I turn and finally I have the momentum I need to move somewhere. I throw my legs out in front of me, sprinting toward the road and Cross’s motorcycle. The thumping whirr of the helicopter blades is a roar now, and I imagine that behind me they’re loading up. About to leave. I fist my hands and run harder, telling myself that this is my only choice. I can’t be Missy King again. I can’t go back to Drake Carlson. Not even for his son.
That’s when I hear my name—my real name: “Meredith.” It’s like he knows I want to run.
But that’s impossible.
I start to count aloud. I’m not turning around and I don’t want to hear him—but there it is again.
“Meredith!”
His strangled, half-choked voice is barely audible, but I can hear it, and it sends a jolt through my whole body. I’m panting, half sobbing. I can’t be Missy King, I remind myself. I won’t be Missy King again!
I reach the bike and wonder if I remember how to start one of these things. I wrap my hand around the handle, and that’s when I notice the blood all over the seat. I want to think of myself—of what I have to do—but all I can think about is how he clung to me in the shower, begging me not to leave him to face his pain alone.
I can’t leave without making sure he’s okay.
When I turn around, I see him, not on his way to the helicopter, but clinging to Arnie and limping toward me.
“Meredith?” I can’t hear him now, but I can see my name on his pretty lips. And as I walk closer, I can see that there’s blood on his lips, too. The guard is waving, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.
Cross’s face is pale as snow. His brilliant blue eyes look almost black against his bloodless skin.
Holy crap, he’s bleeding out for me.
I rush toward him. If I tell him to leave, maybe he will. Maybe Arnie will make him go.
I get within a stone’s throw and he moans my name again.
“I’m sorry,” he rasps. His glazed eyes struggle to focus on my face as his words slur. “Don’ leave me. Please Merri…don’t leave me.”
That’s when he passes out.
I try to convince the guards to take us out of El Paso, but they tell me Cross is losing blood too fast. Immediately afterward, I feel terrible for even asking, but I’m scared. We’re way too close to Mexico for comfort, and I don’t think it’ll be hard for the cartel to figure out where we were taken.
During the brief flight to the hospital, I give them as much of Cross’s medical history as I can, focusing mostly on what I know about his neck. If they have to put that breathing tube down his throat, they might need to know to be careful.
It’s like being in the Twilight Zone, holding his hand as the chopper’s de facto medical officer starts an IV, and reassuring her that all the scars on his hands and in the crook of his elbows don’t mean he’s a drug addict. He just had a bad motorcycle wreck a while back.
This helicopter isn’t really equipped for landing at a hospital, but because of Cross’s last name, they make some special arrangements and I’m told we are landing on the roof in ten minutes.
I want to ask the agent who’s acting as a nurse questions about what happened after we left—what happened with the cartel—but I don’t dare.
The agent/nurse, named Lisa, reassures me that ‘my husband’ should be okay.
He wakes up only once, to insist no one give him any narcotics. I stroke his hair and tell him I’ve got it covered. With all the energy I have left, I’m trying to play the role of his wife. Now that I’m on the helicopter, I can’t afford to have any of these people doubting our story. When his eyes flutter, I can tell he wants to talk to me. I’m glad he’s too weak. For right now, I’m not allowing myself to think too much about the fact that he’s a Carlson. I just need to get him to the hospital.
As soon as we start to descend over the roof, Cross’s eyes flutter again. The nurse tells me it’s because his blood pressure is pretty low, but Cross is looking at me, trying to tell me something. Finally he grits, “Marchant,” followed by “Love…brothel.”
During the months I lived in Vegas, I met a few great women who worked at Love Inc. I happen to know Marchant Radcliffe is the brothel’s owner.
“You want me to call Marchant Radcliffe?” I ask, confused.
Cross coughs, and the nurse tells him to stop talking, but he’s stubborn. His eyes hold mine for just long enough to croak, “My…friend.”
It’s weird to think of ‘Evan’ as a real person to begin with, but it’s even weirder to think of him as Cross Carlson, friend of high-rolling Marchant Radcliffe. Luckily, we’re bumping down on the roof, so my thoughts are directed elsewhere.
As soon as Cross’s cot is hauled out of the helicopter, we are whisked down in an elevator to what I can only assume is an operating room. When the army of doctors and nurses leaves me in a pale blue plastic chair just outside the stainless steel doors, I take a deep breath and go in search of a free phone.
I find one, as well as a computer accessible only if you pay it quarters. A kind-looking nurse slips me four of them as I sit down. I mutter, “thank you” and look up the brothel’s phone number.
As I dial, I consider asking for an old friend, an escort named Geneese Loveless, but when the polite receptionist answers, I ask for Marchant and I tell her it’s an emergency. That his friend Cross Carlson is in one of the ORs at the University Medical Center in El Paso with a gunshot wound.
I hang up before she has time to go find the pimp himself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I open my eyes to a blaze of white light, and within seconds I’m choked by panic. I can see arms, torsos, and faces moving over me and I know where I am. In a hospital. I thought I was out of the hospital…but maybe I’m not. Oh God. Oh f**k. What happened?
The voices around me get harsher, more urgent. I can feel someone holding my legs down. Someone else tries to hold my head still, and I can hear a soothing voice telling me I’m okay, but I know I’m not.
I’m not okay.
“Sir, you need to try to calm down. We’re re-sewing your wound. You pulled the stitches out in recovery so we had to bring you back to the OR.”
My heart trips over itself. I open my mouth, and it’s hard to get words out. When I do, they sound thick and clumsy. “Did you give me…any sedatives?”
“We did,” says the disembodied voice. “You had general anesthesia.”