Coached in the Act

by Victoria Laurie

  I heard a car door open, and I was shoved inside, smacking the middle console before crumpling onto the front passenger seat in the fetal position.

  The car door opposite me opened, and Darius got in. “You got your key fob with you?” he asked.

  My head throbbed with pain while I twisted around to sit sideways in the seat with my back against the door and my knees pulled up to my chest protectively. As I looked dully at him, I could see that Darius’s expression was filled with deadly intent, and it was startling to see in someone who played the Dr. Jekyll part of his character so well.

  “Whah . . . ,” I said, still unable to form coherent words.

  Darius pressed the START button, and my car hummed to life.

  In the distance I heard the wail of sirens, and I thought, Oh, God! I’m saved!

  Darius put the car in reverse and stomped on the gas while pulling hard on the wheel, spinning the car around, and I bounced against the passenger side door, nearly blacking out again.

  “I bet you think you’re safe, huh?” he said.

  I could only blink my lids slowly at him.

  “You’d be wrong,” he said. “You’re about to have the same accident my wife’s car had.”

  I tried to make sense of what he was saying. Was he about to hit someone else with my car?

  But then, as we sped down the road before taking a sharp left, all the while those sirens drawing closer, I realized where he was taking me. I could feel the immediate incline as the car sped up the hill.

  The same hill his uncle had lived on.

  “So that’s what you did with her car,” I said. Realizing I’d actually spoken coherently, I wanted to smile, but my mind’s ability to move my body wasn’t exactly cooperating.

  “Yeah. It was beautiful. I didn’t think the Rover would make it. It got smashed up pretty good, but it did. All the way off the cliff.”

  My chin drooped while I looked up at him with half-lidded eyes.

  He looked at me and scowled. “I was gonna take the flight to Singapore tomorrow, but I guess taking it tonight doesn’t make much of a difference.”

  Again, I blinked at him, all the while my head drooping on my neck.

  I knew we had to be near the top of the hill by now, so I turned my head ever so slightly to stare out the windshield. The sirens were no longer approaching. They’d stopped. No doubt the police had arrived at Darius’s house.

  But I wasn’t there.

  And in a moment, I wasn’t going to be anywhere.

  Suddenly there was a whoosh of air, and I turned my head again to see Darius had opened the car door and was beginning to lean out while gripping the steering wheel with one hand. My feet were resting on the seat while I was lying back against the door.

  Using all my willpower and strength, I lifted my legs and slammed my feet into Darius’s arm. He let go of the wheel immediately and went tumbling away from the car.

  And then I barely managed to lift my hand, clamp down on the wheel, and turn the car to the left. I had no idea if this would save me or kill me, but I had to try something to save my life.

  The open door swung wide, then came whooshing back and slammed shut. My car bobbled along, shaking the interior—and me—and then slowed down, until it bumped into something and stopped.

  Panting hard, I picked my head up and looked around, blinking furiously all the while. My car had hit something that was out of sight. Probably a rock. Thank God the airbags hadn’t deployed.

  After pulling myself up into a sitting position, I crawled into the driver’s seat and was just about to turn the engine off when, out of nowhere, Darius’s bloody and dirt-stained face appeared in the windshield to the left of the car.

  “You stupid bitch!” he screamed.

  The rush of adrenaline helped to clear my thoughts. Darius was already scrambling forward to reach for my door handle, so I threw the car in reverse, punched the gas and turned the steering wheel left again, hard. Darius was thrown away from the car once again, and I raced away.

  Somehow, I managed to get back down the cliffside road, and I thought it was probably a good thing I didn’t actually know how close I’d come to going off the top of the cliff.

  When I got to the bottom and the main road, I hit the brakes and just sat there, panting heavily again. I felt nauseous and dizzy and unable to drive even an inch farther. So I laid my head down on the steering column, reaching up to push weakly on the horn with my left hand.

  The horn bleeped, and I let up on the pressure and then pressed down again to give another short beep, then three long beeps and three short beeps. I kept that pattern up through sheer force of will until there was a knock on my door.

  I stopped hitting the horn and gasped, thinking it was Darius again, come to finish me off.

  “Cat?” Shepherd said.

  Lifting my head ever so slightly and opening one eye, I saw him wearing a frantic look and trying the door handle, but the automatic locks had kicked in.

  “Cat! Let me in!” he said.

  I turned my face away, closed my eyes, and fumbled around for the door handle. After pulling on it, I felt the door open and a rush of fresh air hit my cheek.

  “Cat?” Shepherd said, laying very gentle hands on my shoulders. “Cat?”

  “I need help,” I squeaked. Tears leaked out of my closed lids.

  “I’m here,” he said. “I’m here.”

  Chapter 20

  I was on a solid week of bed rest and bored out of my mind. Gilley propped me up with a dozen pillows, and every four hours he fed me a little something to help with the lingering nausea. I’d sustained a terrible concussion, and the doctors had told me I’d need at least a week of bed rest until my dizziness subsided, and then I’d have to take it easy for the next few months, while my brain healed.

  The CT scan hadn’t shown any bleeding, thank God. That would’ve been a fine kettle of fish.

  Shepherd came to stay with me every single night, after he got off from work. He and Santana had been able to put all the pieces together once I told them how I thought both Yelena and Purdy’s murders had gone down.

  Even better, when they found video of Darius purchasing the size ten raincoat from a local department store, and discovered that he’d withdrawn two-hundred thousand dollars from his private savings account on the day of Yelena and Purdy’s murders, they knew they had Darius dead to rights with the circumstantial evidence.

  When presented with all the evidence, and the fact that only the worst attorney in the Hamptons would take his case after what he’d done to Marcus, Darius had confessed, simply to save himself from ending up at Rikers. The deal he made with the DA meant he’d be sent to another maximum-security prison in Kentucky.

  Sunny had been cleared of all charges, and at least Darius had insisted that she’d had nothing to do with any of the murders. She was back home, still recovering from the shock of discovering that her cheating husband had fathered a child out of wedlock, murdered one of her closest friends, had attempted to kill her, Marcus, and me, and had allowed her to take the blame for at least one of those murders.

  Let’s just say it was a lot to process.

  Gilley had floated between Chez Cat and Sunny’s house, playing nursemaid and helping her with Finley. He would sweetly bring Spooks up the stairs to me every time he was about to leave me go to Sunny’s for a few hours.

  “How’re we doing today, sugar?” he asked when he brought in my breakfast tray, Spooks padding along faithfully behind him.

  I patted the bed, and Spooks jumped up and took up his usual spot, on the pillows next to me, his head resting on my shoulder.

  “I’m feeling better each day, Gil.”

  “That’s good!” Gilley said, setting the tray table down across my legs.

  “How’s Sunny?” I asked.

  “She’s getting better every day too. I think she’s over the shock and finally moving on to angry.”

  “Let’s hope she doesn’t stay angry for to
o long.”

  Gilley crossed his fingers with one hand and removed the silver covering to the plate on the tray, revealing the most delicious set of blintzes I’d ever seen.

  “Blueberry’s your favorite, right?”

  “Oh, my God,” I said, clapping my hands in delight. I am a huge fan of blintzes.

  Gilley flipped out a cloth napkin and placed it over my lap. “Pain pill today?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m starting to crave them, so . . . no.”

  “Good idea,” he said, pocketing the vial. “I’ll take these back to the pharmacy to be properly disposed of tomorrow, after I know that you don’t still need one before bed.”

  I took a bite of a blintz and moaned. “That is insanely good, my friend.”

  “The trick is to have two pans going. You don’t want your first crepe to dry out before you’ve cooked your second.”

  I wrapped my hands around one of his. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he replied, swishing his hips happily. “Oh, and Marcus would like to come over for a visit.”

  I stared in shock at him. “Marcus? Marcus Brown?”

  Gilley smirked. “The one and only.”

  “He’s already out of the hospital?”

  “Oh, yeah. He got out two days ago. He’s allowed to move around for short periods of time. He’s hired a driver and a nurse, and he wants to check in on you and Sunny, of course.”

  “Please tell him I said absolutely yes.”

  “I will,” Gilley said. “Now, if you’ll excuse—”

  Gilley’s phone rang, and he and I both jumped at the sound. After taking his cell out of his pocket, he stared at the screen.

  “It’s Michel, isn’t it?” I said.

  Gilley nodded.

  “Gil, please, please talk to him. Please put the two of you out of your misery.”

  Gilley looked up at me, took a deep inhale, then pressed the TALK button. “Hey,” he said.

  Then he walked out of the room, taking my best wishes for him and Michel with him.