Kate’s eyebrows rose and she burst out laughing at the same time as Walter. His guffaws filled the conference room.
Heat filtered into Laurel’s cheeks. “Also, no comment.”
Chapter 19
The crash was a flash of metal and noise, a scream of rubber against wet pavement. Mark had taken the corner too fast in his beautiful black truck, eyes fixed on the mirror instead of the road. His truck spun out, tires catching mud, gravel spraying like shrapnel. Now the sweet truck had bullet holes in it from that FBI agent shooting back at him.
The impact sounded like a thunderclap. Steel met oak with a violence that shuddered through his bones, snapping his head forward hard enough to split his lip against the steering wheel. His chest hit the seat belt, the force like a sledgehammer to his ribs.
Then silence.
He woke with blood in his mouth and a thunderstorm pounding inside his skull. The airbag had deployed but deflated to a useless heap of nylon and powder. The windshield was a kaleidoscope of cracks, a dark vein of blood smeared across it from his forehead.
He’d gotten away, but they had to be coming for him. Tying up loose ends. He had to run. Now.
The taste of iron thickened on his tongue. Blood dripped from his nose, slow and steady, painting his upper lip with a warmth that shouldn’t have been comforting. His hands shook as he fumbled for the seat belt release, fingers slipping off the latch twice before it finally clicked free.
He shoved the door open with his shoulder. It gave with a groan of metal, and a fresh lance of pain stabbed through his ribs. He stumbled out, his boots sinking into mud. The night was thick with rain, the air a cold bite that clung to his skin.
Something in his ankle twisted wrong as he moved, a sharp, splintering pain that nearly sent him to his knees. But he didn’t fall. Couldn’t.
He had to keep moving. Before they caught up to him.
His brain hurt like fingernails scraped across the delicate tissues. Like something alive had dug into his skull and was making room for itself.
Pain. Agony. Life.
He wiped the blood from his nose, but the streaks only smeared across his skin. His vision tilted, edges blurring in and out, but he forced his legs to move. Tripping over roots, he scraped his palms against bark slick with rain.
No sounds echoed from behind him. No engines. No voices. But they’d been there. He’d seen the headlights—too close, too deliberate. Or had he? Was he imagining things again?
The trees closed in, branches clawing at his face, leaves slapping against his shoulders. The world around him pulsed in shades of black and gray, shadows deepening with each uneven step.
And then, through the rain, a shape.
He stumbled to a halt, chest heaving, the air a knife scraping against his throat.
The figure was there, between two pines. Cloaked in darkness, its head tilted as if studying him. For a moment, it had shape, lines, and angles that should’ve made sense. But the longer he stared, the less real it became.
He blinked, and it was gone.
Just rain and shadows and the whisper of the wind remained.
His hands trembled. His mind spun excuses, some of them almost convincing. Blood loss. Exhaustion. A trick of the dark.
He’d done worse than hallucinate before. He’d drowned himself in whiskey until the world blurred around him, broken the wrong man’s bones just to prove he could. Lived too long thinking rage was the same as strength.
He pressed forward, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs. The pain was a constant throb now, swelling through his skull until his teeth ached.
The ground sloped downward, slick with mud. He slid more than walked, his body twisting to catch his balance. Every jolt shot fresh agony through his ankle.
And still, the thought of stopping terrified him more than the pain.
Regret pooled beneath his thoughts, a dark, creeping thing he’d buried too deep for too long. No one would mourn him if he didn’t make it out of these woods. That was the truth. Not his fault, not really. Just the way he’d built his life. He’d burned every bridge until the smoke blackened the sky.
But there was something worse than dying alone. Something worse than dying in this godforsaken stretch of trees with his own blood soaking into the dirt.
His brain felt too big for his skull, swelling until the pressure forced more blood from his nose. It dripped down his chin, hot against the chill in the air. He tripped into a clearing, his knees buckling as he collapsed to the ground. The cold seeped through his shirt, his chest heaving with every shallow breath.
