Colorado 01 The Gamble (82 page)

I took a step back, lifting my chin,
muttering, “Sorry,” when I saw Damon standing in front of me and my
body locked.

“Pressed charges, English,” he hissed,
“stupid. Seems you never learn but I’m gonna teach you.”

My body prepared to take flight as my mouth
opened to scream but he landed a roundhouse punch to my temple and
everything went black.

* * * * *

I came to in a truck bouncing along the main
street in town. I blinked away the unconsciousness and could see I
hadn’t been out for long. We’d barely left the grocery store.

My head turned left slowly and I pushed away
from the door I was leaning on. Damon was behind the wheel.

I lifted my hand to my pounding temple and
kept blinking against the fog in my eyes.

“Damon, pull over,” I said quietly.

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth, English,” Damon
clipped back.

“Please, pull over.”

“
Shut your
fuckin’
mouth!” he snarled.

“Don’t do this,” I urged. “This isn’t
smart.”

“Fuck you,” he bit out.

“You’re already in trouble. Don’t –” I
started to explain but his beefy arm shot out, his knuckles
impacting on my lips, pushing them into my teeth and I instantly
tasted blood. My hand at my temple dropped to my lips as his arm
disappeared.

“Like I said, bitch, shut your fuckin’
mouth.”

I shut my mouth. I didn’t want to rile my
mountain man stalker any further. He was already riled enough.

My mind was whirling but through the haze
still over me from his first punch all I could think of was that if
I opened the door and threw myself out, I’d likely give myself
broken bones and I didn’t want broken bones because it would be
difficult to cook pasta bake after Max rescued me if I had broken
bones.

I was still thinking this when I heard Damon
mutter, “What the fuck?” and then I saw another truck speeding
alongside us.

We were out of town and on the open road. I
leaned forward, looked passed Damon and saw the driver was
Harry.

Harry.

Thank God! Harry! He must have seen us and
come to rescue me.

Harry sped several car lengths beyond us
and then I watched i
n
shock as Harry cut the wheel and then Harry’s truck turned sideways
into our lane, cutting us off. Damon stood on the brakes and I flew
forward, throwing up a hand and it slammed into the dash as my body
not in a seatbelt flew forward too and kept going. My head cracked
against the windshield then immediately I was thrown left as Damon
cut the wheel to avoid colliding with Harry’s truck and then I was
thrown forward again when we rocked to a bone-jarring halt in a
ditch.

I was blinking away stars as I pushed myself
back in the seat. It was pure instinct that lifted my hand and
guided it to the door handle. I pushed my door open and nearly fell
to my knees as I shoved myself out of the cab. My body was making
its escape before my mind caught up with it but I lost my footing
as I climbed the ditch, scrambling up the last of it on my hands
and knees. I pulled myself to my feet at the top and rounded the
back of the truck where I saw Harry standing, his eyes on the
driver’s side of Damon’s truck.

“
You fuckin’ asswipe! Are you
fuckin’
nuts?
” Damon
bellowed and I looked to him to see he was out of the truck and
charging up the ditch toward Harry.

Then my whole body jolted as I heard the
sharp crack of a gunshot and I stood stock-still when I saw the
blurred, hideous spurt of blood spray from Damon’s chest before he
fell down to both knees.

Stunned to immobility, I stared as Damon’s
body dropped face first to the grass, gravel and mud beside the
road then slowly my head turned and I saw Harry moving toward me, a
peculiar look on his face, a gun smoking in his right hand and he
was shifting it to his left.

“Harry,” I whispered, my voice trembling, my
tone a mixture of horror and shock, “he hurt me but you didn’t have
to –”

I stopped talking when the look on Harry’s
face penetrated and his right hand lifted.

He no longer had the gun in that hand. He
now held a syringe.

Too late I took a step back but he caught me
at the waist, yanked me to him and I felt the needle plunge in my
neck.

Then his face was all I saw.

“
Just like Max told me to do, I’m mannin’
up, Nina. This is me mannin’
the fuck
up.”

My lids lowered against my will, I forced
them open as I felt my body lifted in Harry’s arms and we started
moving toward his truck.

Then they lowered again and I was gone.

* * * * *

My eyes opened and I was confused because I
was certain my eyes were opened but all I could see was dark.

I started to move and it was then I realized
both my arms were over my head. I thought this was strange until I
tried to move them and it was then I realized they weren’t only
over my head, there was something cold biting into my wrists and it
hit me my arms were secured over my head to something.

I went still and my mind raced. Then I
remembered Damon. Then thinking Harry was there to save the day.
Then watching Harry shoot Damon. Then Harry taking me.

Oh my God. Oh my
God!

I sucked in breath and that was when I felt
the gag. There was something in my mouth and something tied around
my head to hold it in place. I fought back the panic that surged
through me and tried to take stock.

I was on something soft, a mattress. It was
cold, not bitter but not comfortable. My limbs were stiff from
inactivity and lying in the chill. My arms were not only secured to
something over my head but my ankles were also tied together. My
head hurt like hell and I was still fuzzy from whatever Harry
injected me with.

And I was in the dark. Lying gagged and
tied up in a foreign location in the dark. Just like the heroine in
a horror movie
but real.

I kept fighti
ng back the panic by turning my mind to trying to
figure out where I might be. I was either someplace dark, like a
room with no windows or I was someplace secluded and it was dark
outside, someplace the moon couldn’t light.

Either way, I was in trouble.

Cautiously, I tested my wrists against
whatever they were secured to and it made a clinking noise so I
stopped.

“Nina?” I heard a woman call and
stilled.

Bitsy. Oh no, that was Bitsy’s voice.

The mattress under me moved and I felt a
hand light on me. “Nina, it’s me. Bitsy.”

I rolled to my back, turned my head in her
direction and tried to see through the dark.

“
Oh honey,” she whispered, her voice
breaking. “Oh God, Nina. Oh God. God. God.
God.
What have I done?”

I tried to say something from under the gag,
she heard it, her hand left me and I felt the gag being pulled from
my mouth. When it was free, I spit out the material and then
swallowed against the dryness coating the inside of my mouth.

“Are you okay?” Bitsy asked.

No. No, I very much wasn’t okay.

“Harry’s turned,” I whispered back, my voice
slurred. “I think, Bitsy, I think I watched him murder Damon.”

The mattress moved again, I heard her
dragging her body closer to me and I knew she was lying on it with
me but apparently she wasn’t shackled to the bed. Then again, Bitsy
didn’t need to be tied down. Bitsy couldn’t go anywhere.

Her hand curled on my neck and I felt her
face close.

“It’s my fault,” she whispered.

“Bitsy –” I started to tell her she had to
find a way to get me lose so I could get out of wherever we were,
get away from this true, real life horror movie and get us some
help but she interrupted me.

“It is, it’s all my fault.”

“Don’t, sweetheart, we have to –”

I stopped this time because I heard the
noise of a door opening and then light flooded the room, blinding
me. Bitsy’s body jerked away from mine and we both twisted as best
we could. I blinked against the light and saw Harry walking in, the
lower half of a woman over his shoulder.

Oh God, what now?

Then I saw him dump the woman on the floor,
her long, straight ebony hair flying as he did it and he did it
unceremoniously, not like she was a human being but like she was a
sack of sawdust. Her head cracked against the planks just as her
body thudded against them. I watched in horror as her body settled,
her hair slightly obscuring her beautiful face.

Shauna.

By the looks of her, clothes dirty and in
disarray, hair greasy, she hadn’t seen the inside of a shower for
awhile and I knew instinctively this was because Shauna Fontaine
didn’t take off with her mantoy. Shauna Fontaine, like me, had been
kidnapped by a mountain man gone bad.

The mattress moved again and I tore my
eyes from Shauna, unconscious, or worse, dead on the floor to see
Bitsy pushing up on her arms.

“Harry –”

“It’s okay, Bits, it’s all gonna be all
right,” Harry cut her off. “I got it all figured out.”

“No you don’t, Harry. You don’t,” Bitsy told
him urgently. “Listen to me…”

She trailed off when Harry moved to her side
of the bed and sat on it. He twisted his torso to her, his hand
coming up to cradle her face, he leaned in close.

“I did, honey, I listened to you. I
listened,” he whispered.

“
You didn’t. This is out of hand. This is
wrong. Shauna?
Nina?
Why
–?”

“He took away your legs,” Harry
explained.

“
Yes, he did.
Curt
did. But Nina’s Max’s and –” Bitsy
started.

“
He took away your legs,” Harry repeated.
“He killed Anna.
Your best friend.
He fucked Shauna
in your bed.
” His thumb lovingly swept her cheek. “I listened, Bits, I
listened to every word you said from that day I saw you in the
hospital after he crippled you. I listened and I was with you all
the way. He had to pay. You said it. You said it again and again
and again as he fucked you and fucked you and fucked you. You
didn’t want him to do that to our town, you didn’t want that big
house up on the hill, you didn’t want to be queen of Gnaw Bone to
his king but he didn’t care what you wanted. He never cared what
you wanted. He only cared about one thing. Curt. Curt was all Curt
cared about. Wakin’ up next to you and tellin’ you he loved you and
then goin’ off and bangin’ Shauna, givin’ her money, makin’ you the
fool as you wheeled your way through life. I listened, honey, I
listened to every word you said. You were right, he had to
pay.”

“
He
had to pay.
Curt
did!” Bitsy hissed, yanking her face from his hand which
stayed suspended in air for a second before he tried to touch her
again but she dragged herself back so his hand dropped.

“Bitsy, baby –”

“
No!” Bitsy snapped. “We had a plan. You
take care of Curt and we play it cool. The money was untraceable.
We’d been putting it aside for
years
, Harry,
years.
No one
would ever know. No one.”

Shock made every centimeter of my body lock.
There it was but I couldn’t believe my ears as I lay there and
stared at the hideous scene playing out in front of me.

Harry
and
Bitsy had had Curt killed.

Bitsy.

Bitsy!

“He hired an investigator,” Harry
returned.

“
So?” Bitsy shot back. “I knew that, Harry,
and I told you. The guy didn’t know anything. The game was to play
it cool, you know that. No matter what,
play it cool.
That investigator didn’t know anything. I
know because I got in Curt’s desk and read his reports. He didn’t
even know
we
were sending
the death threats! He didn’t know anything. He didn’t know
shit!
Then you off and kill him the
same night that guy you found killed Curt. Why? Why would you do
that? And this,” she threw out an arm, “Shauna? Nina? It was only
supposed to be Curt. Only Curt. Why would you drag Nina into this?
What’s the matter with you?”

“
Shauna was fuckin’ Curt
and
Max
and
me,” Harry retorted.

“I know that, Harry, it was part of the
fucking plan for you to look like you’d moved on from me,” Bitsy
returned.

“
Jesus, Bits, I just told you she was
fuckin’
me,
” Harry bit
out.

“
Yes, Harry,
I know that.
That was the plan,” Bitsy bit back.

“God,” Harry leaned back, “you don’t even
care, you don’t even care she sucked me off, that I had to fuck
that cold, emotionless piece of ass to keep up this shit so no one
would guess.”

“I cared but that was the plan, Harry, we
both had to sacrifice so we could have what we wanted. So we could
be where we wanted to be,” Bitsy reminded him.

“
But she was tryin’ to take Curt’s
money,
your
money,” he
clipped. “She got pregnant to do it.”

“
She’s not pregnant, you idiot!” Bitsy,
finally losing it, snapped. “She’s as pregnant as
me.
She said it because Curt always
wanted a kid and obviously I couldn’t give him one so she thought
she could play that but she wasn’t going to get
dick.
Not from Curt, he may have thought with his dick
half the time but the other half wasn’t stupid, Harry and you know
it. And you had to let her play you so you’d be with her when Curt
was done and then no one would think a thing of it when you dumped
her after I was available and you came back to me. That was the
plan, Harry. We’ve been talking about it for years. That was the
plan. Simple, smart, patient and cool. But no. No, you go off and
murder Curt’s investigator and try to pin it on Shauna and… and…
and I don’t even
know
what Nina’s
doin’ here!”