Marked By Desire - The Complete Series, page 24
Opportunity in sight, Hannah ran around the side of the car, aiming to get into the driver’s side door and drive off before Carlos could get in, too.
He was cursing her loudly and she could hear his footsteps as he ran after her.
Adrenaline pumping through her body, Hannah reached the door and grabbed the handle, jerking it open. She looked up briefly to see that Carlos was right behind her. She half slid, half fell into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind her. Carlos reached her just as she did so and his chunky fists pounded once on the glass of the window.
Hannah jumped at the sound, but had enough presence of mind amidst her fear to slam down on the lock, so that Carlos couldn’t open the door. She quickly did it for the other four doors, making it clear that Carlos wasn’t going to get into the car so easily.
Carlos’s face glinted with anger; splotchy red spots began covering his face as he fumed and raged at her antics. He pounded once more at the glass, making Hannah jump again, then moved away back towards the trunk of the car.
Hannah watched him only for a moment longer, then she brought herself back to her plan. She was out of the trunk, but she needed to get away from Carlos now. She had been hoping to start the car and drive away. That was the next thing that she immediately looked for the keys hanging in the ignition.
Except there were no keys.
“Oh, no,” she muttered to herself.
They could still be here, she thought. She began a desperate search for the car keys, but she had the sinking suspicion it was in vain. Hannah checked the visor, flipping it down to see if the keys might fall out, but just a few papers fluttered down.
“Come on,” she whispered, desperation sinking in. Whatever Carlos was doing, he was going to do it soon.
She looked in the middle console next, digging through receipts, empty coke cans, and—tickets? They were full page print outs and Hannah couldn’t help stopping to quickly examine them. They turned out not to be tickets at all, but reservations. It was for a room in someplace in Colorado. A ski resort, she thought.
The reservation was for that night.
“We’re going to Colorado next,” Hannah said aloud, wondering if Luke had any idea yet. Had that been what he and Carlos had been talking about on the phone while she was trying to get out of the trunk? Had Carlos given him a false clue to follow, or did he want him in Colorado?
A loud, sharp thud against the window startled Hannah. She jumped and let out a cry. Outside of the window stood Carlos, and he had retrieved his gun. He motioned with the gun first at the door lock and then at her, making it clear that she could either unlock the door or he could shoot it open.
Which meant he probably didn’t have the keys. So somewhere in the car, there were keys and if she could just find them—
She began once again to frantically search for the keys, more desperate than ever now that he was standing right outside the door with his gun. She had to find them. She checked through the passenger seat, running her hands along the seams.
There was more pounding against the car window and this time there was a crack to accompany the sound. He was just going to break the window if he kept pounding that hard.
Despite her efforts, Hannah couldn’t seem to find the keys. And despite Carlos’s pounding, he hadn’t broken the window yet. Finally, he seemed to decide that it wasn’t worth the effort and he pointed the barrel of the gun right outside the window.
Hannah saw it out of the corner of her eye and jerked back, hands shielding her face instinctively, as the shot went off, shattering the window. Shards of glass dropped down around Hannah as she screamed. Carlos’s hand reached through the now open window and grabbed at her. She cried out.
“No!” she yelled, struggling as his hand grabbed hold of the collar of her shirt. “Let go of me!”
He started to pull her towards him, trying to yank her out through the window. Desperate and panicked, Hannah grabbed hold of his hand and brought it to her mouth. She clamped her teeth down hard over it, biting into the flesh until she could taste the sharp coppery flavor of blood in her mouth.
Letting out a quick yell, Carlos released her automatically.
“You bitch!” he yelled at her, and tried to grab her again.
But she was ready this time. Hannah’s instincts kicked into high gear and she crawled across the seat and over the middle console to the passenger side.
Carlos stopped fiddling with the window and just reached down, popping open the lock and pulled open the door. He leaned down to start crawling after her, his potbelly making it awkward for him to move as he tried to follow her, grab her, and point the gun at her all at once.
Hannah reached out and unlocked the passenger door, shoving it open as hard and fast as she could, sliding out of the car just as Carlos’s hand reached for her, grazing the material of her shirt as he grasped.
Hannah fell ungracefully out of the car. She landed on her hands and knees, hard. They would probably have bruises from how hard she landed, but she didn’t pay any attention to that. Her instincts were still in control and she crawled a little ways from the car on her hands and knees, shuffling quickly so that Carlos couldn’t reach out and get a hold of her.
Managing to successfully pull her feet beneath her and get up from her hands and knees, Hannah started running. They were parked in the middle of some alleyway in a city she didn’t recognize, so she had no idea where she was going or where to go for help, but it didn’t matter. Anywhere was better than where she was running from.
It was hot and humid, causing sweat to pour down her face and back as she ran, but she didn’t let it stop her. Up ahead, the alley ended and she saw several cars go past. So not a busy road, she decided, but maybe busy enough that someone would see her. Or the buildings in the area could be businesses or restaurants, something with people and phones in them that she could go to for help.
All she had to do was reach one of them and everything would be fine.
Then she heard the gunshot. It echoed in the enclosed alleyway and ricocheted off a trashcan to Hannah’s right. Instinctively, she covered her head with her hands and dodged behind a dumpster on the opposite side.
“This is your last chance!” Carlos yelled out to her from the other end of the alley. “Get in the car, or I’ll kill you.”
Hannah thought about it. He had shot at her, it was true, but he also hadn’t shot so close to her that he would have hit her. It was deliberately away from her body. Which meant he was probably still reluctant to shoot her. That meant that she still had a chance to make it to the street.
She estimated the remaining space to the mouth of the alley. It was possible that, if she ran fast enough and if Carlos didn’t shoot her, she could make it.
Taking several deep, steadying breaths, she gathered her feet up under her and leaned forward like a sprinter might start, and prepared herself to run as fast as she could.
In her head, she started counting. On three, she would run.
10
She took a breath.
11
Her muscles tensed.
She was ready to take off and almost did, but right before she could make her last dash for escape, Carlos’s voice called out again.
“I want you alive,” he said to her, voice louder and echoing due to the high building walls surrounding them. “But I don’t need you alive. If you run again, I won’t miss. After all, I can use your dead body to torment your precious marshal just as easily as I can use your living one.”
Her face paled as blood drained from her face.
“Don’t make me change my mind about you, sweetheart. We’ve been getting along so well.”
Hannah shuddered at the idea of having any sort of relationship with them man. Her eyes glanced at the mouth of the alley once more. Maybe she could make it. Then her gaze darted to the trashcan on the other side of the alley. It was dented and had been knocked over by the bullet. That could be her, she thought, heart pumping wildly in her chest.
The idea that Carlos needed her alive had been enough to fuel her recklessness. He could hurt her, yes, but he wouldn’t kill her.
But at his words, she was forced to reconsider. She didn’t have any trouble believing that Carlos had the skill to put a bullet in her. He had been trying to do that for several months now and had earned a bullet in him from Luke for his trouble.
And the thought of him using her body to torment Luke…that was enough to make her decide. She didn’t want to die, and she didn’t think that by dying she would be doing Luke any favors. He was the kind of man who would never forgive himself for letting anything happen to her.
She would have to try again to escape another time.
Swallowing hard, she promised herself that she wouldn’t give up. She had no choice but to go back to him now, but she wouldn’t give up. There would be other opportunities and she would be ready for them.
She wouldn’t be the victim forever.
With a deep breath, she called out, “All right! I’m coming out. I won’t run. Just please, don’t shoot.”
He didn’t answer so, after a moment, she lifted her hands above her and stood up, coming slowly out from behind the cover of the dumpster. With a last, longing glance at the exit, Hannah started walking towards Carlos.
He kept the gun trained on her and the red splotches of anger still marred his face. His watery eyes were stone cold behind his glasses, though, and that worried her more than the rage she was used to. She stopped right in front of him, waiting.
They would go back to the car, she thought, and he would handcuff her again—or maybe not, since she had gotten out of the last pair, half of them still hanging from her right wrist. Then they would drive, start heading towards whatever place he had booked in Colorado.
And Luke would come after her there.
Carlos gripped the gun in his hand so tightly that his knuckles were white and his arm shook. He wasn’t going to put up with this again, she realized. If her next escape attempt failed, he wouldn’t try to get her back. He would just kill her.
And she still had to try.
Sure to aim the barrel of the gun right at her forehead, he told her through gritted teeth, “Don’t ever try that again. If you do, I won’t play run-around. I’ll just put a bullet right here.” He tapped her forehead, making Hannah flinch. “Right in that pretty, empty little head of yours. Don’t try me.”
She nodded.
He tilted his head to the side. “Promise me, honey.”
Her chin began to tremble. “I promise.”
At this, Carlos smiled, that same cold smile that so often took over his features, but his eyes always remained cold. “Good.” And then he hit her across the head with the butt of his gun.
She blacked out.
12
Someone had said he was the shooter. Luke was willing to bet that it was Carlos Messorelli who had made that call. Or had paid whoever had made that call. And the worst part, Luke realized, was that the gun that was currently in Luke’s holster, his gun, was the murder weapon.
Ballistics would be able to trace the type of bullet that was used and compare it to the ones he used. Once they realized that they matched, they would start doing other tests. Things like striations, little marks along the bullets—hell they would probably compare it to previous cases of his. The ones where he had had to discharge his weapon.
Calloway was still on the phone with him, yelling his head off to try to get Luke to respond again. Several minutes of silence on his part had made Calloway increasingly concerned.
“Blake!” he yelled. “Answer me! This is serious and we’ve got to get you in here before someone gets too gung-ho and starts shooting before asking.”
Half to himself, half to Calloway, Luke said into the phone, “I’ve been framed.”
“Of course you have,” Calloway said impatiently. “Anyone who knows you knows that. But these boys in Louisiana, they don’t know you and they ain’t going to take the time to get to know you, so get the hell home. I’ll book you a flight—and dammit, this time get on the plane—and escort you back to the agency. We’ll get your report and get this whole thing sorted out.”
Luke said nothing and Calloway must have sensed that that likely meant he wasn’t going to return just yet.
“I mean it, kid,” Calloway said in a stern voice. “Don’t even think of pulling that vigilante lone ranger crap. We’ll catch this guy, but you’ve got to work with me. We’re on the same side, after all.”
“Like Scott was on our side?” Luke said, his voice betraying just how much that still stung. Scott had once been a very important figure in Luke’s life, his mentor, so when he betrayed him to Messorelli…well, it hurt all the more.
Calloway released a heavy breath. “You know I’m sorry about that,” he said, sounding both tired and legitimately apologetic. “I should have listened to you when you told me that there was a rat in the department. But no one could have foreseen Davis being the mole. Shocked the hell out of everyone.”
That was true. No one had suspected Scott. He didn’t always have the best of character—namely, when it came to women—but he had always been a good agent. Hadn’t he? Now Luke wondered if other people hadn’t suffered, other cases been influenced, because Scott had been bought off by the mob.
Maybe further questioning would reveal the truth on that one, but Luke doubted it.
When Luke remained silent, Calloway let out another sigh. “We’re not all Davis. Some of us have been your friend for a long time, really your friend,” he reminded him. “I’m on your side, regardless of the rest of these yahoos. And I’m telling you that if you turn yourself in, I can help you out. But if you run, no one’s going to believe me when I tell them you’re not guilty.”
“You’re right,” Luke told him.
The cops were close now, approaching quickly but cautiously. Luke was still backing away. The crowds around the area were still running around frantically, though the ones closest to the scene seemed to notice that the police had arrived.
“No one will believe you,” he said with a shake of his head. “And I know you’ll tell them anyway. Thanks for that, Calloway.”
There was a long pause on the other end as Calloway absorbed what Luke just said. “You’re not coming in, are you?”
“Don’t waste your money on a plane ticket, Bob.”
And with that, Luke hung up the phone, slipping into the crowd and disappearing into the sea of faces. The police never even saw where he went. After Luke had placed his gun back into its rightful place in his jacket, no one even looked twice at him. Before the cops even got all the details of the story, Luke was out of the park and walking to the car.
Turning himself in wasn’t an option. Not when the bureaucratic paperwork would take months and Hannah only had hours.
Getting into his car and out of the parking lot before the police got suspicious was easy enough for anyone who had ever dealt with the police before. As a result, Luke was back at his hotel before anyone was the wiser. Although he had checked in under his fake identity, he had a sneaking suspicion that the police in New Orleans had talked with the police from Crowley, or would soon enough, and discover that Liam Holmes and Luke Blake were the same people.
Which meant he had to get out there as soon as possible.
Luke swiped the key card to get into the room and quickly started throwing things into a bag. It didn’t take long; he didn’t have much, so in less than ten minutes he was back in the car and driving towards the airport.
That was going to be the tricky thing, he thought. If the police had put out an APB or a warrant for his arrest—under either name—there was a good chance he would be stopped at the airport when he tried to board. But he had to do it. The trip back to New York would take too much time driving and Luke only had until the following morning to get to wherever Messorelli had taken Hannah.
Luke hadn’t deciphered the clue yet—what did the Miner’s Trail ride have to do with a movie, Scrapple?—which meant he didn’t know where Hannah was, just yet, but he did know where he had to go. New York was the last place he expected to return to just yet, but he had to go.
Glancing at his watch, it was just after two in the afternoon; he knew he had to get moving.
There wasn’t much traffic going towards the airport, thankfully. He missed the lunch rush by a couple of hours and the dinner rush wouldn’t be for a while still, so his trip was relatively smooth. He pulled into the parking lot a ways from the airport and took the bus the rest of the way.
It took him a bit longer, he knew, but he wanted to throw the police off his trail if they found his car. If he parked it right at the airport, it wouldn’t take them long to figure out which flight he’d gotten on and to track him down from there.
At least this way, his plan wouldn’t be immediately evident.
Assuming, of course, they hadn’t already tagged his identification cards. He chose to use his real one, hoping that the New Orleans police would be looking for Luke Blake, the federal marshal who had gone rogue, not Liam Holmes, the bum from Atoka, Oklahoma who had nothing better to do than watch his girlfriend twenty-four-seven.
Walking up to the ticket counter, Luke waited behind five people before it was his turn. He went up to the woman behind the counter, a perky twenty-something with too much make-up on.
“Hello,” she greeted brightly. “How can I help you today, sir?”
“I need the earliest flight into New York,” he told her quickly.
She started typing quickly on her computer. “Into New York City?” she inquired, still smiling brightly.
Luke shook his head and smiled at her, hoping he would put her at ease. “No. I need one to Manchester.”
