by Lynsay Sands
The damned thing had stopped on every floor since she'd gotten on board, and it was going to continue to do so all the way down to the parking garage, thanks to an annoying little bugger who had hit every button on the elevator panel before getting off on her floor. If her hands hadn't been full, Beth might have slapped the little brat's mother for not controlling her child and making him behave.
Honestly, what was the matter with people anymore? In her day, the boy wouldn't have dared to do something so bratty for fear of having his behind tanned. Instead, his mother had stood there ineffectively mewling, "Now, Tommy, don't do that. Come along. Daddy's waiting. Tommy."
Sighing as the elevator stopped and the doors opened again, Beth leaned against the back wall of the elevator and briefly closed her eyes. She'd had nothing but delays and detours since heading out to fetch her clothes. Nearly every street she'd taken on the way here had been under construction, and then she'd got caught at train tracks for what had seemed like forever as a train had slowed, gone forward and backed up before starting forward again. It had been like the universe was trying to prevent her getting to her apartment.
Halfway here, Beth had begun to regret that she hadn't just taken up the offer to use the Council credit card and buy all new items when she got to British Columbia. Now she wished she'd turned around then and headed back to the Enforcer house.
"Only twenty floors to the parking garage," she muttered to herself with disgust as the doors closed. Shaking her head, she glanced down at everything she was carrying. She had an overnight bag over each arm, one with a pair of jeans, two T-shirts, a hairbrush, perfume, deodorant, her toothbrush, and all those other things a girl needed for a short trip. The second bag held another pair of jeans, a pair of black dress pants, more T-shirts, a dressier shirt, and the always-handy little black dress.
Beth had packed the first bag and started to leave, only to realize that Mortimer hadn't told her how long this job might take or even what it entailed. Concerned that it might take longer than a day or two as she'd originally assumed, and that simple jeans and T-shirts might not suffice, she'd packed the second bag. She'd then also thrown a pair of high-heeled shoes and running shoes into the grocery bag that presently dangled from her left wrist, and then had packed away the set of her favorite knives, two custom-made guns, and her iPad into the zipped-up black carrier that dangled from her right wrist.
On top of all that, Beth was carrying a box filled with food that would go bad if she didn't return within a day or two. If Mortimer told her that she should only be twenty-four hours or so, then she'd simply put it in one of the refrigerators in the garage behind the Enforcer house and bring it back on her return. However, if he said this job would take four days or more, she'd give it to Sam to either use or drop off at the nearest homeless shelter so that at least someone would get to eat it.
The elevator dinged again, and the doors opened. Beth glanced up at the panel to see that it was only the nineteenth floor. She started to scowl, and then pushed away from the wall and moved quickly off the elevator. She would take the stairs. It would be faster, and what she was carrying wasn't really heavy, at least not to her. It was just awkward. The bags on either side bulged outward, bumping into the wall if she got too close on either side, and not having her hands free was a pain, as she learned when she reached the metal door to the stairwell.
"Brilliant," Beth growled as she stared at the doorknob she couldn't turn. Sighing, she set the box on the floor, half straightened to open the door, held it open with her foot, and bent to pick up the box again.
Huffing out a sigh, Beth started down the stairs at a jog, careful not to get too close to the wall or the railing to avoid bumping against one or the other and upsetting her stride. It was much quicker than the elevator with all its stops, and she managed to reach the parking level relatively quickly and without further delay. Beth had to set down the box again to open the door to the parking garage, and then to open the door of her red Ford Explorer and stow her gear inside, but soon she was inside and on her way.
It wasn't until she pulled out of the parking garage that Beth recalled the two missed phone calls. She almost pulled over to see who they were from, but a glance at the digital clock on the dashboard made her decide against it. She'd already taken much longer than she'd expected, and was going to have to do a bit of speeding on the way back to make up time. Even then Mortimer would no doubt be waiting on her.
The idea made her cluck her tongue. Beth hated to be late for anything and was generally ridiculously early to avoid it. That wasn't going to be the case today, she acknowledged unhappily, and then forced herself to take a couple of deep breaths to relax. There was nothing she could do about it. She should have had more than enough time to get there and back. But things simply had not gone to plan. Life could be like that sometimes.
Having encountered so much construction and so many detours using the back roads to the apartment, Beth chose a different route back to the house, one that put her on the highway for the better part of the drive. It was the route she should have taken on the way out, she supposed. But she liked to avoid the highway if possible. Mostly because she thought the drivers here were crazy. They drove too fast and then too slow and then too fast again, like they did not understand what cruise control was. And--Good Lord!--every time she turned around, someone was switching lanes without bothering to signal or see if anyone was already in that lane.
Beth noticed the semi pulling a flatbed of steel girders before it became a problem. It merged onto the highway from an on-ramp ahead of her, but she was in the middle lane so didn't think anything of it until it suddenly swerved into the center lane just as her front end drew even with the back of it. Beth instinctively hit the brakes and started to turn the steering wheel left but, spotting the blue sedan in that lane, immediately jerked the steering wheel right instead and stood on the brakes, hoping for the best.
Seeing the steel girders coming straight at her head, Beth quickly threw herself to the side, intending to lie flat across the front seat. Unfortunately, she'd forgotten about her seatbelt. She was reminded of it when it snapped tight, holding her in place as the front windshield exploded.
Three
"Do you know where Beth lives?"
"Aye," Scotty answered as he steered the SUV down the driveway. He'd got a lot of information and even maps before flying to Canada. And he'd insisted on driving again. It had seemed obvious from their first drive out to back up Beth that Donny was not comfortable with speed, and he had a bad feeling speed would be of the essence again here.
The young immortal accepted that news without comment, but did eye him curiously. After a moment, though, he said, "You probably want to take the highway. It's summer and the road crews have everything all torn up. She would have taken the highway to avoid that."
Scotty merely grunted. He'd planned to take the highway anyway. It was the only route that had been included with the info he'd been given, and had been listed as the fastest. Which was good, since he felt a certain urgency to get to her quickly.
Donny fell silent for a bit then, and Scotty was just turning onto the ramp leading to the highway when the lad suddenly asked, "What if she's already on her way back and we missed her?"
That was a real possibility and something he hadn't considered. Scotty frowned over it as he merged onto the highway. Once he was safely in traffic, however, he said, "We have trackers on our vehicles in the UK. Do you have anyth--"
"We do too!" Donny interrupted with excitement and pulled out his phone.
Scotty grimaced as the other man called Mortimer. If he'd thought of the trackers back at the house, he might have saved them this trip. At least he would have if all was well with Beth, he thought as he listened to Donny explain what they wanted to Mortimer.
"He's opening the program," Donny announced.
Scotty merely nodded, his concentration on the lanes ahead and the flow of traffic.
A good ten minutes passed b
efore Donny said, "He has it up and sees both our vehicle and hers. He says she's on the other side of the highway, coming our way--" Donny cut himself off abruptly and waited, and then asked with concern, "What?"
"What is it?" Scotty asked tersely.
"He says her vehicle appears to be stopped in the middle of the highway. We should pass her in a couple minutes."
Scotty's mouth tightened. It would be more than a couple of minutes if the slowdown in traffic was anything to go by. The people ahead in all three lanes on this side of the median were slowing to gawk at something, and he suspected it was whatever had stopped Beth's vehicle. Even as he thought that, the traffic on the other side of the median dropped off abruptly, from a steady flow of vehicles to almost nothing. Which meant something had brought oncoming traffic almost to a standstill.
Probably an accident, Scotty thought and shifted into the outside left lane while he had the chance. He wanted to see Beth's vehicle and be sure she was all right and hadn't been involved in whatever was holding up traffic on the other side.
"Looks like an accident," Donny said a moment later.
Scotty merely nodded, his narrowed eyes switching between the road and the accident ahead on their left. There were three lanes of traffic on the other side of the median too, but a flatbed trailer was presently across the two lanes farthest from them, leaving only the inside lane nearest them open. However, the cars weren't whizzing out at one hundred ten or even the speed limit of one hundred kilometers an hour. They were crawling through the opening, the drivers rubbernecking it all the way.
"That explains why she's stopped," Donny murmured, eyeing the accident as they approached. "She must be in an inside lane. Look for a red Explorer. That's what she drives."
Scotty grunted. Their SUV was now crawling as slowly as the rubberneckers on the other side of the median, and he had a huge tight ball of "something's fecking wrong" in the pit of his stomach.
"Can you see any of the other vehicles involved?" Scotty asked as they drew even with the end of the truck and got their first view of the vehicles behind it.
"Mortimer says we should be right beside her vehicle," Donny murmured, the phone still pressed to his ear as he craned his neck to get a better look around Scotty. "But the only red vehicle I see is . . ."
"The one under the back of the flatbed," Scotty finished grimly when the lad's voice died. He didn't wait for a response, but glanced around to assess the situation. Unfortunately, there was a concrete barrier on this side of the three lanes and no shoulder to pull off onto. He had to get to the outside lane to move the SUV out of traffic. Taking control of several drivers at once, he slowed them to create an opening, and then steered the SUV across the lanes and onto the right shoulder.
Leaving him to it, Donny unsnapped his seat belt and climbed out of his seat and then over the back seat to get to where the weapons locker and blood cooler were.
"Good lad," Scotty muttered as he brought the vehicle to a halt, shifted it into Park and shut it off.
"How are we going to get across traffic?" Donny asked, hurrying to his side with the portable blood cooler in hand as Scotty got out of the vehicle.
"How do ye think?" Scotty asked, shifting his attention to the drivers of several passing cars.
"Mind control to make them stop?" Donny asked.
"Got it in one, lad," Scotty said grimly as he made the drivers slow almost to a stop. He then jogged across their side of the highway with Donny hurrying after him.
They had to climb over the three-foot-high concrete barrier, cross the grass median and then climb over the concrete barrier on the other side as well. Scotty didn't even have to control the mind of the driver of the first vehicle crawling past the accident. He slowed on his own to allow them to cross. It was probably a good thing, because at that point Scotty could see the vehicle under the back of the flatbed and would have had trouble concentrating enough to control anyone. It was definitely a red Explorer. The girders had sheared off the top of the vehicle, which now lay on the asphalt behind it, leaving a clear view of the blood-covered backs of the front seats.
"Those girders took off the headrests," Donny pointed out with concern. "You don't think--"
That they took off Beth's head too? Scotty finished what the boy wouldn't, or couldn't, say. But he did so silently and didn't respond to the unfinished question. He couldn't bear to think about that, let alone say it. She could not have been decapitated, he assured himself as they approached the damaged vehicle. He had waited too long to--
"She's not here," Donny said with surprise as they reached the ruined vehicle and peered over the front seats that were empty not only of Beth, but blood as well, other than a couple of drops here and there.
Scotty merely nodded, his attention now on the crushed front end of the Explorer where it butted up against the right back tires of the flatbed. The front of the red vehicle hadn't only been crushed accordion-style against the huge tires on impact, but the tires of the flatbed had also blown, dropping the back of the trailer with its stack of girders onto the hood of the engine. He was surprised the combination hadn't caused an explosion and wondered if everyone shouldn't be giving the vehicles some serious space.
"Donny? Scotty?"
Both men turned to see Beth straightening from where she had been kneeling on the roadside beside a somewhat traumatized-looking man in his late fifties.
Surprise evident on her face, she walked toward them now, her eyebrows lifting in question. "What are you doing here?"
"We came looking for you," Donny explained. "You were late, and Mr. Scotty had a feeling something was wrong."
"He's Mr. MacDonald if you want to address him formally," she said with a crooked smile, and then corrected herself. "Well, Laird MacDonald, really. But Mr. Scotty just sounds wrong."
"Oh, sorry, Laird Scotty," the lad said at once.
Scotty merely shook his head, his attention remaining on Beth as his gaze slid over her from top to toe. Much to his relief, she didn't appear injured at all. Although she did have splashes of blood on her back and side. "The blood in yer vehicle?"
"I keep a cooler of bagged blood there in case of emergencies," she explained, glancing to her car and grimacing at the shape it was in.
"Ah," he murmured, relaxing. Obviously, the cooler had spilled, its contents flying about and tearing on impact. That explained the massive amount of blood on the backs of the seats while there was little in the front and on her.
Finally meeting her gaze again, he commented, "Ye managed to avoid injury."
Beth nodded solemnly, and glanced toward the vehicle behind them. "Barely. The seat belt held me up and nearly got me beheaded, but snapped at the last moment."
Scotty paused briefly, sucking in air to calm himself as he realized how close he'd come to losing her, but then asked, "And the driver o' the flatbed?"
Beth gestured over her shoulder to the man sitting on the roadside who she'd been talking to when she spotted them. "He seems fine, but a little out of it. I just got him out of the truck and practically had to carry him. I was going to search his mind to see why he suddenly swerved in front of me, but then noticed you two. It all just happened a few minutes ago."
Scotty nodded. "I'll handle him. Ye see if any o' yer belongings survived the crash."
Beth smiled wryly and shook her head, but muttered, "As you will, m'laird," and headed toward the Explorer.
Scotty's lips twitched at her words. He knew Beth hated it when he got "all laird of the manor bossy," as he'd once heard her put it. But that's what he'd been trained for. He had been laird of the MacDonald clan, expected to take charge and handle any situation that came up. After that he'd had many titles, but every one of them were as a man in charge, right down to his now being head of the UK Council as well as the UK Rogue Hunters. Being "all laird of the manor bossy" just came naturally to him.
More important to him, though, was her reaction to it today. In the past, she would have snarled and snapped at
him like a rabid dog. This time, there was little anger. It was more irritation and even some amusement, which seemed to suggest the reports he'd been receiving were correct and she was finally healing from her past. She might actually be ready for him to claim her as his life mate. Something he'd been waiting nearly one hundred twenty-five years to do.
"Donny," he said suddenly, tearing his gaze away from Beth's swaying hips as she walked to her Explorer.
"Yes, Mr. Laird Scotty," Donny said promptly. The boy actually stood at attention.
"Scotty'll do," he growled. "I'm no' a laird anymore. I gave that up shortly after I was turned."
"Oh, right, the aging thing would have forced you to," Donny said with a nod.
"Aye, the aging thing," he agreed and then said, "Call Mortimer and tell him what's happened and that we need a cleanup crew here."
"Yes, sir," he said, pulling out his phone.
Leaving him to it, Scotty then moved over to the truck driver.
Several cars had pulled over on the shoulder, the passengers and drivers all piling out to see if they could help. A lot of them stood crowded around the driver, gazing from the truck to the red Explorer with its crushed front end and sheared-off roof. Scotty sent them away with little effort and then dropped to crouch next to the man and search his mind.
The driver was dazed and confused. He recalled pulling onto the highway and merging with traffic, and then his memory skipped to sitting shaking in his truck, staring into the side-view mirror at the Explorer with its top sheared off.
Disturbed by the absence of memory, Scotty tried harder and dug deeper into the man's mind, but there was nothing there. The area when the accident had happened was blank. It was as if he hadn't been there during it.
Or as if he'd been under someone's control, Scotty thought with concern. He took a moment to calm the man's mind, and then stood and turned to survey Beth's vehicle.
She was lucky to be alive. Had her seat belt not snapped, allowing her to avoid the girders, she might have been beheaded. And he wasn't quite sure how the Explorer hadn't exploded and burned her alive when the flatbed dropped on it. Those were the only two ways that an immortal could die, beheading or burning, and an accident like this should have resulted in one or the other of those outcomes.