Treasured by Thursday(104)
She looked at her broken arm and relented.
He sped out of the drive and down the street, avoiding the cars as he went.
“They crashed on Sunset,” Gabi told him.
Connor kept looking out his rearview mirror.
He rolled the stop sign and kept his foot on the accelerator. Thank God he was driving, because her entire body was shaking. Solomon and Hunter had sped off so fast, an accident could have been predicted. She clenched her free hand and sent a prayer that Hunter was OK.
They didn’t need this . . . not with all the chaos infused in their life.
Traffic thickened the closer they got to Sunset. Connor made a few illegal moves, had cars honking as he passed them.
Gabi held on and craned her neck to peer ahead.
Connor’s cell phone rang. She was shocked to see him pull it out and click into the call. “Yeah?”
The intersection was closing in fast.
Traffic flowed.
“Oh, shit.”
Connor slammed on the brakes and swung the car around.
Gabi lunged forward, felt a vibration up her arm, under her cast.
“Where are you going?”
“It’s a setup.”
A car slowed in front of them.
Connor twisted the wheel and sped in the opposite lane of traffic.
“A setup? So there wasn’t an accident?”
“No.”
She didn’t know whether to be relieved or frightened.
Connor kept looking in his rearview mirror until Gabi twisted around to see what he was looking at.
“Hang on.”
He punched the accelerator as a car pulled into their lane.
The car behind them kissed the back bumper, pushing them into a full spin.
When they came to a stop, Gabi looked past the exploded airbags and up into the lights of a car glaring at her through the driver’s-side door.
Connor was pinned and she was dazed.
Someone yanked her door open. “Are you OK?”
She set her hand over Connor’s. “Connor?”
He mumbled.
“We need an ambulance,” Gabi said.
She looked again at the man at her door. He wore a suit, as if he were on his way to work. His dark fingers were holding on to her arm. “I’ve got you, Gabriella.”
She focused on his face again. “Do I know you?”
That’s when she felt the pinch and an all too familiar rush of heat move through the beat of her heart.
Her last thought, as the stranger helped her out of the car, was not again.
They were speeding through the valley toward the 101 when Solomon answered his phone. Hunter looked up from the list of contacts in his phone to find Solomon swerving to the off-ramp.
“What the—”
“Gabi and Connor just left the house.”
Hunter dropped his phone. “What?”
“She got a call, someone told her you and I were in an accident.”
“No.” No, no, no . . . Gabi on the road with Connor . . . alone. “Hurry.”
“I am.” Solomon drifted through the light, took the on-ramp too fast, bottomed out the car twice before he made speed.
What felt like forever couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, and he and Solomon were closing in on the street that turned up into the neighborhood of his new home.
A fire truck blocked the road, police cars were everywhere.
Hunter pushed out of the rolling car and ran.
The closer he came to the scene, the deeper the despair in his stomach.
The Maserati was a mangled mess of metal.
The fire department was preparing to rip the roof of the car away from the frame.
When others stood to the side to watch as if this were a spectator sport, Hunter ran into the scene in search of one person.
“Hey!” Someone called his way.
Hunter kept his feet moving.
The passenger door was open, the seat was empty.
Someone grabbed him and tried to hold him back. “This is my car!” he yelled at the uniformed man trying to hold him back. “Gabi?”
He ducked down to see Connor lying across the center of the car.
“Connor?”
“We need to clear this area.”
Hunter twisted away and knelt by the car. “Connor?”
The man focused. “Setup.”
“Where’s Gabi?”
“W-L-H-six-four-nine.”
“What?” Hunter was past the point of panic.
“W-L-H-six-four-nine.” He kept repeating the letters and numbers until someone finally grabbed Hunter by his stomach and pulled him away.
He struggled out of the police hold. “My wife was in the car. Where is she?”
The cop kept a safe distance and looked around. “We didn’t find a woman in the car.”
Hunter spun in a circle. “Someone had to see something.”
Solomon ran toward him.
Hunter grabbed him in a panic. “She’s gone. Aww fuck, Solomon, he has her.”
“We don’t know that.”