Crush(104)

I wasn’t breathing. I gasped and sucked in a breath. Air. I needed air. The window. Could I open it? I tried to find the button on the door, but my fingers wouldn’t move that far. The horn, what about the horn? I should pound my fists against the horn. But my body was sluggish and by the time I placed my hands on the center of the steering wheel and pressed, no sound came out. Wait, I wasn’t pressing; I couldn’t.

My limp body was like a puppet and he was tugging the strings. I could feel what he was doing, but I couldn’t fight it. He pulled at my coat, took my arm out of it, and then he tore my top. I heard the sound of buttons popping and a cool draft hit my shoulder. I heard the familiar sound of a wrapper being torn, the flick, flick of nails against plastic, and then smelled the all-too-familiar scent of Band-Aids.

It was the nightmare of my mother’s diabetes all over again, except I wasn’t diabetic and he was going to give me insulin.

In a hopeless attempt, I tried to move away. I couldn’t.

The needle plunged into my arm. It felt cool as the liquid swooshed through my veins, and then in the next moment I felt like I was falling. Falling into a deep, dark hole.

My father’s face flashed before me. “You’re so weak!” he yelled.

And this time I couldn’t argue with him, because he was right.





LOGAN


As the crow flies, Beacon Hill was only a hop, skip, and a jump from Dorchester Avenue.

At the most, it was ten miles.

Given Boston traffic, it was going to take me f*cking forever to get to her, and in the pit of my stomach I knew I didn’t even have five minutes.

Black rose petals.

They meant dread.

That was all I knew.

A chill ran down my spine, my stomach lurched, and my pulse skyrocketed. I hoped I could reach her in time. But as soon as I stepped out the door, I knew I was f*cked.

The sky was dark, black clouds circling overhead, and the rain was pouring down like sheets of ice. It was f*cking hailing out and the temperature was dropping by the minute.

Her sharp, agonizing scream echoed in my head and I ran as fast as I could to my vehicle. Just as I started it, the passenger door whipped open.

Fuck!

My gun wasn’t on me. It was locked in my desk drawer back in the office and my other one was in the glove box right in front of where . . . my father was now sitting.

“Pop.” I blinked in surprise.

He pounded the dashboard. “Go, go, go!” he yelled.

My hands gripped the steering wheel. My heart thundered and I pressed on the gas full power. “Call the cops,” I ordered.

“No, we can’t do that, son.”

Of course, he was right. Who knew which cops would be dispersed and whose payroll they were on?

I wove in and out of the traffic, the cars moving at a snail’s pace with their hazard lights on.

“Watch it!” my father yelled.

Suddenly, I skidded to a stop at the traffic light and the burning red circle seared into my brain like a hot poker. I was being way too emotional to think this through tactically. The jerk and skid checked my emotions, though, and focused me on the task at hand—getting to Elle.

In one piece.

“Where are you headed?” my father asked.

“The boutique,” I managed.

The urgency in his voice told me he must have heard me on the phone with Elle. “Take the back way to Ashmont Street and then cut through the small alley to get to Neponset Avenue.”

I nodded. “Call Declan—tell him someone grabbed Elle in her car. She’s in the Mercedes and it was parked . . . f*ck,” my throat was tightening, “I don’t f*cking know where she was parked.”

My father pulled out his cell.

“And tell him to get a hold of Miles,” I managed to say even though my throat was almost fully constricted now.

“Declan, are you at the coffee shop?” he said. “Okay, we have a problem . . .”

Elle’s cries echoed in my head and I found myself driving blindly through the haze.

“Logan, turn here!” my father yelled.

Fuck. Pay attention, *, I told myself. I took a right and then an immediate left and got my head back in the game.

“He’s out looking for her now and Miles is on his way. They’ll both probably beat us there.”

I laid on the horn at the slow traffic in front of me. “Move, move, move.”

“Go up on the sidewalk, get around the cars, and take the next right. That will get us to 93 faster in this traffic.”

My tires climbed the curb and I moved around the cars on the pavement until I got to the turn he’d told me to take. “What are you doing here?” I finally asked as I swerved around the bend in the road and went over the railroad tracks somewhere in Boston I’d never ventured.

He spoke calmly and rationally. Nothing like me. “Logan, I don’t know what you’ve been up to but I know whatever it is, it’s dangerous. I heard the terror in your voice from my office and followed you. Now tell me what’s going on.”

I chanced a single glance toward him. “That’s just it, Pop, I don’t have a f*cking clue what just happened. She told me she’d found black rose petals on her back step this morning and a sinking sensation hit me like a ton of bricks. A story Gramps told me.”