Chapter 21
21
Somebody needs their brakes checked , I thought, as I continued to text with Sue. Damn, she was funny.
Movement caught my eye and I looked up just as someone grabbed my arm holding my phone. He grabbed it hard.
“Oww!”
He twisted me around and suddenly my back was pinned against his front. I opened my mouth to yell and he slapped his hand—no not his hand, but something—over my mouth and face.
I couldn’t see.
I couldn’t breathe.
I kicked backward, trying to hit his shins.
“Shit, bitch, stop it.”
His fingers bit tighter into my biceps and this time I yelled in pain. Instead of a scream coming out, a wet cloth and noxious odor was coming into my mouth.
I kicked back again and he lifted me off the ground and spun me around. I tried yelling again, but he shoved the cloth even tighter against my face. I jerked my head back and forth, trying to dislodge it. Doing anything I could to get rid of this…
…smell.
…man.
I needed to…
Kick, Marlowe. Kick .
I tried to kick, but…
I was going to throw-up…
…fight.
… Kai .
Hurts. He hurt me …
… Kai .
“What in the ever-loving fuck do you think you’re doing?” I yelled.
As I came up on the guy who was trying to push Marlowe into the obligatory white panel van I thought my head might explode.
Her ex. Denny. Had to be.
He dropped her and her phone into the van and turned to face me. He reached behind his back, but I didn’t have time for this motherfucker to get a gun. He was already dead as far as I was concerned.
I covered the forty feet in less than three seconds and I took him down. I grabbed the gun out of his right hand, then threw it into the flowers. I hit him, and I hit him, and I hit him again.
“Please,” the man sputtered, blood spewing. “It’s just a job.”
I hit him again and again.
“Beau, stop,” a man yelled.
“That’s Kai,” a woman said.
“Whoever he is, he needs to quit?—”
“Dave, be quiet and call an ambulance.”
Ambulance?
I jumped off the cretin who had been trying to hurt Marlowe and looked around. In the back of the van, I saw Marlowe struggling to get up on her elbows.
“Jesus, Marlowe, are you alright?” I asked as I crawled in beside her.
“I’m.”
I carefully embraced her, cradling her head in the crook of my arm.
“You’re what, Honey?”
“I think I’m alright.” Her words came out slow and slurred.
“How hard did Denny hit you?” I whispered my question.
“That’s not Denny.”
“It’s not?”
“No. I’ve never seen him before.”
Fuck. What in the hell is going on?
I started to press around on the back of her head.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m checking for lumps, to see where he hit you.”
“He didn’t.”
She tried to get away from me, but I wasn’t letting her. Fuck, I wasn’t going to let her out of my sight again. Next time I was going to be clearer. She was to stay in the vet’s office, not go wandering around in some parking lot.
“There,” she pointed.
I looked to see what she was pointing at. It was a blue rag. When I picked it up I could smell the chloroform. Fuck, he hadn’t hit her.
“Where’s that ambulance?” I shouted out.
“It’s coming.” I focused on the woman talking and realized it was Alice Draper, the woman who owned the hardware store with her husband Dave. I took a breath so I wouldn’t rip her head off.
“Alice, do you know what the ETA is?”
“It’s coming from Sevierville. But I’ve also called Doc. He should be here in another minute or two.”
This time I actually cared, and hoped he was worth a shit. He seemed to be doing okay for Sam, but I hoped he would know how to handle a woman who had just breathed in a bunch of chloroform. Just as I was thinking that, I heard groaning. The scumbag who had hurt Marlowe was coming to.
“Alice, do you think you could keep an eye on Marlowe while I spend a little bit of time with my friend down there?”
“Kai, you don’t want to end up in jail,” she cautioned. It was that moment that I realized she was raising teenagers.
“I won’t.”
Alice clambered into the back of the van and carefully took Marlowe from me, then I jumped out and looked down at the scumsucker. If Nash took him into custody, he’d call for a lawyer, then I wouldn’t know who was coming after Marlowe.
I locked eyes with the man who was also standing over the asshole. He held out his hand. “My name is Dave Draper.”
I shook it. “Kai. Did you call the sheriff?”
Dave scratched the bottom of his chin. “The way I saw things, that needed to be your call.”
I grinned. I was really liking the Drapers.
“So what do you want to do?” he asked.
“I want to take him with me, get some answers out of him, before taking him to Nash.”
Dave nodded. “Seems reasonable. No reason to waste the sheriff’s time.”
I grinned wider.
A burgundy Buick Roadmaster drove right up to us. It had to have been made in the late 1990’s. Out came Doc Evans.
“Where’s my patient?” He scowled.
“She’s in here,” Alice called out.
Doc easily climbed into the van. Man must do some of those PT exercises himself . I followed him.
“Who the hell’s bright idea was it to keep her in here, and not take her out where there is fresh air?” Doc wanted to know.
Damn, he was right.
Doc picked up the blue rag, took a quick sniff, then threw it out the van door to Dave. “Dispose of this. Preferably where no one else can get to it.” He then turned his attention back to me. “Now, let’s get her to that bench, out yonder. I don’t think she needs oxygen, but I’m going to check her vitals. Somebody call an ambulance?”
I was lifting Marlowe out of the van as Alice was answering the Doc. Dave, however, was not running to dispose of the rag. Instead, his foot was on the neck of Marlowe’s assailant. Yep, he was somebody I wanted to go have a beer with. I’d even pay for his.
As soon as I had her on the bench out on the sidewalk, Doc took his stethoscope out along with a blood pressure gauge.
“Honey, your blood pressure is kind of on the low side. What is it normally?”
Marlowe told him.
He gave a satisfied nod.
He then set his stethoscope against her chest. “I want you to breathe normally for me. Can you do that?” Marlowe rolled her eyes. Yep, my girl was feeling better.
“Don’t be giving me any of your lip, young lady.” He listened to her lungs. “Now I want you to breathe deep for me.”
He took the scope away and looked at her. “I take it he didn’t have the rag against you for all that long, did he?”
“No, sir.”
“Didn’t think so. You’re going to end up with quite a headache. You’re going to need to go to bed early, and sleep in, but other than that, you should be fit as a fiddle.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
“That’s it.” He patted me on the shoulder as he got up off the bench. That’s when I noticed we had garnered a little bit of a crowd.
“Nothing here to see, folks. Go about your business.”
It was funny to see how everyone obeyed the old doctor. He then turned his attention back to the two of us. “I’m going to tell the ambulance to head back home. There’s no need for one. If you find yourself getting dizzy or becoming nauseous, you call me. Alright?”
We both nodded.
“As for the guy on the pavement, am I safe to assume that you’re not done with him?” Doc asked me. His whole kindly doctor demeanor had faded away.
“You have assumed correctly.”
“Just drop him off with Nash when you’re done. He can call in someone from Sevierville to fix him up.”
I gave him a chin lift.
Doc got back into his Roadmaster and drove away.
“You good with taking a little bit of a drive?” I asked Marlowe.
“Where are we going?”
“Onyx Security.”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
When we got back to where her assailant was, things had changed. Instead of the scumsucker being under Dave’s boot, he was now on his stomach with his hands and ankles zip-tied.
“Nicely done,” I complimented Dave.
“Here.” Dave held a gun and a knife. “They’re his.”
I nodded my appreciation.
“Are you taking him away in his van, or your truck?” Dave asked.
The man was covered in blood, but that wouldn’t hurt the bed of my truck. Still, somebody might notice a tied-up man in the back of my truck as I drove to Simon and Roan’s office.
“The van,” I said.
“Let’s get him on up there.”
“I can—” I had to stop myself. “Yeah, let’s,” I ended up saying. It sucked that I needed help. It fucking sucked.