SWNOVELS Chance: Chapter 44
Rory blinked awake.Her head hurt, and her body ached. Her first thought was the baby as she struggled to sit up. Was she in the hospital?
But no, though something was soft beneath her it was also scratchy. She blinked again and her surroundings came into focus. She was in her barn, lying on old hay that had gone musty, and it was still raining, the drops pounding down on the tin roof high above.
She’d been driving Chuck toward town, approaching the Cedar Creek bridge. Another driver had run her off the road. Her heart sank. She remembered the sickening crunch of metal, the slide toward the trees, the desperate bid to keep the truck on the pavement.
And then nothing.
Somebody kicked her leg. “Wake up, bitch.”
“I don’t like this, RJ. I don’t want to be a part of this.” It was a different voice from the one that’d told her to wake up.
“Shut the fuck up, dickweed,” RJ growled. “Stick to the plan.”
Rory moved her head and everything swam. Her stomach lurched. A hand grabbed her arm and dragged her up until she was in a sitting position, her back against a wall. She cried out at the pain in her head. A moment later, nausea crawled up her throat and spilled out as she retched into the hay.
“Hurting her wasn’t the plan. You said it wasn’t the plan.” He sounded panicky.
“It’s called improvising.”
“Jimmy?” Her voice was hoarse and small. She blinked again and he came into focus.
Jimmy Turton stood with his hands in his pockets, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. Her gaze slewed to the other man. She already knew who she’d see. Jimmy had said his name, but it wasn’t only that. It was the sound of pure evil in his voice and the memory of how he’d looked at her that day when he’d nearly pulled a gun on her. Her own fault for having Liza Jane, maybe, but the cold-blooded expression on his face when he’d started to reach for a weapon was something she wouldn’t forget.
It was an expression he wore now, but intensified. Like any restraints he’d had on his behavior were gone.
She was unarmed, Chance was at work, and she was vulnerable. Jimmy was her only shot at survival. She knew it deep in her bones. Fear crawled up her throat, but she rammed it down again. She had to stay strong, had to fight. For her baby. For the man she loved and desperately wanted to see again.
“I’m sorry, Rory,” Jimmy said. “I just need you to sign the papers, that’s all. Once you do, then we can all get our money and everything will be great.”
Rory wanted to throttle him. If he thought RJ was going to let her go after she signed papers, he was deluded. RJ was a man intent upon destruction and pain.
“How can you be involved in this? How?”
“It’s not personal. I just need to get out. I don’t want to run the farm anymore. I never wanted it. Opportunities like this don’t come along every day in Sutton’s Creek. We need to sell now, to people who have a vision, or God knows how long we’ll wait for the next developer to come along.”
“Jimmy, for pete’s sake, there’ll be another one in a few months. Have you seen those apartment buildings going up on the road between here and the interstate? Every day they get closer to Sutton’s Creek. It’s only a matter of time.”
Jimmy looked unsure. RJ kicked her in the thigh and pain shot up her leg, stole her breath.
“Smart assed bitch. Listen to her, Jimbo. She’s got the luxury of sitting back and doing nothing, slinging drinks at her little shit-hole in town, while you work hard every day to make ends meet. You ain’t even got medical insurance. What happens if you break a leg falling off a tractor, huh? Bitch here can crow all she likes about options, but she’s the only one who’s got any.”
“Sign the papers, Rory,” Jimmy said, pulling a folded sheaf of paper from his back pocket. “Sell the land. You don’t need it. You’ve got the Dawg.”
Rory shot a look at RJ, who was smirking. Jimmy took a pen from his pocket and held everything out to her.
She had a decision to make. Sign the papers or tell Jimmy that whatever he had in his hand wasn’t legit. You didn’t sell land by simply signing an agreement. If that’s the way it worked, then property would be changing hands through illegal means all the time. All somebody had to do was kidnap somebody, make them sign papers they’d drawn up, and that was it. Even signing over the deed had to go through legal channels in Alabama. It was not a simple process, and whatever he had in his hand wouldn’t obligate her to shit.
Which RJ surely knew.
“Have you asked yourself what happens after I sign that? Do you think we’re all just walking away from this like nothing happened? That I’ll be over at the Dawg tonight, slinging those drinks, and you’ll be planning how to spend your share of the money and applying for jobs at Polaris?”
Jimmy frowned. “Stop trying to stall, Rory. Just sign the goddamn papers and we’ll get out of here.”
He could not be that stupid. Except he clearly was.
Rory shot a look at RJ. “You going to tell him the truth or do I?”
RJ shrugged as he pulled a gun from behind his back. He aimed it at her and Rory swallowed a scream before it clawed its way free. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Wait, no, don’t,” Jimmy cried.
“Don’t? Okay.”
RJ turned the gun on Jimmy and squeezed the trigger.
The boom was deafening. Rory stared at Jimmy as blood blossomed on his shirt and his face went pale. A moment later, he dropped to the floor.
It took her a couple of tries to scramble over to him. She thought she was going to lose her cookies again, the barn spun sickeningly, but she made it. RJ had turned his back and walked away.
He didn’t think she was a threat. And as much as she wanted to be, she needed to see if Jimmy was still breathing.
His eyes were wide and blinking as he turned his head toward her.
“Hang on, Jimmy. Don’t leave me, you hear?” She glanced at the hole in his chest. It couldn’t be his heart that was hit because he’d already be dead. She ripped her flannel shirt off and pressed it to the wound, not sure if she was doing the right thing or not.
“Sor-ry.”
“Shh, you stupid asshole,” she hissed as tears spilled down her cheeks. “You did a dumb thing but I’ll forgive you if you don’t die on me.”
The odor of gasoline invaded her senses all at once. RJ had the gas cans for the mower and he was dumping them around the walls of the barn.
Jimmy lifted a hand blindly, feeling for her. Rory grabbed it and held on as he squeezed. “Scared,” he whispered.
“I know. I won’t leave you.”
Except that fucking RJ was about to light a fire and she was going to have to try and escape and pull Jimmy with her. Assuming RJ didn’t shoot her too. Or maybe he was counting on her being too dizzy to make it to the door, especially once he lit the match. The entire barn would go up in a matter of minutes, rain or not. Flames would hem her and Jimmy in from all sides. They would burn to death before anyone knew they were inside.
“What do you want?” Rory cried as RJ hummed a tune and shook gas all over the old wood of the barn walls.
“If you weren’t puking, I’d make you suck my cock. But I guess I’ll settle for a bonfire with you and Jimmy roasting inside.”
Her stomach roiled. “You won’t get away with this. They’ll find you.”
“Who? Your idiot boyfriend? I don’t think so.” He tossed the gas can aside and took a matchbook from his pocket. “The two of you are going to be ash before long. Who knows which one of you set the fire? Or why? But Jimmy there was the one who vandalized your property and bribed Carl Hoffman. Maybe you found out. Or maybe he came back over here on his four-wheeler today to perform another act of destruction. You caught him at it after wrecking your boyfriend’s truck and walking home. And me, I’m out scouting locations with my dad. He’ll swear to it, which means I wasn’t here.”
He backed toward the open barn doors. “Bet your brother will be happy to sell the land after you’re gone. Poor Theo.”
Rory growled. But there was no way she could make it to RJ in time. He was too far away, and he had all his faculties. She was dizzy and nauseous and couldn’t stand up without getting sick.
Didn’t mean she wouldn’t try, though.
“I’m sorry, Jimmy,” she whispered, placing his hand over the flannel shirt to hold it in place. Then she lurched toward RJ.
He laughed as he tore a match from the book and struck it.