Love You to Death (13 page)

“How else was I going to convince you to move
in with me? I had to get rid of the retard. Those thugs were going
to jail on a drug charge. I made the drugs disappear from the
evidence room. They weren’t supposed to beat you so badly. I told
them to rough you up, scare you, not almost kill you. If I ever run
into them again...”

Breathe, I told myself. I could hear Stewie’s
little whine beginning from behind the curtain. The shaking in my
hands moved up my arms to my shoulders and down through my chest.
Cass was worse than I thought. He was more dangerous than I
realized.

Escape wasn’t my only objective now. I had to
become Houdini and make me and Stewie disappear for good.

I took a deep steady breath. “So what do we
do now?” I asked.

Cass didn’t answer me right away; he pursed
his lips, thinking. Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out
his Glock. I sucked air in through my mouth like a fish out of
water.

“Now we get rid of unwanted liabilities.” He
flicked the safety off. “I think this will help your loyalty
problem.”

“I don’t have a loyalty problem,” I murmured
fearfully, misunderstanding what he was saying. He couldn’t kill
me. There would be an investigation.
Like Ellen?
My mind
sputtered. Oh God...

Cass walked over to me, laying a cool hand on
my cheek. “You won’t after I take out the source of your confusion.
Come out here, Stewie.”

“No!” I yelled, pushing Cass away. “Stay back
Stewie!”

“Stop it! You are MY wife!” Cass grabbed me
by the hair and threw me on the floor. He brought his hand down,
the one holding the gun, and hit me. I saw stars. Lots of them.
Then I saw Stewie knock down the screen and tackle Cass.

Cass was smaller, slighter than Stewie, but
he was in full rage mode. They were an even match. I scrambled to
my feet to help Stewie. Hands gripped my elbows.

“Let me go!” I screeched, wriggling against
the hold.

“Calm down,” Shorty ordered.

Cass punched Stewie in the stomach. Stewie
folded in half and hit the floor, landing on his knees. Cass raised
the gun at Stewie. Everything that happened next was like a dream,
transpiring in slow motion. It all fell apart in a matter of
seconds, but it felt like hours.

I twisted around far enough to bring my knee
up and smash Shorty’s privates into his rib cage. He howled,
hitting the floor, hands between his legs. Magoo stood in the
corner like a statue.

I dove in front of Stewie just as Cass fired.
Hot searing pain ripped through my shoulder. I landed hard on the
cold linoleum floor.

“Cherry!” Stewie shook my arm. I
screamed.

“You hurt her!” he roared. I heard scuffling
and Cass swearing. Then a few muted thumps. I rolled over to see
what was happening. Stewie was on top of Cass, banging his head on
the floor.

“Stewie... No...” I croaked out.

He looked at me. His face was screwed into a
hostile mask, so unlike the innocent look he usually wore. He
climbed off Cass and crawled over to me.

“Oh, Cherry!” He started crying. “Are you
okay? What are we going to do?”

Stewie rocked back and forth on his knees,
waiting for me to tell him what to do. What the heck
could
we do? I’d been shot. I was bleeding all over the place. Stewie was
a blubbering mess. I closed my eyes trying to concentrate.

“Lift up. Lay here,” I heard.

Stewie lifted me in his arms. He hobbled a
few steps to lay me down on the table he had vacated. Poor Stewie.
I was sure he was in pain too.

I opened my eyes to look into the face of Mr.
Magoo. He poked and prodded at my shoulder. I bit my lip to keep
from screaming again.

“Flesh wound, through and through. You okay,”
he told me before turning to rifle through his medicine cabinet. He
pulled out a bottle of water and a bottle of peroxide. He put the
items on a wheeled cart and walked back to me. He cut my shirt and
peeled off the material around my shoulder.

Magoo took a wad of cloth and poured peroxide
over it and sponged my shoulder. He took another wad of cloth and
poured the water over it and handed it to Stewie.

“Press down here.” He took Stewie’s hands and
held them to my wound. I yelped. Stewie looked like he was going to
pass out.

“I’m okay,” I assured him, even though I was
anything but.

After about ten minutes the blood stopped
oozing and Magoo rolled me to my side to cut the back of my shirt
to cleanse the exit wound. Then he wrapped yards of padded gauze
around my shoulder. Making a sling from one of the dressing gowns,
he secured my arm over my chest.

“You need a doctor,” Magoo instructed
calmly.

“I can’t go to a doctor. They’ll call the
police.”

Magoo helped me sit up. Stewie stared at me
like he expected me to sprout wings. I managed a smile for him.
Magoo pulled a black bag from a closet. He dug around, extracting a
prescription bottle.

“Antibiotics,” he shoved the bottle into my
hand.

“Thanks.” I gave Magoo a side glance. “Why
are you helping us?”

“I don’t like them.” He nodded toward the
unconscious Cass and a still groaning Shorty. Made sense to me.

“C’mon Stewie, we gotta bail.” I ignored the
lightheadedness that threatened to take over when I stood up.

“Get to a doctor,” Magoo instructed.

I nodded. Stewie slipped his pack onto his
back, slinging mine over one shoulder as he supported my weight
with his free arm. We made our way to the elevator. I said a quick
prayer as the ping sounded and the doors opened. Empty.

I tried to concentrate on our next move, but
the drowsiness was setting in, making it hard to focus. I took a
quick inventory of our supplies. We had a thousand dollars and a
diamond wedding set. That was the good news. The bad news was that
we had no vehicle, no change of clothes—which I was sorely in need
of—we had nowhere to go, and Cass would be hot on our trail when he
came to.

“Stewie...” I mumbled, feeling the blackness
creeping in. “You have to hide us.”

“Where should I hide us, Cherry?” He sounded
scared. I opened my mouth to suggest a few places, but everything
went dark.

Chapter
Thirteen

Something smelled bad. Something was scratchy
and sticking me in the back. My mouth was dry, and despite the
eighty degree weather, I was cold. Wherever I was, I was moving. I
opened my eyes.

I was in a trailer of some sort. Moonlight
sliced through small slatted gaps giving me enough light to see the
scratchy stuff poking at me was hay. Great, I was in a horse
trailer. That was the smell.

Stewie lay curled next to me, his mouth
slack, dribbling drool down his chin. I reached over to tap his
shoulder. I instantly regretted that move. Pain shot like lightning
from my shoulder to the tips of my fingers.

“Mother of pearl!” I hissed through clenched
teeth.

“Cherry?” Stewie was immediately alert. His
wide childlike eyes filled with question.

“I’m okay.” I wasn’t. I needed about ten
Percocet and maybe a morphine drip. This hole in my shoulder was
throbbing with a life of its own.

“Where are we?”

“In a horse trailer,” he whispered
dramatically.

“I know, buddy. But where are we?”

“I don’t know. I fell asleep.”

Great. We were trapped in a moving vehicle
with no idea where we were going.

Think Cherry.

I closed my eyes. Nothing came to me. All I
could focus on was the steady thrumming of the blood pulsing in my
arm. The trailer slowed to a stop. I looked at Stewie, mouthing,
Stay quiet.

Two doors opened and slammed shut, quiet
voices fading as they walked away. When I was sure they were gone,
I nodded at Stewie.

“Help me up,” I said.

“Wow. You feel hot, Cherry,” he said,
reaching down to help me stand.

I was freezing. My teeth were chattering.
Great, a fever. Where were those pills Magoo gave me? They were in
the zipper of my pack. Without water to take them I had to choke
one down. It wasn’t easy.

“You don’t look so good.” He started rocking
back and forth.

“I’m fine.” I tried to reassure him. A wave
of nausea washed over me. I braced myself on the wall of the
trailer so I didn’t fall when the world began to swirl around
me.

“Cherry!” he yelled. “Maybe you should lay
down.”

I agreed, sinking to the floor.

The doors of the trailer swung wide. Two tall
silhouettes stood before us.

“Holy night,” one whispered.

“You two need to get out,” the other voice
ordered. I heard the faint twang of an accent.

“Cherry’s sick,” Stewie blurted.

“I’m fine,” I lied, struggling to get
upright.

“No, you’re not,” Stewie insisted. He looked
at the two shadows and repeated himself more emphatically. “She’s
sick.”

“We don’t take kindly to addicts. Ya’ll will
have to get your fix elsewhere, ma’am,” the second man said. He
wasn’t unkind about it. His tone was gentle, but there was a
definite firmness along with the lazy drawl of a southerner.

“Cherry doesn’t do drugs,” Stewie said with a
touch of hostility. “She’s hurt. Cass shot her.”

I groaned. I’d forgotten to tell him to keep
quiet about that.

“That true?” the man asked.

“Yes. It was an accident,” I said. It wasn’t
really a lie. Cass was going to shoot Stewie. It was an accident
that he shot me.

The man let out a heavy sigh and turned to
address the other man beside him.

“Cort, you take this boy to our room. I’ll
bring the girl.”

“I’m not leaving her.” Stewie backed into me,
bumping my arm. I howled. He jumped away from me. “I’m sorry,
Cherry!” He started crying.

“Shhh, it’s okay buddy. I know you didn’t
mean it,” I said gasping for air. “Go on. Go with Cort.” I said the
man’s name hoping Stewie would feel more comfortable. Saying the
man’s name inferred familiarity. I learned that on an episode of
NCIS
. It worked. Stewie hopped out of the trailer and
followed Cort.

“Where’re you shot?” the mystery man
asked.

“In my shoulder. I had a doctor look at it.
He gave me antibiotics, but no pain killers.”

“What kind of doctor doesn’t give pain
killers for a bullet wound?” he wondered out loud.

“The kind that doesn’t work in a
hospital.”

The metal trailer creaked as he climbed
in.

“I need to touch you in order to help you out
of the trailer,” he said.

“Yeah.”
Duh.

“Okay then.” He slipped his arm around my
waist, carefully avoiding my arm. I clutched the waist of his jeans
for additional support. “Easy does it.”

He dragged me to the edge of the trailer,
hopped off, and then turned to lift me down. “You alright?” he
asked in that soothing voice. I nodded, mashing my lips together to
keep from screaming.

In one swift fluid motion, he lifted me into
his arms. I leaned into him, resting my head on his shoulder. He
walked with an easy gait, as if he wasn’t holding a hundred and
fifty pounds of me in his arms. My face rested in the crook of his
neck. I could smell the scent of soap and sunshine, a clean smell.
Unlike Cass, who always wore cologne.

I closed my eyes.
Just for a
minute.

* * * *

Someone was whispering. More like two or
three people.

“Go fish,” Stewie giggled.

“Dang, I was sure you had sevens,” another
voice, Cort.

“Keep it down. She needs her sleep.” That
tranquil voice I liked so much.

“Sorry, Gideon,” Stewie said. “We don’t have
to play.”

“It’s alright, Stewie. Ya’ll just have to
keep it down.”

I smiled. They were good with Stewie. That
said a lot. I opened my eyes, blinking a few times to get my
bearings. From the bed I was tucked into, I saw Stewie sitting at a
table across from a gangly kid who couldn’t be much older than me.
His auburn hair was cut short and his legs stretched out under the
table for miles. His eyes crinkled when he laughed, which he was
doing as Stewie cleaned him out of fours.

“Welcome back.” That smooth voice
intoned.

I rolled to the right. Sitting on the other
bed, his equally long legs stretched out over the bedspread, was
the man that went with the voice. He wasn’t bulky, but his lean
muscled arms had the look of hard coiled rope. The T-shirt he wore
wasn’t tight, but it fit snugly against his chest.

I couldn’t see his face; the lamp was in the
way. Reading my mind, he scooted forward. I found myself anxious to
see what kind of face went with such a mild-mannered voice.

I was slightly surprised. He was far from
angelic looking. His short hair was the color of toasted chestnuts.
A blend of dark and light browns with hints of blond here and
there. His features weren’t classic; they were rugged. A couple
days’ worth of stubble covered his square chin. His nose looked
like it had been broken once and hadn’t been set properly, it was
slightly askew. He had that cowboy look about him, rough and
ready.

“My name is Gideon Shepherd. That’s my
brother, Cort.”

I glanced at Cort. He smiled and tipped an
imaginary hat at me.

“Cherry, are you feeling better?” Stewie
abandoned the card game and slid onto the bed. I patted his
arm.

“Yes, I am.” But the arm was still
thumping.

“Would you like a drink?” Gideon asked.

“Yes, please.”

Gideon got up, lifted the lid of a travel
sized cooler, and withdrew a can of Ginger Ale. He unwrapped one of
the complimentary paper cups and poured the soda into it. I watched
him, fascinated with his thoughtfulness.

“I stitched up your wound, both sides. There
doesn’t seem to be any infection. But you’ll need to keep an eye on
it.” He dropped three capsules of extra strength Tylenol onto my
palm before handing me the soda. “Here, take these.”