“What else did he fucking tell you? Do you know my name too?” He was furious.
Elise figured she had a matter of minutes before she met her maker. It should terrify her. Instead, she felt invigorated. Bold. “Oh, I know a whole lot about you two. And as soon as I get out of here, I’m going to telleveryone!”
“Newsflash: You’re not getting out of here. I’m going to twist your pretty little neck until it snaps.” She heard his boots scuff the floor as he skirted to her left. Elise edged right. Behind her back, she twisted her wrists, working on her restraints. “I’ll even be nice and take off the blindfold so you can watch the light fade.” He laughed again. “I’m going to enjoy watching you die.”
“You’re sick. No wonder Marcus wanted to turn you in,” she lied.
“What did you just say?”
“Oh, yeah, he probably didn’t tell you that part,” she continued. Her thigh bumped the edge of the bed and she grabbed hold of the footrail to steady herself. “Didn’t you wonder what was taking him so long? It didn’t take this much time for you to finish the run. I figure he’s probably turned state’s evidence by now.”
“Marcus wouldn’t do that,” Driver asserted. “He wouldn’t risk going to prison, and he sure as hell wouldn’t send me there.”
“Oh, well, I guess he wasn’t as pissed about you screwing up the plan as he said then. Of course, you know him better than me.” Elise prayed like hell that the bluff was working. She was using what little scraps of information she’d gleaned from their many late night chats as she could to fashion the lie. To her relief, it seemed to be affecting him.
There was a pregnant pause in which Elise held her breath, unsure which way this was going to go—nowhere good, if she had to guess.
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
“I…” He didn’t finish that thought, and he didn’t have to. At that moment, the front door eked open. The tension in the room tripled.
“Honey, I’m home!” Marcus called out. Bags rustled and floorboards protested as he moved about the cabin. “They were out of two percent, so you’re going to have to live with skim. And I’m warning you now, they only had the crunchy peanut butter, so don’t go being a prima donna. Hey, where are you?”
Elise’s heart pounded painfully as she waited for the inevitable. Marcus would come in to see her and his partner engaged in a standoff. It would go one of two ways: Either he would defend her, or he would help Driver dispose of her body.
Elise wasn’t very confident that she would come out on top of this. She had, after all, told some lies designed to drive a wedge between the men. They probably wouldn’t appreciate her efforts.Hey, it was just a joke!No harm done, right?
Somehow, she didn’t think they’d find it funny.
“What’s going on in here?” Marcus asked, and for just brief moment, Elise breathed a sigh of relief. His voice had an inexplicable ability to sooth her nerves, but she wasn’t stupid. Elise wouldn’t allow her emotions to cloud her judgment.
“You tell me,” his partner demanded. “Your little buttercup has had some interesting things to say about you.”
“Interesting how?”
Elise could feel Marcus’s suspicious stare focus on her, and she struggled not to cower from it. Instead, she stood resolute. She’d play this out and hope for the best. “I told him about our plan, Marcus.”
“What plan?” he asked, confused.
“I hope you told them everything,” she continued with an air of false bravado. “They’re coming right? Or are they already outside waiting? Because I need to get out of these,” she said, twisting sideways to flash him her wrists. “I’m starting to chafe.”
“So you did go to the cops!”
“What the fuck?” Marcus shouted. “No! Why would you even think that? What the fuck have you been filling his head with?” That last part was directed at Elise, and she could feel the power of his anger like a storm directed solely at her.
“The truth, sounds like,” Driver said, the sound of hurt, anger, and betrayal rife in his tone. “I knew I couldn’t trust you. All the complaining and arguing, then going all alpha with her.”
“Alpha? What the… You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I think I know just fine. I should have trusted my gut from the get-go. I should have left you two high and dry when I had the chance.”
“Wait, what?”
“Oh, yeah. When I went into town that day? I was going to leave. I had the opportunity. I could have just rode off and left your ass behind. I almost did, but then you might have turned me in just to spite me.”
“You were going to leave?”