by Lissa Kasey
“Jacob called him on the way to the coffee shop.”
“What the fuck?”
“He was upset about the bus. Demanding to know why nothing had been put in the account. Why there were no bills on the system. I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but Jacob was upset.”
“And then he vanished to go to this fucking bus where Levi is waiting to kill him or do some other horrific shit to him? Turn around, Ollie. Don’t you dare go there.”
“I’m here.”
“No! Stay in the fucking car.”
“I don’t see Jacob anywhere. He’s probably not even here. Why would he agree to meet with Levi if he knew Levi was the one doing this stuff?” I heard the engine of the car turn off and his seat belt unlock.
“Fuck. Ollie, stay in the fucking car. Elias probably thinks he’s invincible.” I pushed the gas pedal down, weaving around other vehicles and racing at a speed that was probably going to get me pulled over. Because that was cosmically my luck.
“I’m just going to look for him. There’s a bunch of buses here. I think I see Jacob’s, though.”
“Oliver, goddammit!”
“I have my Taser,” Ollie said. “I promise if anyone jumps out at me I’ll tase them. Even if it’s Jacob. He deserves it for ditching me.”
He was trying to be funny, but I was beyond worried. “Baby, please,” I begged him. He didn’t answer, but I could hear him moving. He called for Jacob once, and then twice. There was no response that I could hear.
“I don’t think he’s here,” Ollie whispered, like somehow he had to be quiet after just shouting Jacob’s name loud enough to make me wince. “The windows on the bus are all closed. Wait, I think I saw one of the blinds move.” I heard the sound of crunching gravel beneath his feet.
“Ollie,” I begged. Feeling stuck in a horror movie.
“There’s no one. It’s locked,” Ollie said a moment later. I breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought for sure he’d be here. Where else could he—” His question was cut off with a thump, then static hissed in my ear.
“Ollie?” I clicked the earpiece to hang up and auto redial. It went directly to voice mail. “Fuck!”
I hit the button in the car to dial through the car’s emergency line. Great for soccer moms and panicked PIs apparently. Rush answered with annoyance on the second ring. “Who is this?”
“Kade, calling from my car. Levi is the guy. He might have Jacob, maybe Ollie too.” I rattled off the location and what had just happened, explaining everything, from the financial info Ollie had found, to Joel’s sort of confession, and Jacob’s disappearance after calling Levi.
“That’s almost an hour and a half outside the city, Alme. Don’t suppose you have any proof?”
“Proof? He’s probably got Jacob and Ollie tied up on the fucking bus.”
Rush swore. “I’ll send some locals out and make my way up, but I can’t take him in without proof. You better have something by the time I get there. Something usable in court.”
“Ollie better be unhurt or this guy is going out in a body bag,” I informed Rush.
“I’m sure he’s fine. Probably just dropped his phone or something.”
Ollie was rarely clumsy. Dropping his phone when he had a hands-free earpiece in? Not probable. But there was the lot. “I’m on-site.”
“Don’t fucking go in shooting, Alme.”
“As long as Ollie is okay, I won’t.” I clicked off on his protests and parked the SUV beside Ollie’s Bug. He was right about there being a lot of buses. Well RVs really. They were all larger than buses, most of them black with heavily tinted windows. Each of them was parked about twenty feet apart and facing the outlet road I’d come in on. There was a large building in the distance, which I assumed was some sort of garage. If I didn’t find Ollie or Jacob by the bus, I would head that way and hope they were in some cushy office talking about renovations to a bus or a new ride that probably cost more than Ollie’s house had.
I wondered how Ollie had identified Jacob’s bus since they all sort of looked the same. Except the third one down had a license plate that was framed in black with the word Hard-core on the top and Dom on the bottom. The outside was painted in a swirl of music notes in a wash of beige. That had to be Jacob’s. Everything else was too ordinary, just a mass of lines or plain black walls.
I made my way to the bus, withdrawing my gun, flicking the safety off, but keeping my finger off the trigger. The last thing I needed was to accidently shoot Ollie if he happened to appear from somewhere swearing about what was apparently a broken earpiece. The Sig didn’t have a hair trigger so any shot had to be intentional, but startled and intentionally shooting someone were two very different things.
The bud lay in pieces beside the far front corner of the bus. Like he’d found the door locked, then stepped to the front to look for Jacob. The gravel didn’t leave any prints that I could tell, but I kept low and studied the wall of darkened windows, the few there were of them. I could tell for the most part there were curtains or something on the other side. It wasn’t like the SUV that you could sort of see through if there was enough light on the other side. It was a total abyss of darkness.
The door looked like a normal RV door. Well, for an RV designed for the rich and powerful. This thing was huge. Dark and looming like some sort of secret playland for the dirty and devious. It suited Jacob, and I got why maybe he didn’t just want to buy a new one. This thing probably cost as much as Air Force One.
I kept low and crept around the vehicle, trying to get a look inside from the front window, only like the side windows, it was tinted with that impenetrable blackness. Was that even legal? I was pretty sure if there was someone in there, they could see me just fine even when I couldn’t see them. Total disadvantage for me. “Fuck,” I swore.
There was only one way in or out, which didn’t leave me many options. I groaned internally, wishing for a SWAT team, or some of my old Marine buddies to help me storm the place. Hard to storm something from one small door. I grabbed the latch and tugged, expecting it to be locked, but it swung open, greeting me with a set of steep stairs up to two seats. Both were thick and plush, like small armchairs, but nestled closely enough to the dashboard to be the driver and passenger seats.
I tiptoed up the stairs, trying to keep low since there was no seeing around the wall beside the stairs. It was a blind corner with a view only of the two seats and a couch slightly to the left. I prayed I was overreacting to all of this. That Ollie was safe, just conspiring with Jacob to give me a good scare today. Right, ’cause that was the sort of thing that Ollie did.
Movement caught the corner of my gaze when I reached the top of the stairs. I turned, lowering my gun and pointing it, not touching the trigger just in case. It took a half second to register it was Ollie. His eyes were wide and terrified, mouth open to say something, and then something bit into my side and pain turned my world upside-down.
Chapter Thirty
I MUST have blacked out for a minute because when I came to, I was lying on the floor in the middle of what appeared to be a luxury living room. Electricity still raced through my body, pinging from cell to cell and making me twitch and spasm in a growing ache of short-circuited muscle. Levi stood over me with my gun in his hand. He pointed it at me and then Ollie and back again. Jacob was tied to the St. Andrew’s cross that had been pulled out of some sort of cupboard on the other side of the giant TV.
There was blood on Ollie’s lip, and his right eye was starting to swell. I wanted to lunge at Levi for hurting him. Only I could barely breathe. I’d never been hit with a Taser blast before. I had expected the pain, but not the utter uselessness of my limbs, and my right thigh burned with a pulse of heat that was almost excruciating. Defect of the pins maybe? I didn’t have enough strength to tilt my head that way to look.
The sound of sirens filled the air in the distance and I cursed whatever local cops Rush had called for announcing their presence instead of playing
safe and sneaking in. Had they not understood the possible hostage thing?
Levi cursed and aimed the gun at Ollie. I could only whimper a protest. “Drive,” Levi commanded him.
Jacob choked on the ball gag that had been fastened around his head. He struggled against the bonds and shook his head furiously at Ollie. Ollie didn’t move. The sound of sirens drew closer and slowly the numbness was giving way to pain in my body, but pain I could work with, push through. I tried to wiggle my fingers and toes, anything to regain some movement.
Levi growled, turned, aimed the gun on me, and fired. “I said fucking drive.”
Searing white-hot pain shot through my right leg as the bullet pierced my kneecap. I couldn’t stop the scream of agony that it ripped from me. The sound tore from me in a garbled mash of undecipherable sound. Lights sparkled across my vision, threatening to carry me away.
Ollie tried to come to me but the gun swung back his way. Tears turned his green-gold eyes molten and he was trembling as he stalked to the driver’s seat like a man sent to his execution.
I fought to swallow back the blackness that was rising. Passing out now was not a good idea. It took three attempts to get out the lie in something more than a pained groan. “It’s okay, baby.”
His shoulders stiffened as he turned on the monstrous vehicle. He furiously wiped at his eyes with the back of his sleeves while he steered the giant beast out of the lot and onto the road. The police were really close now.
I finally got to move my head enough to see the leg and wished I hadn’t. It was a mass of blood and exposed bone, and there was a burn on my thigh that still throbbed. I swallowed back another attempt of unconsciousness trying to take me. I fought it off, needing to be there for Ollie. “Seat belt,” I slurred to Ollie.
Levi glared at me. Jacob was breathing hard in his restraints and seemed on the verge of hyperventilating, but he also had a better view of my leg than I did. “Step on it, Oliver,” Levi demanded.
“The cops aren’t just going to let us drive away,” I grumbled at him, my fingers began to tingle with renewed pain, letting me know I was regaining control even if it really fucking hurt. I prayed the nerves in my legs had been severed so when the full weight of that pain returned, it wouldn’t immediately slam me into unconsciousness. Though if that were the case, I was probably bleeding to death, and that wouldn’t take long either. I needed to get Ollie out of here.
“I think we’ll drive right past them and they won’t even realize it.” Levi folded his arms across his chest and set the gun on the kitchen table opposite of where Jacob was bound.
“And what do you gain from all this?” Was he going to give me an evil monologue? ’Cause seriously, if he was, I was totally going to beat him with a chair or something. As soon as my arms didn’t feel like noodles anymore. It was probably a good thing I hadn’t brought the cane today. I could only imagine how bad my hands would have been burned once the voltage from the Taser had found its way to the metal rod. But the cane would have been a handy tool to beat the son of a bitch with.
Levi just shook his head.
“No devious monologue? I’m disappointed,” I told him.
“Fuck you. I told Emily to fire you. That we didn’t need you around. If you’d been incompetent like the rest, you wouldn’t be here right now.” He glanced over at Ollie. “Though I’d eventually have to get rid of that one.” Levi glared at Jacob. “You were always so obsessed with him and he’d never even play with you. He was just another pretty toy you had to have. And I destroyed all those, didn’t I? That one’s turn is coming soon.”
Jacob said something through the gag, but it was just a smattering of sound that made no sense.
“It’s all mine. Everything you have I created for you. I created you. You keep trying to take it away.”
I glanced up toward Ollie, who kept glancing back my way. The sirens had faded into the distance and my heart lurched in fear. Had they really just driven past us? I caught Ollie’s eye and mouthed seat belt again to him. He absently yanked it over his shoulder and clicked it into place. The bus swerved slightly, and I had an idea. A dangerous idea, but Ollie and Jacob were both secured.
“Have you heard about Ollie’s stellar driving skills?” I asked Levi.
He glanced at Ollie, who looked at me in fear. His eyes kept lowering to look at my leg, then glanced back to the road. He swerved again, and the gun slid across the table. His shoulders tensed, so I knew he heard the noise of metal across wood. I had to fight to keep from watching it and reminding Levi it was there. If Ollie could get it to fall off the table and maybe slide a few feet, I could grab it. It would only take a second or two to fire and end all of this. The Sig was a safe gun. It wasn’t like the stuff in the movies that would go off from hitting the floor or a struggle. There was no hair trigger, or mistakes with the Sig. Since it was my gun, I practiced with it enough to know all its ins and outs. Now I just needed to get my hands on it.
“Don’t talk!” Levi shouted, then kicked me hard in the side. I felt a couple ribs pop and wheezed under the sudden lack of air.
Ollie swerved again, this time enough to throw Levi back a few feet. The gun clattered to the floor farther away than before. Fuck. I met Ollie’s wide-eyed gaze and just nodded encouragement at him. Off balance was a good start.
“You are such a useless piece of ass!” Levi screamed at him. He tried to make his way toward the front, but Ollie kept swerving, swinging the wheel so far I was surprised we didn’t skid or spin. Levi landed hard on the couch, and I slid across the floor to come to a jarring stop against the cabinet below the couch, using my good leg to stop my momentum, though the impact was still jarring enough to make me see stars.
Levi tried to get up, but I grabbed his nearest leg and held on. I didn’t have much strength, but I used my weight as an anchor, clinging to him so he couldn’t get to Ollie, even as the bus rocked back and forth like we were in a game of Mario Kart avoiding bombs thrown at us by Donkey Kong.
One of Levi’s knees landed hard on my left arm and I heard the crack before the pain hit a second later. I almost lost my grip, but instead I transferred my hold to my right arm and my left leg, wrapping myself around as much of him as I could while he punched, kicked, and bit me. “Was it worth it?” I screamed at him, protecting my head from his blows, but refusing to let go. He couldn’t twist enough to hit my badly injured leg, but the arm sure hurt like a son of a bitch and he seemed to be trying to break the bone again. “Killing Kisten and Josh? Just for Jacob?”
“He’s mine!” Levi screamed. “Josh was going to demand he leave me behind, kick me out. I built them. Made him what he is.” He glared at Jacob. “You’d be nothing without me. Your family would be nothing without me. You wouldn’t even have all your little games if it weren’t for me.”
The bus swerved so hard it almost felt like we’d gone up on two wheels. I had thought these big-rig RVs were designed to avoid that, but I landed with my back to a wall of kitchen cabinets, head snapping against the quartz countertop. Bright bursts of light crisscrossed my vision, and I might have actually lost consciousness for a second or two because by the time I could see again, Levi was up and heading toward Ollie. He gripped the wall, door handles, anything that was bolted down, like a stewardess might do when a flight was crashing. The bus made a horrible thwapping thud and an alarm sounded with a robotic voice stating that we had popped a tire.
“Ollie!” I screamed as Levi got closer to him. Where was the fucking gun?
Ollie glanced back, his eyes wide and terrified. He stomped on the gas and turned the wheel hard to the left. I sailed through the air. The whole bus seemed to be airborne for a minute, and then debris fell around me, some hitting me hard enough to hurt, other things bouncing off. We rolled. There was no other way to describe the floundering weightlessness followed by jarring pain. It seemed to last forever—the rolling, thump, contact, pain, and flying again. Like being in washer set to spin, I lost track of everything until final
ly it all ended.
The entire bus stopped with an aching creak of metal. I lay on what had been the roof, stunned, every inch of me numb or screaming in pain. The gun sat at my hip like some angel of mercy had put it there to give me an out to all the pain. I blinked at the darkness filling my eyes and realized it had to be blood when it only blurred my vision on one side. The adrenaline that had kept me moving was quickly fading.
Ollie hung upside down, still strapped into the driver’s seat. For a moment he looked lifeless as his arms swung toward the floor, but he groaned and his head lolled to the side. He was bleeding from a head wound too, but I hoped it was just a cut from all the shattered glass and not an actual concussion. He wasn’t supposed to ever get concussed again as it could cause permanent brain damage.
I searched for Jacob and Levi. Jacob was still bound to the cross, only he was upside-down and bleeding from a handful of cuts. His eyes were open wide and glaring in the opposite direction.
Levi emerged from the bedroom area at the end of the RV looking battered and favoring one arm, which was bent at an unnatural angle, but he had Jacob’s borrowed Taser in his good hand. He raised it to fire, at me or at Jacob I didn’t know, since we were only a foot or so apart now, but I had the gun up and fired one round straight into Levi’s chest. He staggered, blinking for a minute, his grip on the Taser faltering, but he didn’t let it go, so I shot him again, this time through the forehead. No mistakes, no pleas to drop the weapon, he was done. I was done. This whole thing had to be done.
The sound of the gun echoed through the RV like a rocket. Jacob screamed, shaking his head, cringing at what I was certain hurt his healing ear. Too much noise, too close, even I flinched at the volume.
Levi dropped like stone, the back of his head exploding around the shot. It was never as nice and neat as the movies made it look, and I’d rather Ollie not see a man with his head blown off. But what other choice was there?
The world swirled around me in a Tilt-A-Whirl of pain, color, and soundlessness. Okay, I was going to pass out now. We needed to get out of the bus in case there was a fuel leak, fire, anything, but I could barely breathe, and I let the darkness rise up and cradle me off into a quiet slumber.