Chapter Twenty-One
Franny had managed to settle her panic a bit, until the last part of that text. Why would the dead body of the kidnapper be in Royal’s apartment? She knew her writer brain wasn’t based in reality, but the only thing that made any kind of sense to her was that…
“Someone…set you up?”
“Maybe.”
He was so calm. So detached. “What do you mean, maybe?” she demanded, unable to be any of those things. “There’s a dead body in your apartment. You didn’t put it there.”
“No,” he agreed easily.
“Royal.”
He flicked a glance at her, but there was nothing behind it. No heat or ice or anything. Just a kind of blankness that chilled her. “I’m going to take you to the police station.”
“No, we’re not going anywhere near the police station. Copeland told us not to.” She waved her phone at him as if that would get through to him. “We’re going to listen.”
“I’ll just drop you off.”
“Royal.” She couldn’t let him do that, but she couldn’t quite think of what to say that might get through that cop facade.
She’d seen Copeland and Thomas put that on.
So easily shutting off any…person underneath this job they did.
The only thing she could do when they did that was maintain being reasonable. Find some cop facade of her own.
“I understand you think getting me out of the way would be safe,” she said, hoping her voice sounded as calm as his. “But Copeland is telling us to stay away. Us. We need to listen to him, so we don’t complicate whatever they need to investigate with the…”
“The dead man in my apartment?” he replied blandly, but she saw the flicker of irritation. Whether at her or the murder she wasn’t sure, but emotion felt like progress.
Before she could continue to convince him they needed to turn back around and head away from Hope Town and Bent, he swore viciously.
He was glaring at the road, so Franny looked out. There was a car on the opposite side coming toward them. Why did it look familiar? But she couldn’t consider that, because she realized the car was not driving on its side of the street.
“Royal, is that car…” The car kept going faster, and it was clearly in their lane, heading right toward them.
“Hold on, Franny.”
She gripped the door, because there was no way that car was not careening right toward them. She squeezed her eyes shut, braced for some kind of impact even as Royal jerked the wheel and tried to avoid the collision.
But she felt the impact, the sound of crunching metal and shattering glass exploding around her as the car seemed to move at a completely bizarre angle.
Franny jerked against her seatbelt at the impact, but holding on to the door and the odd angle of the force of collision kept her from bashing her head against anything.
But they kept…moving. Spinning? Something hit the back of her head, but it was all kind of surreal. She tried to open her eyes, but the force of everything made it impossible to do anything but tense her entire body and wait for it all to be over.
Finally, the car stopped moving. Once she realized that, Franny opened her eyes.
They’d twisted around so they were facing the wrong way.
The collision must have happened to the back end of the car because the front end looked perfectly fine.
Which meant they were okay. They could be okay even though the airbags hadn’t gone off.
She frowned at that. They should have, shouldn’t they? That had been a hell of a jolt, even if it had been to the back of the car. Oh well, as long as they were okay.
“Roy—” She looked toward him. He was crumpled over the steering wheel.
He wasn’t moving.
Panic speared through her, and she lunged for him, but she was held in place by the seatbelt. “Royal. Royal. Royal!” She slapped at her seatbelt, desperate to get it off, to get over to him. He wasn’t moving.
Why hadn’t any airbags gone off? Why wasn’t he moving?
She managed to get the seatbelt out of her way, but now that she’d had enough time to think, she was scared to try to move him. What if he’d hurt his neck or spine? If she moved him to see what was wrong, she’d make it worse. Wouldn’t she?
She wouldn’t let her mind go there. “It’s okay, Royal. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” She said it more for her benefit than his, because it kept the panic from turning into hysterics.
She fumbled with her phone. Since her text to Copeland was still open on the screen, she just hit the call button at the top. He’d have a better idea of where they were to send help rather than trying to explain her location to a 911 dispatcher.
With shaking hands and her teeth chattering, she reached out with her free hand and grabbed Royal’s wrist. She knew how to find a pulse, and a pulse would mean everything could be okay.
“Franny? I can’t talk right now.”
“Cope…” She thought she felt a pulse. Didn’t she? The steady thump of life? Or was she hallucinating?
Copeland’s voice in her ear was kind of a buzz.
“We…had an accident.” She was pretty sure she got those words out. It was weird. She didn’t think she’d hit her head, but it was kind of aching now. And her words didn’t…sound right.
She sucked in a breath, trying to focus. Royal needed help. He had a pulse. She was determined he had a pulse. So she needed help.
But before she could manage to put those words together, the passenger door flung open. A woman stood there. For a blinding moment of pure hope, Franny thought they were saved.
Then she saw the woman’s sharp smile and remembered that a car had been careening at them. And if it hadn’t been someone’s medical event that led to the dangerous speed and direction, it had been done very much on purpose.
Considering there was a dead body in Royal’s apartment, well… .
“God, this couldn’t be more perfect.” The woman laughed, actually laughed. “Well, F.M. Perkins, come on out. We’ve got places to go.”
She must not have seen the phone in Franny’s hand. Franny’s body and face might be blocking it. For a moment of pure adrenaline and clarity, Franny knew that she would need her phone.
She swallowed, angling her body even farther and doing everything she could to shove the phone—the call with Copeland still going—into her pocket without the woman seeing.
“Damn, that’s a hell of a party trick,” the woman said, which made absolutely no sense to Franny. The woman must have read that in her expression. “You’ve got a shard of glass really lodged in there.” She said, pointing at the back of Franny’s head.
The pain in her head. A shard of glass? She reached up with a shaky hand.
“I wouldn’t. Gonna hurt like hell. Besides, we’ve got places to be,” the woman said, she patted her hip and that’s when Franny realized she had a gun in a holster. “Out of the car now.”
Franny didn’t know what else to do but obey. Royal no doubt had a gun on that belt of his, but she could hardly get to it, get it out of the belt, and shoot it in any defensive fashion before this woman shot her.
And if the woman shot her, what might she do to Royal?
So Franny got out of the car. Help was coming. Copeland would get help. Everything would be okay if she could keep this all from…escalating.
She winced and tried not to groan in pain, but for as much as she thought she’d managed to not get hurt since she wasn’t unconscious, everything screamed in protest at moving.
Especially her head. Every move, every step sent a searing, slicing pain down the back of her skull. She lifted her hand again but was a little too afraid to try to touch anything. A shard of glass stuck in there sounded…really bad.
The woman—and it had to be the woman Royal had seen poking around Hope Town in the beginning of this. What had he said her name was? Holand something.
So, this was the former FBI agent, somehow connected to Albennie. But why was she after Franny? Why… She swallowed at the lump in her throat as she thought of Royal slumped in that car. He needed medical attention. They needed help.
She hoped and prayed that came across to Copeland.
“We’re just going to get a ways off this road here. So no one sees us before I’m ready. You go on and walk ahead of me. You try to run—well that glass will probably stop you, but a bullet will too.”
Franny took a staggering step forward. She tried to walk softly and slowly as much to delay any possible harm until help got there as because of the pain.
But the waves of pain just throbbed through every inch of her until tears were filling her eyes.
She couldn’t think straight from all the hurt, except to move forward one excruciating step at a time.
She felt the woman walking behind her. She wasn’t holding the gun. It was just in a holster at her hip. Maybe Franny could run…or fight, but the thought of trying to do either with this horrific pain in her head kept her from actually trying.
She didn’t know how long they walked. Into the trees. Oh, she shouldn’t have come this far. But what else was there to do? The woman had a gun. Royal needed help. What was she supposed to do?
With no warning, something…happened to the back of her head. She screamed out in pain, her hand flying instinctually up to the source. Her hand came away wet with blood. She stared at the woman who now held the bloody shard of glass that had been in her head.
Holand must have yanked it out.
Franny’s vision wavered and she couldn’t stay upright. She managed not to fully pass out. Just kind of crumpled to her hands and knees, nausea sweeping through her. She breathed raggedly, staring at the ground where tears and blood dripped.
“Yeah, why don’t you pass out?” Holand said. “That’d make this a lot easier on all of us now that we’re here.”
But Franny had to breathe through the pain. Stay awake. It was her only chance. Royal’s only chance.
She could feel the blood dripping down the back of her neck. Oh God, maybe neither of them had any kind of chance.