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“He’s killing her!” Jenna clawed at her throat. “He’s killing my baby!”
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Nick barreled past Eric and slammed his shoulder into the door where the shouts came from. The lock easily gave way and the door swung wide. Under a shower of plaster, Eric rushed into his worst nightmare. He stopped to a dead halt. Mark’s eyes were red and raving. His arm was tight around Janie’s throat.
“Let her go,” Eric pleaded. “She hasn’t done anything to you. Let her go.”
Mark grunted and tugged harder. Tears poured from his eyes. “Fuck you. F…fucking big hero rushing in to save the day again.” Mark’s lips smacked together, wet with saliva and the tears coursing over them. “You aren’t going to beat me up, break me to fucking pieces this time. One snap and she’s finished, come near me and she’s dead.”
Eric held his hands, palms out in front of his chest. “Take it easy, Mark. I’ll give you whatever you want. Just let her go.”
“Stay back,” Mark demanded. “I swear I’ll do it. I know she isn’t mine. Come near me, and I snap her neck.”
Helpless, Eric watched the shallow rise and fall of Janie’s chest. “She’s barely breathing. She isn’t getting enough air and her lungs are going to collapse.”
Eric kept his hands raised in supplication and forced himself to appear calm even though his insides were rocking with fear. One flinch in the wrong direction and his daughter’s life would be over.
Mark flexed his wiry arm as more tears spilled from his eyes. “Looks like I’m finally going to get my chance to pay you back.” His words rode on choking sobs. “I might as well do it. I have nothing to lose. After your trial, Angel’s big shot Hollywood pals saw to it I couldn’t get a job in a fucking taco stand.”
Mark pulled Janie up an inch higher, one small increment that parted her feet from the dirty carpet. “You got it all…money…fame. All I have is a face full of scars!”
Eric fought the urge to rush to his daughter and pry her out of Mark’s grasp. But his former friend was crazed, his glassy eyes hot with tears, his scars like worms crawling along his ruddy face. Eric knew Mark would break Janie’s neck if either he or Nick charged. Her one and only chance was to force reason to penetrate Mark’s twisted rationale.
Eric took a deep breath, a slow and calm pull of air. “You’re wrong. I have nothing. Because of you I lost my family. You already got your revenge. We’re even. Let her go and you can walk out of here.”
“Bullshit. You’ll never let me go.” The capillaries in Mark’s eyes were so red and broken they glowed like a horror movie apparition. Janie, unconscious and limp, hung from his arm like a rag doll in a child’s grip.
“I give you my word.” Eric spoke evenly, every syllable in the same docile tone. “You know I’m not a liar. Let her go, and I’ll let you walk out of this room.” Eric took a solitary beat to let his heart catch up with his breath. Janie’s chest was rising in ever smaller spurts and a thready whistle accompanied each attempt her body made in its struggle for air.
He spoke again, his tone almost serene. “But, if you don’t, and I mean right now, then Nick and I will take you out of here.” He pointed to the burly Lombardo who nodded, once, his immense body still and somber.
“We’ll take you to a place where the cops will never find you.” Eric forced his sight from his child spilling from the crook of Mark’s folded arm to his eyes. “I’ll beat you far worse than I did the day I caught you raping my wife. I’ll fucking torture you. I swear it. Kill my daughter, and I’ll torture you every single day for the rest of your life. You’ll beg to go to prison. You’ll beg for a death row needle.”
Mark’s eyes pitched back and forth. The smell of sweat filled the air. The room was silent except for the imaginary ticking of a time bomb. His eyes vaulted around the filthy room and ended their journey at Eric.
“You will beg me to kill you.”
Mark released his grip and Janie slid to the floor. He flew past Eric and Nick who both rushed to her.
The child’s lips were tinged blue. Eric pinched her nose and blew a hard breath of air into her mouth. “Please, baby, please,” he crooned between breaths.
Janie coughed as air reached her lungs. Once her breathing became steady, Eric drew her into the shelter of his arms and cradled her head against his chest, against his heart. Her lids fluttered. Caught somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, she gripped the arms holding her.
“It’s all right,” he said. “You’re safe now. Daddy’s here. I won’t let anyone hurt you again. Daddy’s here.”
She gripped the arms now holding her as if somehow knowing she was safe.
Chapter Thirty-Five
A carnival of emergency vehicles screamed into the lot of the Trails End Motel. Eric rode in the ambulance with his daughter, holding her hand. She drifted in and out of consciousness and the beginnings of bruises appeared on her throat. Paramedics slipped a tube around her head to feed oxygen into her nose. Her heart rate and blood pressure were low, but not dangerously so. Nick followed close behind in the limousine.
A barrage of reporters greeted the ambulance at the hospital, a scene all too familiar for Eric. Nick, whose area of expertise was fending off the media, stayed close to his friend’s side as he walked next to the gurney. Janie was rushed to an examination cubicle and attended to. Eric shook his head sadly when asked by the nurse assisting the doctor for her medical history.
The door of the ER parted wide. The heavy swish of opening then swinging shut allowed a burst of sound from outside to spill through. The small hospital’s security staff was ill prepared to handle even the small number of local reporters, and it was Nick who pulled Jenna from the crowd. She ran and gathered Janie in her arms.
Eric watched her take their daughter’s face in her hands and stare as if she might never stop. Letting out a loud sob, Janie flung her arms around Jenna’s neck. She cried and trembled as Jenna rocked, and soothed, and rubbed her back. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Janie spoke around sobs and hiccups. “Somebody grabbed me, Mommy. I was so scared.”
