Chapter 24
Heart meet throat. Fletcher’s pulse jumped around her jugular as she and Waylon crouched beneath the windowsill. Don’t be Jackie, don’t be Jackie, don’t be Jackie. Fletcher dared a peek below. “Um, is this a stress hallucination, or do you see the Ghost of Salesmen Past, too?”
“You’re joking.” Waylon inched up. Looked. Shook his head. “Not unless we’re both hallucinating.”
Asshole Rick stood at the base of the kapok tree. Alive, but stretching the definition.
With him wafted the undeniable stench of fried flesh. An angry pink blister formed over half his face, and the other half scowled. Black, bubbled skin covered his arms, one hand hanging limp at the side and the other clutching the lightning rod bayonet that got him electrocuted in the first place.
How the gun still worked was beyond Fletcher, but he’d strapped a bandolier across his chest, stuffed with shells. He wore a wicked grin, although his lips had been burned off, so it was mostly skeletal teeth with very little gums.
“You thought you could outrun me?” Rick slurred. At this point, even a sloth could outrun him. Clearly, he was operating off fumes of pent-up rage and very little else. When Fletcher squinted, she swore steam still radiated off him.
Then, Fletcher noticed the ATV. He’d parked it behind the roots, the engine still humming. Once the idea sparked, there was little Fletcher could do to snuff it out. They’d make it to the marina way faster if they had a ride.
While Rick wasted his breath shouting at the sky, Fletcher pointed toward the ATV. “What’s a little grand theft auto when you’re already an accessory to, like, ten murders?”
“Probably ten to twelve years,” Waylon muttered. It really wasn’t much of an argument, considering their other option was serving a life sentence on a deserted island.
“We need to throw him off. If we try to waltz down there now, we’re definitely getting shot.” Fletcher tucked her camera into the rucksack before Waylon hauled it over his shoulder. They didn’t have much time to spare. An eight-legged rustling upstairs hatched an exit plan. “Arnold!”
No ordinary paper in the world had the heft required to support Arnie’s leviathan leg span, so Waylon wedged one of his mom’s leftover canvases beneath the basket and carted the spider downstairs.
“Three, two, one…” Fletcher counted. On “go,” she shoved the balcony door open, and Waylon shuffled out far enough to hurl Arnold over the railing.
Ambient screaming signaled the Austrian Oak made impact.
Shooting back inside, Waylon said brusquely, “That’s our cue.”
The tree house’s ladder unraveled back toward the forest floor, and they wasted no time sliding down the rungs, moving too fast for the fear to set in. A glance sideways proved Rick still wrestled with the heavyweight champ.
But when they were mere inches from their getaway quad bike, Rick laughed, harsh and maniacal. Much, much too close for comfort. The barrel of his gun pointed at Waylon’s back, and Arnold Schwarzenegger perched on his shoulder. Traitor.
“I don’t think you’re going anywhere,” Rick spat.
Up close, his scorched wounds looked so much worse. Pus-filled, oozing. Puckered scar tissue already formed beneath the uneven terrain of his skin. The bayonet must have taken the brunt of the lightning bolt, but he hadn’t fared much better.
Even Fletcher, who had never called out of work in her entire career, could admit he needed a sick day. Or three. Or three hundred. She may have hated his guts, but the man clearly required medical attention.
The empathetic part of her quickly shut up as he plodded forward, ramming the burnt end of his spear against Waylon’s ribs with enough force Waylon sucked a stiff breath through his teeth.
“Look, Evanston, we’re unarmed,” Waylon rationalized. Not even Naya was prowling around, the undergrowth disappointingly undisturbed. “We don’t have to fight.”
“You got me struck by lightning.” The air around Rick still smelled vaguely metallic. “And then threw a spider at me.”
Hot exhaust made it hard to breathe. Harder to think. The clock was ticking, and Fletcher didn’t like it. She’d seen how fast Rick’s temper had snapped with Theo, how quickly blood could splatter and a body could drop.
They needed to act now, before Rick’s rifle remembered it, too.
Fletcher stomped on Rick’s foot, and his gun tipped downward, spear tearing through the fabric of Waylon’s T-shirt but thankfully no deeper. With a curse, Rick’s finger instinctively pulled the trigger, resulting in more cursing and a few of Rick’s wayward toes spraying around the clearing.
No time for sorrys. Fletcher slung herself into the front seat, revving the engine. Waylon clambered on behind her, arms seat-belting across her middle. And they were off.
Rick’s first bullet sliced past them as the jungle clamped its teeth around them. Instantly, saturation faded, shadows thickened. Tangled branches and wide, waxy leaves blotted out the sunlight she’d grown used to in the kapok clearing.
On foot, the rainforest’s gnarled landscape was cumbersome, but on four wheels? Nightmare fuel. Fletcher drastically overestimated their speed. The extra horsepower couldn’t compensate for claggy soil, spined thickets, and root-choked paths. Each jolt rattled Fletcher’s bones.
As they sloshed through a mud slick, Waylon cupped his hands over her death grip on the handlebars. “Cut through here.”
A quick jerk to the side narrowly avoided a web of needle palms.
Unfortunately, the sudden movement put them in Rick’s direct line of sight.
Hobbling after them, Asshole Rick ranted about how he had given everything he had to Cartwright Media, and he deserved to inherit the Cartwright wealth, because he hadn’t been able to take a trip to Ibiza with the boys last year and evidently it was a great inconvenience to him that required a multibillion-dollar reparation.
Fletcher didn’t have the heart to turn back and tell him the blood loss would likely kill him long before he ever made it back to Manhattan.
Electrocution only hardened his resolve. Errant bullets spewed from Rick’s shotgun, his aim expectedly worse than before. He’d more likely hit them by accident than on purpose.
Only then did Fletcher realize his aim trailed too low, a little too wide. Not aiming for them at all.
No sooner did she think it than one of the bullets hit its mark. The ATV’s back tire popped. Rubber everywhere. Lurching forward, Fletcher and Waylon were bucked off the saddle. The world blurred. Fletcher clamped her eyes shut against the landing. She didn’t need to see the impact to feel it.
“Get up.” Waylon’s voice floated over her.
“All of my bones are broken.” Talking hurt. Everything hurt.
“If Rick the Zombie can run, so can you.” His hands slid beneath her arms, peeling her upright despite her groaning protests. Fletcher wiped the dirt off her lips, her eyes, shaking the ache out of her limbs. Not broken, but sore.
Another round of shotgun shells spurred them into motion. Fletcher’s too-big pants slid down her hips with every step, and she kept a finger through the front belt loop to keep from mooning anyone.
Arms pumping, lungs chafing. Rick’s advances didn’t slow—he’d never known when to take no for an answer.
That kind of determination worked as well in the Sales bullpen as it did in the throng of wilderness.
A few close calls had Fletcher gritting her teeth, ears ringing as his blasts got closer.
Seriously, how was this guy still chasing them?
His brain had to be entirely endorphins at this point.
Around them, the jungle sifted away slowly, trees thinning, brush clearing, until the island transformed into an expanse of sprinkler-fed green, smooth and manicured.
A…golf course.
No, an entire country club. Eighteen holes, tennis courts, swimming pool—the whole kit and caboodle. A sleek glass-and-steel building rose in the distance, and beyond it: a patch of fluffy white sand and a blue horizon with an enormous yacht bobbing at the docks.
Fletcher should have been watching her step instead of salivating at the thought of salvation because her foot slipped on the edge of a sand trap, and she tumbled into its banks. Grit coated her lips, her eyelids.
Another body slid down next to her. Fletcher was too busy scraping sand off her eyeballs and debating dunking her head in the nearest water hazard to dispute when Waylon hoisted her over his shoulder and hauled her back to the sod.
“I know everything,” Rick shouted. “I heard them talking.”
Fletcher cracked an eye open, ignoring the way the sand stung. From this angle, the world looked as off-axis as it felt. The salesman stood on a slant of green, and behind him, the jungle bowed and shook, something inside as angry as Rick looked.
“Jackie’s little Faustian deal. The reason we’re doing this whole fucking charade.” Asshole Rick’s bloodshot gaze shot toward Fletcher, where she dangled upside down. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you?”
“No, Rick, I—” An engine rumbled. Close enough that Fletcher smelled gasoline on the breeze. Her hands beat against Waylon’s back until he lowered her back to solid ground.
Weaving her fingers through Waylon’s, she yanked him backward as a pair of high beams cut through the underbrush. A truck plowed out of the jungle and onto the fairway. Forward, forward, forward…
And right into Rick.
A horrible snap prefaced an equally horrible wheeze.
Fletcher didn’t have to look closely to know Rick’s deep-fried tendons couldn’t handle the hit.
His body splayed disgustingly limp beneath the Jeep’s monster truck tires, pitching it up unevenly.
Blood seeped from his pile of loosely attached limbs, and Jackie stepped right into it.
Unbothered by the red on her Louboutins.
“Look who it is,” Jackie said by way of greeting. As if she hadn’t just manslaughtered their colleague.