Erin's Way

by Laura Browning

  She lifted her head to glare at Andre. “I will never thank you. You’re scum.”

  He hit her again, this time drawing blood when the blow split her lip. He put his face close to hers and snarled, “You’ll thank me, and you’ll beg me.”

  Erin started to snap something back, but instead kept her mouth shut. She already felt like a punching bag, her lip split and her cheek swollen from his blows. In addition, there was a throbbing where she’d hit her head when she fell.

  Her thoughts slipped to Sam, but she forced that picture away. Sam was dead. She’d seen it. Oh God. Erin felt the emptiness again, a vast chasm with no bottom. How could she handle that huge hole?

  You’re about to develop a serious drug habit.

  Andre’s words came back to her. It wasn’t as frightening as it first seemed, and probably not as frightening as Andre intended it to be. In some way, she’d been self-medicating most of her life. Not relying on anything was the novelty. Falling back on her old habits would fill the emptiness of a life with no Sam in it. If she never had to think or feel again, then maybe she could forget Sam was dead. Maybe if they calculated wrong, she’d overdose. Good-bye, Erin. Good-bye pain.

  “Where’s Matty?” Erin finally asked after Andre shoved her into a chair at a scarred kitchen table.

  “Gone. You don’t need to worry about him anymore.”

  “What do you mean gone?” Her heart tightened. Sure, she knew Matty had betrayed her, but he had been a friend. She wouldn’t put anything past Delacroix. He’d already shot Sam in cold blood, so getting rid of Matt and Rick was logical. Erin sucked in a shaky breath. She didn’t want to be next. As long as she was breathing there was hope she could get away, and when she did, she would make sure Andre paid.

  Andre popped the lid on a can of beans and pushed it in front of her. Erin kept her expression impassive even though the cold beans made her want to puke.

  “Did you kill him?” She tried to keep her tone nonchalant, as if she didn’t care one way or the other, but she wasn’t sure she’d managed it.

  “Shut up and eat. Like I’ve already told you, you’ll be a whole lot better off, darling, if you’ll learn to keep that mouth of yours shut other than when I tell you to open it. I’ve got plenty of uses for it, none of which involve you talking.”

  Erin looked at the room temperature beans in front of her and forced back the bile rising in her throat. He had untied her hands, but had one of her arms cuffed to the table leg. Knowing she would only make him angry if she didn’t eat something, she picked up her spoon and shoved a mouthful of beans inside. Andre watched her like a hawk.

  “I’ve got a little dessert for you after dinner.”

  At first she thought he meant sex, that he would force her into some of the kinky stuff she’d heard he liked, but then she realized he had a syringe sitting on the counter just behind him. Erin didn’t want to plead. She’d done so well getting clean. As easy as it would be to give in to the oblivion of getting high to help her forget what had happened to Sam, she didn’t want to do that. She had worked too hard to crumble now. After two more shaky attempts to eat, she tossed the spoon down.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Andre smiled. “Then it’s time for dessert. You’ll really love this. I promise.”

  She tried to fight when he came at her with the needle, but with one hand chained to the table, it was easy enough for him to grab the other and jerk it behind her. She knew the drug he was using. It was a popular one in the club scene, and there was no need to find a vein. Ketamine in the muscle was just as effective. If he used enough, it was effective as a date rape drug. It could also be addictive.

  “No,” she whispered. “Please don’t.” She hated to beg. Hated it. She tried once again, to jerk away, but succeeded only in wrenching her shoulder. Andre laughed. With the ease of long practice, he pushed her sleeve up and plunged the drug home.

  “You’ll like it, baby,” Andre breathed in her ear. “You won’t give a shit what happens once you’ve been high a couple times. You’ll just want more. Then we’ll play.”

  She stared unseeingly at the paneled walls of the trailer. As the drug took effect, she felt unreal, as if she were no longer a part of her body. The pain was gone and she was floating. He was right. This was all right.

  None of it seemed real to her any more, and if it wasn’t real, then that meant Sam was still alive. Soon, they would eat dinner and curl up on the couch together. She would burrow under his shoulder and lean her head against his muscular chest. His arm would curve around her shoulders and his hand would stroke her arm. They would stay that way for a while until he kissed her. Then as their kisses deepened, he would take her clothes off. They would touch each other.

  “That’s it, baby,” a voice came from a distance. “Touch yourself for me.”

  That wasn’t Sam. Erin bumped back to earth with a jolt, found her hand between her legs, and Andre staring at her. When she noticed the bulge in his trousers, she began to scream. He slapped her, but she hardly felt it. Rage and frustration made her thrash against the cuff on her wrist. The chair tipped out from under her and Erin slammed to the floor.

  “Bitch. Just wait. A few more times and you won’t be able to pull out of it. And you’ll crave it. You’ll crave that feeling that you’re on the outside looking in. Nothing can touch you. I can wait until then. I don’t trust you otherwise.”

  She knew better by now than to antagonize him. He enjoyed inflicting pain. It made his pale eyes sparkle with sexual heat. Erin closed her eyes as he dragged her back to a room and cuffed her hands through the metal headboard on the cot there. A part of her, a part she’d hoped was gone forever, wanted the oblivion the drug promised. Right now it was still a whisper, not a shout. With almost every other fiber of her being, she wanted to kill the man now turning on his heel and leaving her handcuffed, kill him for what he’d done to Sam.

  * * * *

  As Jenny promised, they moved Sam the next morning. He had worried he wouldn’t sleep at all, but exhaustion had finally taken over. Now they wheeled him to a different floor, and he felt the stares of the other hospital personnel. Pity. He didn’t want their freaking pity. He wanted to be out where he could find Erin. He snarled at the nurses and bit the head off the deputy who stopped by. By the time Jenny came into to check on him, he was already sitting on the side of the bed attempting to walk.

  “Samuel Barnes! You stop right there, and don’t you dare move another muscle.”

  “Then get me out of here,” he snapped. “And don’t use that I’m-your-mother tone with me. Damn it, Jenny. He’ll kill her.”

  “And killing yourself will prevent that how?” She stomped over to his side, but laid her hand gently on his broad shoulder. “Sam. You have capable men, the state has capable men, and even Jake is working this. They’ll find her. Let them do their job while you concentrate on recovering. Why won’t you understand? Another half inch and the bullet in your arm would have severed an artery. By some miracle, neither of them shattered bone, but you’re not invincible. This is a major trauma.”

  Sam looked deep into her golden eyes, pleading for understanding. “I love her, Jen. This guy’s a drug smuggler. Even if he doesn’t kill her, he could be feeding her all sorts of crap. She’s not like she was last fall. It took me a little while to see it, but she’s trying to change her life. She’s clean.”

  He was embarrassed his voice shook, but he couldn’t control it, and at least it was Jenny, not Stoner or Evan. She squeezed his shoulder. “Can I compromise with you?”

  He blinked the moisture from his eyes. “How?”

  “I’ll have a portable two-way radio moved in here along with your phone. You can keep up with what’s going on, and I promise if anything breaks, I will personally take you out there. In the meantime, you’ll agree to stay here and take it easy until that happens.”

  As Jenny laid out her deal, Sam’s throat tightened until he wasn’t
sure he’d be able to speak, but he had to. When she finished, he laid his usable hand against the side of her neck. “You are special, Doc. If I wasn’t nuts about your sister-in-law, you’d be it.”

  His voice caught at the end, and his smile felt shaky, at best. Her golden eyes shone with sympathy.

  “I’ll take that as a yes, you accept. Now lie down, Sam, while I get you what I’ve promised. You should know, Jake headed out this morning on a body behind Crawley’s old tire store at the edge of town.”

  Sam’s stomach twisted in a knot. A dead body showing up was unusual enough, but if it turned out to be a murder? Sam ground his teeth. “Could you hurry up with that radio and my phone?”

  “Yeah. Be right back.”

  A dead body. It wasn’t Erin. He was sure of that. He would know. Somehow, he would know if it was her, but he also had a sinking feeling there would be a connection. He tuned the radio to bring in Jake’s town frequencies. They’d located a white male, mid to late twenties with a gunshot wound to the back of the head, base of the skull. Looked like an execution style killing. No ID, but the description matched the one for Matty Davis given by both Evan and Rick Nelson.

  Sam flopped back against the pillows, his mouth tight with frustration. He couldn’t generate any sympathy for the dead Matty. He simply viewed it as a link to finding Erin that had just been shattered…and a warning that Delacroix would stop at nothing, even her death. If he’d wiped out all those links, what hope was there now of finding her? He picked up the phone and called Jim.

  “Sam! How are you doing, man?”

  “I’d be a whole lot better if they’d let me out of this place. I just heard over Jake’s radio frequencies that they may have found one of your suspects—Matty Davis—shot execution style.”

  “Hmm. Hadn’t heard that. I was on my way back to the hotel where Rick Nelson’s staying. You want me to put him in protective custody?”

  Sam squinted as he stared out the window. He had to gamble that Delacroix wanted to hang on to Erin for some reason. Why else go to the trouble of coming over here himself when it would have been so simple to have Matty Davis simply kill her? No, if he was going to come out to kill anyone else, it was probably Rick Nelson.

  “Don’t bring him in. I want you to call me back when you’re with him. Can you put me on speaker so we can all talk back and forth?”

  “Sure thing, Sam. Give me five minutes and I’ll call you back.”

  He raked his good hand through his short hair and tugged at his ear as he waited for Jim to call back. He was going to bank on the concern he’d seen in Rick the day Evan and he had plucked Erin out of the captain’s hotel room. Rick had stopped Matty that day from revealing things about her that were private, and Erin had spoken of the man as being responsible for helping her find a way to read and exercise her talent for investments. Sam hoped that meant Rick Nelson was not a part of this and would be willing to lay himself out there for bait.

  When his cell phone rang, Sam grabbed it.

  “Sam, I’ve got you on speaker. Rick is here with me.”

  “Hi, Rick. I’m the guy who punched you in the nose.”

  There was a gravelly chuckle from the other end of the line. “Trust me, I remember. I also remember you’re the same guy Erin used to mumble about in her sleep, and the same man it was obvious to me, would do anything for her. In that, we share something. The only difference is my interest isn’t a physical thing. She’s like my kid sister.”

  “I need your help, Rick.”

  “Name it. I’ll do it. No matter what.”

  Sam felt some of the tension leave him for the first time since the first bullet had ripped through his flesh and he’d realized Erin was in danger. He outlined the plan to both Jim and Rick. They listened, asking questions every now and then.

  “I think it fair to warn you, Captain, the town’s police chief has spent the morning investigating an execution style slaying on the edge of town, and the victim looks like your friend.”

  There was a long pause on the other end, followed by a shaky sigh. “Delacroix’s already killed two of my friends. I’m pretty positive he was behind the explosion of the Sprite. You think he’ll come after me now?”

  Sam looked out the window at the leaden sky. “You’re a loose end. It’s a logical assumption.”

  “So was Erin, but you think he’s left her alive?”

  “I’m banking on it. There was no need for him to come here otherwise. He already had Matty who could have taken care of you and Erin if his only intent was to kill. Delacroix could have dealt with cleaning up Matty as a loose end when he returned to the Virgin Islands.

  “Now the game has changed. For some reason, he’s decided he wants Erin, and you and Matty became the dispensable ones. Can you think of some reasons he might keep Erin?”

  “Two. Sex and greed. He fixated on Erin while he was aboard the Sprite and wanted me to arrange things so he could have her in his bed. My refusal set a lot of this in motion. There was an additional sexual reason, though. Andre’s been getting a little too friendly with the gay and bi community in the islands, something his father wouldn’t tolerate. He’s looking for a smokescreen, and thinks Erin will provide that since she’s spent so much time around me and my crew.”

  Sam’s brows rose. “He’s bi?”

  “He’s experimented,” Rick clarified, “and he’s afraid daddy will find out. The second reason he would want Erin, though, is for her financial talents. The whole Delacroix family is looking for a way to launder money, some legitimate businesses they can use to conceal their drug trade. Erin could provide them with that, along with the cachet of being a former senator’s daughter, if she’ll cooperate.”

  Sam felt a deadly coldness slide through his veins like ice water. Erin’s stubbornness was legendary. Would she try to defy Delacroix? He swallowed thickly. When had Erin been anything but defiant, especially when she was frightened?

  While that thought made Sam even more uneasy, from one issue at least he drew comfort. Delacroix wanted her alive, not dead. They could use that and his desire to kill Rick to their advantage.

  “If she won’t cooperate, Rick, what’s he likely to do?”

  There was a long pause on the other end. “He might drug her. That would be the best case scenario.”

  “And worst case?”

  Again a pause that only served to increase Sam’s concerns.

  “Andre likes inflicting pain, especially on women. He’s got a reputation around some of the sex clubs and brothels.”

  “Then we need to be ready to act if he makes a move.”

  He could only pray that while everything unfolded, they would get some lead on where Delacroix was holding her. It might be the only way to save her. He silently cursed the injuries that kept him from getting out there on his own.

  Chapter 11

  “Get up, you stupid cow!” Andre yanked Erin to her feet. She was still floating, once again under the influence of the Special K with which he’d injected her. Erin no longer fought it. So much easier to just accept the feeling that she was somewhere watching this happen instead of actually being a part of the horror.

  Andre shook her, forcing her to focus on him. “I have to go, and this may take a while. No way am I leaving you in here where anyone could look in and see you. I have a special place for you, Erin. Come on.”

  She tried to pull herself back to reality enough to realize what he was doing, but couldn’t comprehend where he was dragging her. She followed him, stumbling over the rough ground behind the trailer. Then he shoved her down and inside somewhere dark and cold, following her in and pushing her along in front of him.

  While Erin was still trying to wrap her mind around where she was and what he was doing, Andre snapped one of her wrists to a metal rod above her head and shoved a canteen next to her before he retreated and closed the entrance behind him.

  Just the faintest light trickled in through chinks i
n the material covering the place he’d tossed her. As if the sound were being filtered through water, she heard the roar of an engine coming to life followed by the sound of the car leaving. One glance around her and Erin realized this wasn’t a place she wanted to be. Closing her eyes was so much easier. She could slip back into the drug fog he’d kept her in. Here she could pretend Sam was still out there somewhere—alive. He would come for her and take her home. He would hold her and never, ever let her go again.

  She shivered. Andre had taken her coveralls and her shoes. Her jeans and sweatshirt were some protection, but not nearly enough. Spring might be bursting already at lower elevations, but here in the mountains winter hadn’t quite relinquished its hold. The days warmed nicely, but the nights often dipped below freezing, frosting the ground in the early mornings until the spring sun could melt it away.

  She eyed the canteen, her thirst penetrating the fog surrounding her. Stretching as far as she could, Erin managed to grasp the shoulder strap of the canteen and pull it toward her over the rough dirt of her prison. Struggling to get her hands on it cleared her head to some degree. Balancing the canteen between her up-drawn knees, she used her free hand to unscrew the top and tilted the steel container to take a deep swallow. She’d already swallowed a couple of gulps before she realized it had a faintly bitter taste.

  He’d drugged it.

  Erin screwed the lid back on, nearly throwing the canteen in frustration, but giving in to anger or despair at that point and throwing the canteen beyond her reach or pouring the water out was something she couldn’t afford to do. Both because he might come back and see, or because he might not. If he showed back up and saw she’d wasted it, there was no telling what he might do. And if he didn’t show…? That thought scared her most of all. She would need the water, even drugged, to live until she could figure a way out. Like the kid who refuses to even look under the bed in case monsters really do live there, Erin refused to think there might not be a way out, and yet the idea still nagged at the edge of her consciousness, making her heart pound.