Grab - Crouch Blake - Страница 19

Christian reached into the car.

He cranked the engine.

Isaiah said, "I ain't believing this shit."

Christian jumped in, slammed the door, the engine revving.

The Tundra lurched toward them.

Letty didn't even have time to get to her feet.

Just rolled out of the way as the tires slung rocks and dirt, the rubber tread passing inches from her head.

She sat up, coughing, wiping dust out of her eyes.

Isaiah's Tundra sped off down the dirt road, taillights shrinking into the dawn.

Isaiah jumped to his feet, sprinted twenty yards.

He planted his feet and screamed at the sky, his voice racing across the wasted landscape, ricocheting between the buildings in the ghost town.

He turned and started back toward the group, toward Letty.

When he was ten feet away, she noticed the knife in his hand.

"Isaiah, please."

She scrambled onto her feet, backpedaling.

"You," he said. "You did this."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You brought Christian in."

"I had no idea."

He rushed her, swept her off her feet.

She struck the ground hard enough to drive the air out of her lungs.

Isaiah—all two hundred and twenty pounds of him—perched on her chest, his knees pinning her arms to the hardpan.

He dug the knifepoint into her face.

"I ought to carve you up right here. Leave you for the buzzards."

"I didn't—"

"Where did you find him?"

"I told you. He was my therapist. I ran into him at the Palazzo. He was suicidal. Had lost his family several months ago. He told me he'd come to Vegas to kill himself."

Isaiah leaned in close.

"What else do you know about him?"

"Nothing. I only saw him in sessions."

"You think he shoots like a shrink? Think he drives getaway like a shrink?"

"I'm more stunned than you are, Ize. I swear to you. I told that man my darkest secrets for six months."

"Something ain't right here." He drew the blade softly across her throat. "I'll find him," Isaiah said. "And when I do, me and Christian will have a talk. He will tell me all of his secrets. If I find out—"

"You won't, because I didn't. If you want to kill me because I got played, go for it. But I'd never sell my partners down the river."

Isaiah pushed the blade against her carotid.

Stu and Jerrod had wandered over. They stood behind Isaiah, staring down at her.

"What do you think, boys?" he asked. "Feel like watching her bleed?"

20

Letty walked alone down the dirt road away from the ghost town, back toward the highway.

Isaiah, Stu, and Jerrod had gone ahead.

She couldn't see them anymore.

The sun crested a range of barren hills.

The desert went supernova.

She walked on, shoes scraping dirt.

Buzzards circled.

With each step, she became more thirsty, more exhausted, more humiliated.

Occasionally, blinding silver specks would streak across the far horizon. It was the highway, still miles away.

# # #

The sun was high by the time she reached the pavement, beating down with a kind of angry purpose.

There was no sign of Isaiah and the boys.

Sweat poured out of her.

She walked twenty feet down the road and then her legs failed.

She dropped.

Sat down in the dirt.

Stunned/crushed/confused/enraged.

Still trying to process what had happened.

If she wasn't mistaken, it was four or five miles back to Beatty, the last town they'd passed through. But she was in no condition to make the trek. She'd left her purse and iPhone in Ize's Tundra. Had a twenty dollar bill shoved down one of her socks, but not another penny, credit card, or form of identification to her name.

There was nothing coming in either direction.

The heat wafting off the blacktop like a furnace.

Scorpions watching her from the shade.

She couched her face between her knees and shut her eyes.

# # #

The sound of an approaching car brought her head up.

For a moment, she didn't know where she was.

She hoisted her arm into the air and raised her thumb.

A Prius screamed past, kept going.

# # #

The sun bore down from directly overhead, and she could feel herself beginning to come apart.

You have to get up.

You have to walk to town.

You cannot just sit here and wait for a good Samaritan to stop.

Because they don't exist anymore.

# # #

She walked up the shoulder of the highway, swatting at the swarm of flies and gnats that had been attracted by her salt-tinged sweat.

In the distance, the mini-roar of an engine.

She looked up.

Couldn't see anything through the brutal glare.

Just blinding chrome and glass.

Thinking, If I took my top off, would they stop?

Could you handle that rejection if they didn't?

She raised her arm, held out her thumb, but didn't slow her pace.

Kept walking as she shielded her eyes.

The car streaked past.

She traded her thumb for a middle finger.

But something was different with this one.

The pitch of its engine had dropped.

She stopped, made a slow, staggering turn.

Damn.

Somebody had actually pulled over.

She stumbled toward the vehicle, moving as fast as she could manage, some part of her fearing that as she drew near it would turn into a mirage.

But the image held.

A burgundy Chevy Astro with deeply tinted windows.

She sidled up to the van's front passenger door, yanked it open, climbed up into the seat. The air-conditioning was crisp and roaring out of the vents.

She looked over at the driver, her head spinning, unwieldy.

Said, "I can't thank you e—"

At first, she thought she was hallucinating.

A symptom of heatstroke and exhaustion.

But when he spoke, the voice matched the face.

Christian said, "Shut the door, would you? You're letting all the cold out."

When she didn't respond, he reached across her lap and pulled the door closed himself.

The desert raced by.

Christian reached down, grabbed a bottled water from between the seats, dropped it into her lap.

"Glad you were still here," he said. "I swapped out Isaiah's car as fast as I could, but it took longer than I'd planned."

She unscrewed the water and sucked it down.

Still cold enough to trigger a brief, blinding headache, but she didn't care. The thirst-quench was orgasmic.

"There's a whole case," he said. "Help yourself."

She killed two more, leaned back in her seat.

They were speeding along on a descending grade.

The temperature readout passing the 110 mark.

The desert looking more hostile and unforgiving with each passing mile.

Like a lifeless planet. Like that painting in Christian's office.

The hydration and the AC were going a long way toward clearing her head.

She looked over at Christian. He'd changed. Maybe others wouldn't have noticed, but to her, a student of body language, it was like riding with a completely different man. He sat straighter. His shoulders implied confidence and ability. And there was a hardness in his face that hadn't ever been there before.

He said, "Your pride is wounded. As it should be. But you should know something."

"What's that?"

"I am the very best in the world at what I do. The game was over before it ever started. It was like a middle school kid trying to compete in the PGA Championship."

"Are you even a therapist?"