Caught Off Guard Page 24

  Strong nodded. “All this started because he wanted to leave. What if we didn’t win the Super Bowl this year? He knew winning one was on my bucket list and we were in the zone. We were headed for the opportunity.”

  “So why didn’t you just pay him?”

  Strong’s eyes went wide. “Why did I have to? I owned him.”

  “And you held it over him to make him do whatever you said. But I’m guessing he grew tired of it. That’s why he was willing to give everything up to get away from you. So what happened? He asked for big money. You said no because then you’d have to lose some other players due to the salary cap and he… what?”

  “He tried to play with the big boys. Make no mistake—Keith was a good ballplayer. Talented. But he was a soldier. He took orders—orders from the coaches and from me. I warned him not to let his ego get the best of him, but it did. He wanted more money. And when I said no, he decided blackmailing me was the answer.” Strong laughed derisively. “Stupid people surround me.”

  I said, “Only I don’t think he did want money. I think he wanted away from you.”

  Strong shook his head. “But don’t you see? I was never going to let Keith out of my sight. He knew too much. And once he was no longer worth anything to me, I would dispose of him like I do all my other problems.”

  “Except Kami Bartell. She’s still around.”

  Strong stood. “Have you met Kami? She’s afraid of her shadow. I just have to remind her to be afraid every so often. She’ll crack soon enough and do herself in. Problem solved.”

  I met his gaze with my unwavering one. “So you snuck into McVay’s house from the escape room door, a room you only just discovered that night when you saw him come out of it. And you knew then that McVay had kept this secret from you, so what else might be out there? You went in and were waiting for him when AJ dropped him off.”

  “I bet you didn’t figure that out alone, did ya? But yeah, I was there when he came home. He wasn’t surprised to see me. Said he knew I’d be coming. But he tried to play me for a fool. Changed his tune. Said he was gonna stay with the team and go all the way. Said he didn’t have the proof, that I’d called his bluff.”

  “But you didn’t believe him?” A paranoid guy like Strong wouldn’t ever be able to trust another person.

  “Nope. And he turned his back to me just once, and I put both of us out of our misery.”

  “You hit him with the dumbbell.”

  Strong made like he was dropping a mic. “Problem solved.”

  “And Brad Jenson? AJ? What roles had they played in this?”

  Strong shook his head. “When you have a weakness, prepare for it to be exploited. That was Brad Jenson. He had gambling debts. I paid them off, and all he had to do was switch the medicine shot the doctor gave Keith with the one spiked with the PEDs. Your pal AJ was a convenient scapegoat—nothing more, nothing less.”

  I shook my head, confused. “It doesn’t sound so smart to tip your hand to someone I imagine you saw as insignificant as Jenson.”

  Strong rolled his eyes in annoyance. “I didn’t deal with him. Lennie did.” He gestured toward the outdoors, where Goon Guy had gone. “Then you started snooping around, and I couldn’t take any chances, so Lennie took care of him.”

  “After you made an incriminating video regarding AJ. A fake confession.”

  Strong’s brows wagged. “Of course. We live in a world of deep fakes. I went old school and didn’t have to use artificial intelligence to modify the video. The confession is the fake.” He tapped his temple. “Brilliant, really.”

  I smiled. “Only your guy Lennie forgot about his shadow, and it's visible, moving across the room. He also forgot to have Jenson start and stop the video. It’s clear someone else is in the room.” I gave him a serious face. “You really should get better editing equipment or fire the guy who did the editing. Even a dumb-dumb like me picked up on the errors on the first watch.”

  Strong’s nostrils flared.

  The back door flung open, and Lennie the goon stepped in. He said, “The other two jumped into the back of a truck and are headed toward town.”

  Strong’s cheek twitched ever so slightly, then he looked back at me. “Goodbye, Samantha. I win. You lose.” He turned to Lennie. “Burn her down.”

  Lennie waited for Strong to leave the room then approached me, but not before he picked up the hatchet. I tried to scoot away, curling into a ball to protect myself. He stepped over me, flicked on the gas stove without lighting it, then took a swing at the stove with the hatchet. The knob flew across the room, leaving no way to turn the gas off.

  Lennie looked down at me and smirked. He feinted with the hatchet, and I flinched, which made him laugh.

  He tossed the hatchet into the other room and moved to stand by the back door.

  Then I noticed a stack of newspapers and magazines next to the counter. Lennie pulled a lighter from his pocket and flicked it. He dropped it onto the newspapers.

  Then he stepped outside and closed the door.

  35

  Monday/Tuesday

  I’d been working on taking the little pocketknife from my secret pouch safety-pinned to my jeans when my situation escalated to critical in seconds.

  One minute, Strong was standing over me calling me stupid, and now the counter by the back door was on fire, the room smelled of gas, and the countdown clock to an explosion was ticking loudly in my head.

  That could also have been my racing heartbeat.

  I fumbled to get the knife out as my hand throbbed, not working well. If my arm wasn’t broken, it certainly was bruised, which was the root cause of my dexterity issue. Once the knife was free, I used my teeth to release the blade and sawed at the plastic cuff.

  Burning the house down was smart. I would die in the explosion, and the plastic cuff would melt, leaving no proof that I’d been trapped.

  I sawed with reckless abandon, not caring that the knife occasionally slipped and jabbed my wrist or cut across my skin instead of the cuff. I was a woman desperate to survive and didn’t care about a few scratches and cuts. Stitches, I could live with… because I would be alive.

  I shaved away at the plastic binding while begging the universe or a higher power for more time.

  Tears ran down my face, mixed with sweat from the heat of the fire.

  My parents would be so upset if I died. I wouldn’t get to see Cora grow up or tease Rachel about her helicopter-mom tendencies. No more sharing beers and laughs with Leo on my balcony. No more Precious or Hue. If I survived, I might consider getting my own emotional-support animal.

  Toby. I hoped he was destroying Strong on the internet. I hoped he knew how much of a friend he was to me.

  I blew out a shaky breath. “Please, please, please,” I begged. I needed more time, less fire, this plastic to give. I kept sawing. My wrist was wet with blood. The fire was climbing the outside wall and moving in my direction.

  I bore down, and seconds later, the cuff snapped free.

  I jumped to my feet, afraid of wasting a second, but my stomach roiled, and bile rose up my throat. The blow to the head had made me woozy and slightly disoriented. I put out a hand to steady myself against the fridge.

  Run! my mind screamed. Run!

  I forced myself to push through the pain in my head and the nausea in my stomach, and with my arms out in front of me, in case I crashed into something, I ran to the front door.

  I flung it open and dashed outside. The cold air slapped me, instantly chilling me, and I found it refreshing and invigorating. The newfound energy spurred me forward, and I ran down the driveway toward the road. My head was throbbing with every footstep that slammed against the earth.

  The cabin would explode at any moment, and I wanted to be as far away as possible. I was nearing the edge of the drive when it happened. The force of the explosion threw me forward, and my body rose from the earth and was briefly carried on a blast wave of heat, only to come down as quickly as I’d gone up. My body sla
mmed across the ground, skipping like a rock across a lake.

  My body screamed in pain, and starbursts exploded in my head, the pressure of which forced me to cry out in agony while squeezing my eyes closed. Rocks, grass, and debris from the house rained down around me. The heat from the fire felt like the worst sort of sunburn, making my skin tingle and my clothes—what wasn’t shredded from my slide—cling to me like plastic wrap.

  I slid to a stop a few yards from the end of the drive. Another wave from the blast roared around me, that time sucking debris back toward the fire.

  The initial blast was behind me. Next, I had to worry about the woods catching fire and burning around me. But that realization and ensuing worry were distant thoughts. My entire being—my skin, my bones, and my awareness—was beat to hell, and the darkness was begging me to visit. I was too sore to roll onto my back, too tired to crawl to the street and where a car might pass, too broken to care if Strong circled back and saw me. I had come far but was desperate for a break.

  So I stretched toward the void and let it claim me.

  “Sam, Sam.” A voice was beckoning me from the abyss.

  I struggled to find it. Opening my eyes, a mere slit showed Leo staring down at me.

  “Leo?” I mumbled, but even to my ear, it didn’t sound like his name but a garbled mess of sounds.

  “I got ya. Stay with me. An ambulance is on the way.” He sounded worried.

  I tried to reach out to him, to comfort him, but the darkness called me back, and it was easier to sink into it than to stay with the light.

  “We’re going to roll you onto your back on the count of three. Ready?”

  That voice I didn’t recognize. I lifted one eyelid to see whom it belonged to. I didn’t recognize the face. The man the voice belonged to lifted up my eyelids and shined a light into each of my eyes. He then slid a brace around my neck. Oddly, I found it comfortable.

  “Okay,” he said again. “One. Two. Three.”

  I was jostled and rotated, and when the cold air hit the front of my body, its touch on my wounds was excruciating.

  Death by a thousand cuts. Exposing the wounds made them sting and scream in protest. It made me do the same.

  “It’s okay, Sam,” Leo said. “The blast must have pushed you down. You got a little road rash.”

  I turned toward his voice and tried to smile, tried to let him know I was okay. I hated that he was seeing me like that—not because I was likely beat to hell but because he’d seen me after a battle before, and he didn’t like it. And when he didn’t like it, he reminded me of it all the time.

  I was lifted up and moved through space, the sensation disorienting. I closed my eyes to get my bearings, and the darkness waved me over. We were becoming close companions.

  I awoke again as they rushed me into a hospital, the doctor saying something about X-rays. I wasn’t interested in being awake for that part.

  The next time I woke, my dad was leaning over me, his hand pressed to my forehead. I was in a bed, but the room wasn’t mine.

  “You have a fever,” he said. “I’m going to get you some ginger ale.”

  Ginger ale was Dad’s go-to. Stomach ailments, fevers, headaches, and even boy problems were treated with ginger ale.

  I didn’t feel like ginger ale, so I closed my eyes and looked for my friend Mr. Darkness.

  “Samantha.” The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  “Samantha. Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of Strong for you.”

  I opened my eyes and blinked several times. I took in the face of the man looking down at me. He was leaning over my bed.

  “Carson?”

  Am I dead? How can Carson be here if I’m not dead? And if I was dead, that was not how I expected it to be—very much a disappointment.

  “You get better,” he said.

  I closed my eyes and pulled the blanket of darkness over myself. When the light beckoned me again, I refused to go.

  If I was dead, I needed the afterlife to be much better than what I’d last experienced. Therefore, I was giving the afterlife time to get its act together and spruce things up. If I was dead, I expected to not feel any pain, to experience no confusion, and to have clarity. I certainly did not expect to feel like crap run over by a semi truck.

  And to shove my dead husband at me on day one was just a cruel joke—cruel indeed.

  36

  Saturday

  The next time darkness shoved me toward the light, I was ready… but hesitant.

  I slowly opened one eye and was not greeted by the blinding pain light had been bringing with its presence. I slowly opened the other.

  I blinked and took in my surroundings. I was in a bed in what looked to be a hospital, if the track curtains dividing the space and a TV mounted across the room were any indication. And the smell—antiseptic mixed with cleaner. Gross. I groaned my displeasure.

  Something rustled behind me, and I rolled, albeit slowly, toward my right. Leo was asleep in a high-back recliner, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Leo,” I said, but it came out a croak. I smacked my lips, which were dry, and when I rubbed my tongue over them, it was like licking sand. I tried to clear my throat instead then repeated, “Leo.” I sounded hoarse and not like myself at all.

  He popped awake, sitting straight up in the chair, blinked twice, then focused on me. “You’re awake?”

  I nodded.

  He narrowed his eyes. “For how long, though?”

  I tried to roll mine. “Drink,” I croaked.

  He jumped to his feet. “I’ll get a nurse.”

  Just as quickly as he was out the door, he was back with a woman my mom’s age wearing green scrubs and a necklace made of Christmas lights.

  “It’s great that you’re finally with us, she said. “You’ve been out twelve hours.”

  I blinked in surprise.

  “You’re telling me,” she said. “We all thought you’d be awake sooner. I’m Ellie. I’m your nurse. Let me get something for those lips.” She bustled off then came back with a damp washcloth to blot my mouth. “I’m going to do this for a moment, then I’ll put ChapStick on. After that, I’ll get you some ice to suck on. Baby steps, here.”

  I said, “What’s wrong—”

  She waved me off. “Save your voice. I’ll give you the list. You have one humdinger of a concussion. No surprise there. Your left arm is broken, the ulnar bone. That’s the one that lines up with your pinkie. You have some second-degree burns on your body from the blast and some road rash that’ll be uncomfortable for a while. You have two cracked ribs. You needed nine stitches on your wrist from various cuts. And you’re going to need a good manicure when you’re released.”

  All said and done, it wasn’t that bad. The concussion worried me the most, but I was in the right place to be monitored. I gave her a thumbs-up.

  She rolled a ChapStick tube over my lips, and I felt the slightest bit of relief as moisture sank in.

  “Let me get those ice chips,” Ellie said and scurried off.

  I looked at Leo. “My dad?” I thought I’d seen him earlier.

  He glanced at his watch. “His plane should be landing anytime. He had to catch several flights to get here. Your mom stayed behind with Cora and Rachel. Though I don’t think she was happy about it. She made me promise to call her every hour. She’ll be happy to know you’re okay.”

  Weird. Like Carson, Dad was a dream? Funny how they both felt real.

  “Strong? Precious and Toby?”

  Leo smiled and sat on the edge of my bed. He took my hand. “Toby and Precious are fine. Worried about you. Like me. Like Lockett. You know who isn’t worried about you? Hue. He said you were tough; you can handle anything. But I told him next time he could find you lying on your stomach, bleeding from the nose—”

  My eyes went wide.

  He waved it off. “Apparently, that’s normal with an explosion.” He met my gaze. “An explosion.”

  “I was there,
” I whispered.

  He closed his eyes and sighed. I gave his hand a comforting squeeze.

  He opened his dark eyes and stared at me. “I’m sorry.”

  “Strong?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, Strong. That son of a bitch. Toby got him good. By the time the ambulance got to you, the world was learning all about Austin Strong’s part in the creation of the spyware and posting it online and then the creating the anti-virus to combat it. That pastry chef you interviewed?”

  I nodded to indicate I knew whom he meant—Kami Bartell.

  “She came out against Strong. Talked about how he sent her threatening emails every few months, videos of her in her house and at work. Roman Castillo did a press conference and told how McVay had sent him proof of Strong’s crimes. He also showed McVay’s video, which has gone viral—”

  I tugged at his hand, drawing his attention. “Video?”

  He looked at me in question. “Yeah, the video was part of the information you all retrieved from McVay’s cabin.”

  Ah. We’d been hit by the truck before I got to finish the video. I gestured for him to continue.

  “McVay’s video outs Strong on everything. Apparently, Strong had a crush on Kami, but she didn’t reciprocate. So he stalked her. Tried to ruin her. He saw her go into the restroom and come out without her drink. Because he knew her every action, he knew she’d go back for it—nonalcoholic drinks were hard to come by at these parties. He put ecstasy in the drink, and when Castillo took her home, Strong convinced McVay to film her. Apparently, McVay didn’t have any problem with what Strong was doing back then, but over time, it started to wear on him.”

  “Contract negotiations,” I said.

  Leo nodded. “Yeah, the only reason McVay was pushing for high salary was because he knew Strong didn’t want to pay. Wouldn’t pay it. He was trying to use it as an out. From what I can figure, if Strong had let McVay go, then McVay would have gone and kept his mouth shut. He just wanted away from Strong.”