Chapter 9
Holy fuck.
Gallant stared at the smoking, twisted metal at the bottom of the ravine. There was no way anyone could have survived this accident, and he cursed Brooke for taking off on her own and doing this to him.
What had possessed her? Like she didn’t have it good enough already, famous and in demand and about to marry one of the richest men in the world?
And he liked her, damn it. A lot more than he’d liked the others. That was the kicker.
He moved toward the tangle of steel barely recognizable as Brooke’s car, dreading the grisly find that awaited him. Maybe it was good that she was dead, that way Marco wouldn’t kill her for running off before the wedding like she did.
Or make me do it.
The driver’s seat was crushed but clearly empty. He moved around to the other side of the car. “What the hell?” From this angle it was obvious there were two cars in this tangle, not just one. He looked in what was left of the passenger compartments of both vehicles.
They were empty.
His cell phone rang and he sighed when he saw Johnson’s name on the caller ID.
Fuck.
“She was in an accident,” Gallant said. “I tracked her on the GPS through a fucking blizzard to the bottom of Warsaw Mountain. My Hummer barely made it down here, and it’s still snowing. Her car and somebody else’s are all crashed and burned up, but nobody’s here.”
“You really fucked up this time, Gallant.”
He thought of the big blonde intern he’d screwed from SNL. Brooke had set them up, even told him he could use her dressing room, then she’d disappeared. He’d kept the intern out of his version of events when he broke the news to Johnson.
“Hey, I was supposed to keep her safe, not keep her from running off,” he said.
“No, you were supposed to keep her in your sight at all times. If Marco finds out about this…”
“You didn’t tell him?”
“There’s no reason to tell him until we find her.”
“But the wedding…”
“Isn’t for almost two weeks. She couldn’t have gotten far without transportation. Find her.”
The wind blew, making Gallant shiver. Sometimes he hated this job. “What about me? I need transportation, too, you know. There’s four feet of fucking snow on the ground.”
“Fine. I’ll leave a snowmobile outside the compound for you. Keep me posted, but be discreet.”
“I can do that.”