the intersection, not slowing down. A blur of movement on the driver’s side caught my attention, and I screamed. A semi-barreled toward us, tires spewing smoke, brakes grinding. Pete swore, tried to swerve, but he was going too fast. Then the gut- wrenching sound of metal. A forceful impact. The car jolted. I tried desperately to find something to hold onto, my heart leaping into my throat.
Brady! My baby!
Everything went topsy-turvy. I flew out of my seat and hit the dashboard. My pained cry was halted as I was then flung sideways into Pete. Then I felt myself flying, the sky above me one second, the scrub brush of the Texas landscape below me the next. I’d been ejected from the car as it rolled. Then… blackness.