Crash Into You Read online

  Crash Into You

  Cara Ellison

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2014 by Catherine Meredith All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  One

  The VIP lounge was upstairs, set off to the side from the main floor, guarded by a thick-necked bouncer with a shaved head. Loud hip-hop music pulsed through the pleasantly dim interior where gauzy pink and gold curtains swayed with the air of the room while monied twenty-somethings danced and writhed in cigarette smoke diced up by lasers.

  From the bar, Seth scanned the lounge, checking out the players. Hot girls in tiny skirts and sky-high heels, showing off shapely legs shook their hips and threw their head backs, flaunting enhanced cleavage busting out of skimpy tank-tops. Model types. Paid girls and party girls, female bait that encouraged big bar tabs. A bottle blond with a killer figure glanced at him over her shoulder. His gaze slid from the generous curve of her ass barely covered in a clingy lurid purple dress up to her face, all wide eyes and glossy pink lips. Damn, it had been a long time since a woman looked at him like that, with open interest and frank sexuality. Aimee certainly didn’t look at him like that anymore – if she ever had. The thought of his live-in girlfriend deflated the semi he’d been sporting.

  The girls on the side were just fun. A way to blow off steam. Not that girls like the ones posing and preening in the VIP room would actually give him the time of day. Still, he enjoyed thinking about it while he waited for Carlos.

  Seth glanced at his watch. Be there at nine sharp, Carlos said. It was now just past ten with no sign of him. Seth was anxious to leave. He didn’t like Amy being home alone too long.

  The door opened and two massive Mexicans breezed inside, both built like refrigerators, wearing dark suits and gold watches. Their presence was so powerful it took a moment for Seth to realize Carlos was standing in front of them. He was smaller, about five eight, a buck fifty. You’d think the leader of one of the cruelest gangs on the eastern seaboard would be a big, hulking guy, but he wasn’t. Without mass, he used other ways to intimidate. His legacy for viciousness was unsurpassed.

  Seth sized him up, cop to thug. Carlos had tattoos, hundreds of them, but unlike most of the other members of the Mara Salvatrucha 13 gang, he declined to have them applied to his face. Still, under the collar of his shirt, a black knife tip could be seen crawling up one side his neck. The other side was decorated with the head of a snake, its mouth open as if to sink its fangs into Carlos’s jaw.

  “You find the place all right?” Carlos asked.

  He hadn’t, in fact. It was located in a part of Tacoma Park he rarely ventured into, even when he had been a patrol officer. Without waiting for an answer Carlos hinked his head, indicating Seth should follow. Seth grabbed his half-empty bottle and followed him to a sitting area. Carlos sat down and sprawled, taking up as much as space as possible with his legs open, his arms along the back of the sofa. His protection stood off the side, not too close; they didn’t want to obscure Carlos’ view of the ladies.

  “I got the stuff you wanted,” Carlos said.

  Seth had been a cop for a long time. He knew how these things worked. He wasn’t going to start asking detailed questions about how it was done because the guy might be wired. Doubtful, but possible. He just nodded. “Great.”

  “The pictures of the commish are in the locker at the bus station. I want my money.” His dead shark eyes left no room for doubt that he was in no way fucking around about that.

  “I have it for you,” Seth said. “How about an exchange tomorrow?”

  Carlos eyed him coldly. “Six hundred thousand in cash. You got it all?”

  “Yes.”

  His black eyes narrowed to slits, designed to intimidate. Except it didn’t stop at intimidation with Carlos: the threat was very real. Carlos was not just mean, he was evil. MS 13 members flaunted all the cartoonish icons of evil: devil’s horns and 666, but Carlos, perhaps more than most, had integrated the essence of evil: he enjoyed murder and torture. Babies, kids, women, didn’t matter. He relished every opportunity to flaunt his power.

  “Bring it tomorrow at the Wendy’s in Tacoma Park. I’ll give you the key then. You fuck me, I have people who will kill you,” Carlos said. It was an unnecessary threat. Of course he had people who would kill Seth or anyone else who double-crossed him. But Carlos needn’t have worried; Seth had no plans to double-cross him. He smiled calmly.

  “What time?”

  “Eleven at night.”

  He’d have to leave Amy alone again, but it wouldn’t take long. Thirty minutes, tops.

  Business concluded for the evening, Carlos sat back and signaled to one of the refrigerators. The larger one walked over to a group of ladies, said a few words, and they looked over, smiling.

  Seth got up. “Don’t fuck me over either,” he said. He wasn’t used to threatening Carlos, but it needed to be said. For his own peace of mind, if nothing else.

  Carlos flashed a smile that signaled he was the man, he had it all under control.

  Two

  Seth parked the Jeep at the curb in front of his pale-blue row house on Ontario Street in the trendy but little too "diverse" neighborhood of Adams Morgan. Seth was inordinately proud of the house. It made him look rich. Very soon it would be more than a façade. He would actually be rich. Knowing just how soon that day would be gave him a little punch of secret happiness.

  It was late and the interior lights were illuminated in the windows of all three stories, exactly as he instructed Aimee. Burglars were less likely to rob a home that looked busy, so when she was alone, she was to leave all the lights blazing, the windows and curtains closed. If anyone knocked on the door, she was not to answer it. If anyone called, she was to let it roll to voicemail, and if it was someone she wanted to talk to, she could call them back.

  As Seth walked up the flagstone path to the front door, the neighbor stepped outside with his small dog. Couple of fags lived next door. He tried to avoid them as much as possible.

  Bryan waved while his dog sniffed at the grass. “Evening, Seth.”

  Seth muttered a greeting and trotted up three quick steps to the door. As soon as he put the key in the lock, he knew something was wrong. The tumbler didn’t retract the deadbolt. Amy knew that she was to lock the door while she was at home. Just the deadbolt, not the chain.

  Seth glanced back at Bryan while his dog peed on the mailbox. “Hey,” he said, walking down the steps to the sidewalk. “You see anything strange today?”

  In full cop mode, Seth noticed Bryan’s lips tighten, an almost imperceptible wince. “You know something? You see somebody come up to my house today?”

  “No,” Bryan replied evenly. “I just got home myself a little while ago. Why? Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” Seth grunted, already turning to walk back to the front door.

  He removed his service weapon from his waistband, where he’d kept it while meeting with Carlos. As he slowly parted the door from the jamb, possible scenarios tumbled through his mind, the most logical being that the house had been burgled. Or maybe Carlos’s goons had been here to find the money before the exchange. He wouldn’t put it past the little criminal, but from the hallway everything looked normal.

  “Aimee? Where are you?”

  There was no reply. No sound of her in the house either. Seth dropped his equipment bag from work on the sofa and proceeded deeper into the house. Nothing looked obviously out of place. Upstairs, he searched the bedrooms, finding everything tidy and normal except that Aimee wasn't here. He tucked the weapon into the waistband of his jeans as he made his way back to the kitchen. It was possible she ran to the store for something. She was like that – inefficie
nt, forgetful. He could not count the number of times he’d given her a list of things to buy, and she still forgot half of them.

  In the kitchen, he looked for a note but didn’t find one. He was hungry; he hadn’t eaten dinner, having gone directly to the club after his shift. Annoyed that Aimee wasn’t at home to do it for him, he yanked open the fridge to get some mustard and deli turkey for a sandwich, and noticed that the gallon of the milk was almost empty. Yeah, she was definitely at the store.

  He stood at the sink and wolfed down the sandwich, wondering when she was going to get back. The thought of Aimee hadn't excited him at the club with all the chesty blonds to look at but now that he was home, and the adrenaline was wearing off, he’d like a little fooling around. Bedding Aimee was usually more trouble than it was worth because she was frigid, but he felt like he had reason to celebrate tonight. He shut his eyes for a moment, imagining the police commissioner receiving the message that he was being blackmailed. That was going to be so sweet. At last, his career was going to get some firepower.

  But where the hell was Aimee? He’d been home thirty minutes already and she wasn’t back yet. Frustrated, he dug his cell phone from his pocket and dialed her number. It rolled to voicemail. What the hell? She knew she was to have her phone on at all times.

  “Ames, it’s me. Call me immediately.”

  He set the phone on the counter and in the periphery of his vision, noted a fluttery little movement on the glossy mahogany table of the formal dining room. A tinge of apprehension began to form behind his ribcage. He turned, staring at the object on the table. There was something ominous about it. Slowly Seth walked toward it. The movement was a red blinking light on Aimee’s phone, indicating she’d received a voicemail from Seth.

  What. The. Actual. Fuck.

  The volume was off and the log of incoming calls was listed only his number. The outgoing call log was almost the same, with one exception: her sister in Portland, Oregon. Aimee had called Kimberly twice, once last night and once this afternoon at 2:07. Just about the time Seth left for work.

  The first inkling that her absence was serious – not an errand, maybe not temporary - began to set in. He calmly placed the phone back on the table, and shut his eyes. He suddenly knew what had happened. Knew it in his soul, in his bones, and felt it like he’d been kicked in the balls. He pivoted out of the dining room and ran through the house, up the stairs, taking two at a time, to his office – the one place Amy was not to step foot inside. It was his sanctuary, his domain.

  He paused in the doorway, his heart thudding in his ears. The white cardboard bankers box where he kept Carlos’s money was still exactly where he left it. Please God. He wasn’t sure where the words came from or really even to whom they were directed; he was not a religious person, but from the farthest shadows of his imagination, he could sense damnation rippling out before him. He approached it like it was a box of hell. He placed his hands on the cardboard lid, then opened it.

  It was empty.

  “Bitch!” His livid voice filled the empty room. Fury rose up in his gullet, obliterating every thought. In a black rage, he grabbed the box and threw it against the wall. It landed with a soft crack and slide to the floor. That was unsatisfying, so he punched a hole through the sheetrock.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, holding his smarting fist. There were too many clamoring emotions screaming at him for attention, too much rage to absorb.

  This was catastrophically, epically bad. That money didn’t even belong to him. Carlos’s guys would be coming for him; they expected it at eleven o’clock tomorrow, and there was no way to put them off. He had to find Aimee. He needed that money.

  He felt out of control, wanting to beat her to a bloody pulp for leaving him, for walking away like she didn’t a give a damn. The desire to destroy was so strong, he didn’t know how he would ever get it out of his system.

  His looked at his bloody knuckles, seething. Passing a mirror in the hallway, he saw that his face was a magenta shade of Pissed Off and he knew he had to calm down because he had to think. He had to find six hundred thousand dollars.

  He had to find Aimee. He had less than twenty-four hours.

  Three

  Aimee Baxter was afraid of flying, but she was coping – sort of – with the help of a Bloody Mary. She took a long last sip, tongued an ice cube in her mouth, and put the empty cup in the seat pocket in front of her. The alcohol had not done much to sooth her jagged nerves; it had only made her feel a little dizzy.

  The man assigned to the middle seat had moved to the aisle to give them both a little breathing space. The coach cabin was quiet and soothingly dark, with most of the overhead lights out.

  Still, her neck was crawling weirdly. She couldn’t settle down. She tried to convince herself it was just nerves – excitement even – because she was embarking on a new phase of her life. Think of the positive things, she told herself. Imagine Portland – green and fresh as Spring itself. How nice it was going to be to see her sister Kimberly and her hubby, Rob.

  That line of thinking distracted her for about four seconds before she felt the plane bounce subtly on the currents of air. She swallowed a gasp, knowing she was being ridiculous. Of course the plane bounced a little bit– it was completely normal.

  As she forced herself to loosen the white-knuckle death-grip on the armrest, she knew she was being irrational. Heck, she was scared of her own shadow these days. She jumped at loud noises, startled when the phone rang, and dreaded the creaks and pops of the house settling at night. She was hyper-alert and watchful, always afraid Seth would catch her off guard and either find something to criticize, or blow up without provocation.

  Flying was safe! Statistics said so. Certainly it was safer than living with a sociopath.

  Despite her lifelong phobia of all things winged, Aimee chose to board Flight 134 because Seth would be much more likely to catch her if she attempted to drive cross-country. He was a police officer; he could have reported the car missing, or her missing, and every cop between Washington D.C. and Portland, Oregon would be on the lookout for a petite blue-eyed brunette in a 1999 Volvo.

  How she hated his constant surveillance. Sometimes it was overt, like the police cruiser that was often at the end of her street. Sometimes it was a little more subtle. Just a feeling that she was being watched.

  No more of that. No more diminishing herself by pretending that kind of life was normal, even as she was suffocating. She was so close to being free.

  She was eager to be wheels-down in Portland. Once she was safe at Kimberly and Rob’s house where Seth and his police power couldn’t touch her, she would finally exhale.

  Kimberly and Rob were letting her stay with them for a while until she got settled. She should be able to get a job pretty quickly. Not that she really needed one with all that cash in her suitcases, but she craved work and the daily interaction of office life. She thought of what she might put on a resume in order to get a graphic design job in Portland. Though, she might not even bother with graphic design. There were lots of paths she could take once she was safely out of Seth’s reach.

  She had been in a discovery phase when she met Seth. Teaching yoga and pilates, picking up some MBA credits at night and even considering becoming a veterinarian. That one was unlikely, but it didn’t matter. It was a possibility.

  She was enjoying the process of exploring options for her future when Seth encouraged her to drop school and yoga so she could work from home, doing freelance design.

  She had capitulated – holy merlot, she was so stupid – and ended up creating web designs from the comfort and safety of her own living room, Photoshopping for strangers.

  Then, two days ago, she’d discovered the money. The magnificent, life-changing money. Enough to buy her freedom.

  She was going to mail a letter to Kimberly and needed a stamp. Seth didn’t like her in his office, but that was where he kept the stamps. She found them in his roll-top desk. She tore one out of the book, then
carefully replaced it exactly where she found it, praying Seth wouldn’t confront her about it later.

  As she turned to leave, she noticed a plain white bankers box on the floor. She paused, curious and a little nervous. Had she accidentally placed it there? In the next second, she realized that was ridiculous; she’d never seen that box before in her life. Seth was obsessively neat. Everything had a place it belonged and he expected it to be there at all times. But the box clearly did not belong on the floor of Seth’s office. Aimee crossed the room to the out-of-place box. She hesitated, sensing it might be a trap of some kind. Seth wasn’t above playing stupid tricks on her, testing her to make sure she followed all the rules that he’d set out for her. But her natural curiosity was in overdrive, too powerful to deny. She bent down and with her fingertip, lifted the lid.

  Aimee jumped back, stunned. She stood over the box, pressing her hands to her rapidly pounding heart. What the hell was that?

  Her eyes devoured the stacks of hundred dollar bills, green and creamy-white and Ben Franklin stared back at her with his mild, bemused, chubby face. Stacks and stacks of money. She had never seen so much money in one place. It looked unreal.

  For one astonished moment, the house was silent as death. Ringing, clamoring silence, full of energy. There did not seem to be any thoughts in her head at all.

  She stepped to the box again and reached inside, letting her fingernails touch the cash. Holy cow. It was not a dream. She picked up a thick stack of cash, surprised by the weight of it. The bills were brand new, with that particular new money smell. Stiff and fresh in her hands.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered aloud to the empty room. The first dizzy rays of happiness began to blaze through her. She wanted to laugh – but then realized this was a huge secret. Seth hadn’t told her about this and she had no idea where he got it. Maybe he embezzled it. Or robbed a bank. She certainly wouldn’t put it past him.