“HELP!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. Wickes leapt forward, clapping a hand over my mouth, but I bit down on his fingers. “HELP ME, PLEASE!”
“Shut up, you bitch,” hissed Donovan as he dragged me away from the door to the police station.
As we backed into the shadows of the nearby trees, I bucked my legs wildly, trying to stop Wickes from grabbing my feet. If both of them got ahold of me, there was no way I’d make it out of here alive. I twisted out of Donovan’s grip, sidestepped Wickes, and attempted to reach the station’s door again. Halfway across the gravel lot, Wickes tackled me from behind. I yelled out as we tumbled to the ground. Donovan approached from the side, but I paid him no attention, tussling with Wickes instead. In an underhanded move, I shoved my knee up into Wickes’s groin. He let out a loud grunt. I scrambled out of his reach to find Donovan waiting for me. Once again, he pulled me to my feet, but this time, he wrapped his hands around my throat.
“Be quiet,” he whispered in a dangerous voice.
I tried to draw in a breath, but Donovan’s fingers were tight against my windpipe. My vision began to blacken at the edges. This was it. Plan A had failed. Plan B was in the process of failing. Wes would die at the mercy of Catherine Flynn.
“Davenport, you’re killing her,” said Wickes, recovering from my blow to his important bits.
“I don’t give a damn,” snarled Donovan, and his hands clenched tighter.
Suddenly, the door to the police station ricocheted open. A throng of officers poured out from inside, surrounding Donovan and me. Immediately, Donovan released my throat, and I collapsed to the rough ground, unable to support myself. I drew in a desperate gasp of air as the blood rushed back to my head. Vaguely aware of the commotion around me, I saw Wickes’s leather shoes disappear around the far corner of the building. One observant officer ran after him, but the others were too preoccupied with subduing Donovan to notice Wickes’s escape. It took four men to pin Donovan down, his cheek pressed to the gravel as they handcuffed his hands behind his back. As they lifted him up and hauled him into the station, one of the other police officers knelt down to my level.
“You all right there, young lady?” He was an older gentleman, not a rookie like Wes, and he spoke to me in a firm, level voice.
My voice was hoarse. “I’ll live.”
“Was that your boyfriend?”
I shook my head. “No. He just attacked me on the street.”
“I see. I’m quite sorry you’re shaken up, but I have to ask you to come inside so that we can get a statement from you.”
I nodded. It was only to be expected. The officer offered me a hand and helped me to my feet. We stepped over the gouges in the gravel that served as the only remaining evidence of my scuffle with the Raptors. As I followed the officer into the station, massaging the welts at my throat, I realized with a jolt that the locket had gone missing from its place around my neck.
21
“Lauren. Lauren!”
I thundered down the stairs to the basement of Floorboard Lit in a frenzy. Lauren had returned to her place behind the computer, a pair of bulky studio headphones swallowing her head. She whisked the headphones off, and they settled around her neck as she whirled around to face me.
“What the hell happened?” she demanded. “I was listening through your microphone the entire time. Flynn wasn’t there?”
“No!” I paced back and forth, massaging my forehead. My head throbbed, probably as a result of Donovan depriving me of air.
“Oh, my God, your neck.”
My hands flew to my throat. One glance in the rearview mirror of Lauren’s expensive car on the drive back to Floorboard Lit had afforded me a lovely view of the pattern of purple-and-pink bruises that now marred my skin.
“Never mind that,” I said. “I lost the locket.”
Lauren’s shoulders dropped. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m not joking.”
“How?”
“Flynn didn’t show, as you’ve already gathered.” I continued pacing. It was barely five steps from one end of the intimate basement to the other. I was a rogue ping-pong ball being batted around by drunken competitors. “Davenport and one of his knuckle-headed cronies pulled up in an SUV instead. I talked to Flynn over the phone. I’m pretty sure Wes is still alive, but for how long?” With the locket missing from around my neck, I felt impossibly light. “Donovan must have taken the locket from me before he was arrested. He—”
“Whoa, take a step back,” ordered Lauren, waving her hands to stop me from talking. “Donovan was arrested?”
I nodded. “We chose that space for a reason, right? I knew where the station was. I figured if I lured Donovan and Wickes there and let them catch me, the cops would come out. I was right. They caught Donovan with his hands around my neck and arrested him for assault and battery.”
“So what happened? How did you get out of there?”
“They asked me a couple questions, but I just pretended not to know Donovan. I mean, who are they going to believe? My story or his?”
“Yours, I hope. What happened to Donovan?”
“He’s still there. The cops told me that he wouldn’t be released until someone posted bail. I assume he’ll call Flynn to get him out.” I sank into the armchair by Lauren’s desk and folded in
