Endeavor: A Driven World Novel (The Driven World)

by S. E. Rose

  “I guess your braking skills are better than your driving skills,” a voice says.

  I try to turn but my eyes meet a barrel of a gun.

  “I wouldn’t move if I were you,” the voice says, “brother.”

  My eyes widen as Jason releases me and steps forward.

  “Jason…I…what’s happening?” I can’t process that he’s here. The brother that I just wept over, the brother who just drove a car over a cliff is standing beside me.

  “You’re really an idiot, aren’t you? Just another pretty face like your mother. Newsflash, moron, I threw a rock on the gas pedal and jumped out. You, however, were supposed to follow me over the edge of that cliff. So, I guess we have a change of plans. I was gonna kill Emma here and make it look like you did and then jumped the cliff in a moment of regret, but now I think a murder-suicide by firearm looks like the option.”

  I step back from him. “Jason, you aren’t making sense,” I say slowly as my mind catches up with my reality.

  “God, it’s amazing I’m as smart as I am. Dad didn’t bother checking all the screws in his engine. You didn’t bother checking your surroundings. Emma, here, thought I was just a nice guy. Surprise, you’re all fucking wrong. I’ve spent my whole life planning this. Everything I’ve done is to get back at you and your fucking family for ruining mine. Now, I just have to deal with Blythe. I think a nice suicide off the penthouse balcony will work, don’t you?”

  I lunge forward, and he aims the gun at my head. I freeze mid-step, placing my foot down. He motions with his gun.

  “Now go stand by your pretty little girlfriend.”

  I walk slowly to Emma. She’s shaking and tears continue to slide down her cheeks. I want to take her in my arms and tell her it’ll all be alright, but I’m not sure it will.

  “Good. Very good. At least you can follow directions,” Jason snarls. “Now…how to arrange you…” He trails off and leans down, grabbing a knife from his pocket. Emma visibly shudders as he cuts the zip ties holding her hands and feet. He rips the tape off her mouth. “There, that’s better. Have to make this look good, don’t we? I’m going to be so upset when I find you this way, after escaping from the stalker. You two just couldn’t handle the pressure anymore. You went crazy, Grady! I tried to stop you before you put that final bullet in your head.”

  He aims his gun at me first. And then two things happen that I’m not expecting. First, Emma jumps up and stabs Jason in the side with his knife. It must have fallen out of his pocket as he got up a minute ago. And, cop cars pull up to my car on the trail with sirens blaring.

  “Put the gun down,” Dean’s voice says from a loudspeaker. But Jason is already lowering the gun as he clutches his side, his eyes wide in shock. He touches the knife in his side. He starts to say something, but a shot rings out and Jason’s eyes widen. I watch as a circle of red forms on his chest. His eyes glass over and he falls to the ground, the gun falling a few feet away from him.

  I don’t move and neither does Emma for a long second.

  “Oh God!” she finally whispers as she falls to her knees beside Jason. “Oh, God! Oh God!” she repeats, her hand over her mouth.

  I snap out of my shock and scramble to her, pulling her into me. Her body begins shaking as she sobs uncontrollably.

  “Are you both OK?” Dean asks. I look up, not even realizing how he got here beside us.

  “Y-yes,” I stammer, keeping my arms tightly wrapped around Emma. Someone hands us blankets. I wrap Emma in one and throw one over my shoulders as I carry her to the police cars on the trail. The next few moments are a blur as the adrenaline leaves our bodies. An ambulance pulls up, and we are ushered inside. A medic checks us over. Emma doesn’t speak, she just trembles. Eventually, her sobs turn to small whimpers.

  “She’s in shock. We’re going to bring you all in to make sure everything is alright,” the paramedic says.

  I nod.

  “No,” Emma whispers.

  The guy stops and stares at her.

  She shakes her head. “No. I-I’m fine. I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

  “Miss, you’re in shock. It’s best if we take you—”

  “I said I’m fine,” she repeats in a much stronger and clear voice. “I-I’m sorry,” she says, turning to me. “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have gone with him.”

  I pull her onto my lap and hold her there, stroking her hair. “None of this is your fault, Emma. None of it,” I say, pulling back and looking her in the eyes. “Do you hear me? None of us knew…” I trail off and look back out into the woods where a white sheet now lies over my half brother.

  “I’m sorry,” she says again, searching my eyes. I lean down and kiss her lips softly.

  “You are alive and so am I. That’s all that matters right now,” I tell her.

  “There’s something you need to know,” she says in a low voice. “He…killed your dad. It wasn’t an accident.”

  I try to process what she’s saying, as Jason’s last words about my father and screws come back to me. No, it couldn’t be. My mind begins to scan all my memories of that terrible day at the racetrack, but as I’m about to ask her what Jason said, Dean walks over.

  “We need to debrief you both if you are up for it. It’s better if we get the story now,” he explains.

  We both nod.

  “I’ll speak with you all now, but Grady needs to hear what Jason told me,” Emma explains.

  “OK. I’m taking you to the local sheriff’s office,” Dean says to us. We follow him to a car, and he drives us in silence. Twenty minutes later, we’re sitting in a small office with cups of coffee.

  “Emma, why don’t you start,” Dean encourages as a police officer turns on a recorder.

  She begins with the restaurant, and then everything that happened once she woke up in the trunk of the car. I add in the details with the cars and cliff and we both share our versions of the last few minutes of my brother’s life.

  When we finish, Dean stops the recorder and looks at us. “The forensics we did on the early sticky notes came in right after you left, but we couldn’t get you on the phone. We were able to pull a partial off one that the cops hadn’t been able to match previously, but with new technology, we got an eighty percent match to Gerald Hogan. He was caught stalking another Indy driver’s house and went to jail a while back. He died in there from a heart attack. The new notes, while very good copies, had subtle differences that our team was able to pick up on. When we ran all our suspects from your mother’s apartment back through the system and widened our search, we came across Jason’s military background. He had been training as a medic when he got a dishonorable discharge for stealing supplies. He was also hacking computers and that’s how he got copies of some of the evidence from the original stalker case. Gerald was more interested in your dad than you, thus the reason the notes stopped after your father died. Everything else recently was a copycat case. Looks like Jason got out of the military three years ago and has been slowly planning all of this. We found a fingerprint at the garage and matched that. Cops just picked up a Billy Whitaker about an hour ago for vandalism. The kid says some guy paid him five hundred to trash the garage. We assume it was a distraction so Jason could take Emma.”

  “Fuck,” I mutter.

  “D-does this mean it’s over?” Emma asks. She looks incredibly small, the blanket still wrapped around her.

  Dean gives her a warm smile. “Yes, Miss Baldwin, it’s over.”

  She nods and looks over at me. “I—”

  But her thoughts are cut off as the door flies open and my mother comes into the room. “Oh, thank God! I was so worried,” she says as she pulls me into a hug. “I just…I can’t believe this.”

  “I’m OK,” I assure her.

  She pulls back and puts her hands on my face, searching my body for injury. I touch her cheek and she looks back at me.

  “I’m OK.” I pull her back to me and we stand there hugging for a long time. I know she
will soon learn of everything that happened, and I dread her finding out about Dad. But right now, at this moment, I have the two most important women in my life next to me and that’s all that matters.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Eight weeks later…

  Emma

  I stare at the screen, letting the video clip play again. It’s from my final interview with “the” Andy Westin and Blythe Daniels. They sat down together last week and gave me an hour-long interview that itself could be a documentary. I hit save on the final cut of my documentary.

  Closing my laptop, I look over at the giant floor-to-ceiling window. Blythe insisted we take a few weeks at the Malibu house. I finished exams last week. I have three more weeks until my summer classes begin.

  I smile as I watch Grady dive into the pool. Looking down, I cringe at the small scar on my wrist. It’s the only permanent reminder I have of the terrifying experience only two months ago. I trace the line, remembering the details of that night. As much as things have gotten back to normal, they’ve also changed.

  I get up and walk over to the sliding door, watching as Grady swims laps in the pool. It’s hard to believe that it’s only been three months since we met. It feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago all at the same time.

  I slide the door open and walk outside, sitting down on a chaise lounge, while watching my boyfriend. My boyfriend. I still pinch myself thinking about it. I never thought I’d love someone so much. He hasn’t said the words to me, but I know he loves me. He’s had so much to deal with since we met. It’s only been the past week or two that the paparazzi has started to back off and the articles about his brother have become more infrequent. Blythe has been a superstar, even more than normal. She gave one interview and only one interview about a month ago. Grady gave a brief statement and has not spoken anymore about it since then. I know he’s still reeling from all of this. I’m still reeling from it all. Blythe insisted that we both see her therapist. It’s helping, slowly. Kate, having been through trauma before, has been encouraging me to talk to her whenever I need to, which also helps. She’s flying us out to see her in a few weeks. Quinlan has been great at distracting me. She’s brought me to a number of events so that I can network. She’s not only been a great mentor, but I would also now consider her a friend.

  The nightmares are less frequent, but I still have them. Grady’s had a few, too. I know things will get better as time goes on, but I’m not sure I can ever forget the vivid details of that night.

  It’ll stay with me forever. It changed me forever.

  Grady gets out of the pool and walks toward me. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I see a text from my mom. My parents have checked in daily with me. They wanted me to take the rest of the semester off and come home, but I felt like that would make it worse. At least here, I’m distracted and busy.

  “You OK?” Grady asks as he approaches me. A towel wrapped around his waist, revealing his perfectly sculpted abdominal muscles. I look up at him and smile.

  “I’m alright,” I reply, and I mean that. I’m not fine, but not bad. But as long as I’m here with him, I know I’ll be alright. Our therapist thinks we are using each other as security blankets for our trauma, but I believe it just brought us closer in a way others will never understand. I can’t imagine my life without Grady in it, and I don’t want to.

  “Shall we go for a walk?” he asks, motioning to the beach. I glance back in at Dean, who is sitting at a small desk off the kitchen.

  “You think our keeper will let us?” I ask him.

  Grady huffs, pulls out his phone, and types a text. A moment later, Dean is at the door.

  “Seriously?” he asks.

  I pull Grady’s phone from his grip and read the text.

  Grady: Dad, can we go out and play on the beach? I promise that we’ll behave and won’t go far.

  I giggle and slap Grady’s thigh. “You are such a—”

  “Sexy boyfriend?” he suggests, cutting me off and grinning at Dean as he picks me up and tosses me over his shoulder.

  I slap his ass. “No.”

  “An amazing lover?”

  I giggle. “Stop it.”

  “I know, I’m a freakin’ rock star.”

  Now my giggles are out of control as he walks us out to the beach and sets me down. “You’re something,” I retort.

  He waggles his eyebrows, and I grin as we clasp hands and walk along the water. The salty air blows my hair around as the cold water laps at our feet. Everything seems a million miles away when we are here in our little bubble. I know we can’t stay here forever, but it gives me hope that as the weeks go on, we’ll continue to heal and get back to our lives. The scars may always be there, but the wounds are slowly closing.

  Grady

  I pull Emma down onto the soft warm sand, settling her between my legs. She leans her head back against my chest, and I wrap my arms around her shoulders, resting my head on top of hers.

  “How are you, really?” I ask her as I plant a kiss on the top of her head.

  She shrugs. “Better. Every day, I get a little better.” She pauses and I wait, because I know my girl now and I know she’ll say more if I give her a moment. “I haven’t had a nightmare in a few nights. And, studying for exams and working on the documentary have been good distractions. It helps to get back to a normal life.” She turns her head to look up at me. “Well, sort of normal.”

  I poke her boob, and she nips at my hand. “Sort of normal?”

  She kisses the spot she just nipped, and I feel my cock come to life at her touch. “What’s not normal about it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, living with a rock star and vacationing at a beach house in Malibu?” she says sarcastically.

  “Sounds normal to me,” I quip, grinning down at her.

  “You’re an ass, you know that?” she says to me.

  “But, I’m your ass, now, baby,” I answer as I lean down and gently kiss her lips. She responds by turning around and wrapping her legs around me, deepening our kiss. God, I could make love to this woman forever.

  “I think we should head back up to the house before the paps get photos of us making out on the beach,” I suggest, pulling back and pressing my forehead to hers.

  “Do you think after your next tour ends, we could go somewhere with no paps for a while?” she asks as I help her stand.

  “Yes, I think we can arrange that.”

  “Good, because I don’t know how you put up with them. I kinda want to do a documentary about them, but I sort of don’t want to acknowledge they exist.”

  I laugh. “Sounds interesting. Why don’t you tell me all about it while I have my afternoon snack,” I say as we walk up the steps to the house.

  “What are we having for a snack?” she asks, and I know she’s feigning innocence and it drives me even more crazy.

  “Playing coy, Miss Baldwin?” I ask, raising an eyebrow as I take her hand and escort her to our bedroom.

  “Never, Mr. Daniels.”

  I shut the door and pull her top over her head, followed by her shorts and underwear. When she’s lying naked on the bed, like a fucking dream, I crawl up between her legs, tracing between her legs with light touches.

  She squirms. “You still haven’t told me what you’re going to eat,” she whispers in a low seductive voice, the one that drives me fucking crazy.

  “You, baby. I’m going to eat you,” I reply as I lick her. I don’t stop until she’s screaming my name. We have nothing to do this afternoon except this, and I swear with every touch of her body, she heals me a little more. I’m not sure we’ll ever be the same after that day, but maybe, just maybe, we’ll be stronger for having survived.

  Epilogue

  Six months later…

  Emma

  I have earplugs in my ears because I learned after my first race that the cars are loud, very loud. But it only slightly dulls the roar of the engines and screams of the fans.

  Colton helped Grady put together a
charity race for his dad. All the proceeds go to the charity that Grady had created, Racing for the Rainforest. Until now, that charity had been his only public tie to his past racing and his father. I think it’s been cathartic for him to finally show the world that he still loves to race. The race car drivers even did a lap in missing man formation to honor Ken Daniels before the race started.

  “For someone who’s been out of the business for a long time, Grady’s doing great,” Quinlan yells. She’s standing next to me alongside Hawke. The rest of Monumental Mistake stand on my other side. Blythe is on the other side of Quinlan, talking with her parents and Colton and his wife, Rylee.

  I nod. I haven’t shared my secret that the man spent years practicing on a private track. “He’s still got it,” I answer because it’s the truth. I’m happy for him. He now has a chance to compete in charity races like this one. He doesn’t have to pretend anymore. He can show the world that he still loves racing. The band’s late summer tour is now over, and after this race, Grady has promised me that we can head out to his grandmother’s house on Maui.

  We have a big week this week. The day after tomorrow is the first showing of my documentary at a film festival. And after that, we’ll leave for a month. I decided to wait and walk at graduation in the spring with my fellow classmates, but as of four days ago, I’m officially finished with my master’s program. It’s strange to be done. Part of me wants to go back for another degree, but I also have a million and one film ideas that I want to work on at some point.

  “You decide on any of the job offers yet?” Quinlan shouts.

  I shake my head. I’ve had a few offers to work for various film production companies, and I’m considering them, but I haven’t made up my mind yet.

  “Well, don’t wait too long,” she says.

  I nod and look back out at the track. I know she’s right and the clock is ticking.