Stranded with My Stepbrother Chapter 90

\-Jacey-

“Honey, I don’t think you belong here,” a low voice drawled.

I blinked my eyes open. Was I in Heaven?

Heaven sure smelled bad.

I tried to sit up, but my bones hurt too much to let me. The last thing I remembered was jumping off the top of the Holiday Inn Express.

Maybe this was hell?

A stubbly face came into view. “What are you doing in a great big pile of manure?”

Manure? I tried to sit up again, but my ribs really hurt, my arm, a leg, for that matter. It was burning in my eyes, so I blinked several times to clear them.

Did I land on my side?

Wait, I landed somewhere other than the sidewalk?

I was alive?!!!

“I…” I croaked. “I… jumped.”

“Oh honey, life can’t be all that bad. Was it a bridge?” the man asked after a pause. “We’re gonna have to get you to a doctor…”

I shook my head as vehemently as I could without aggravating, well, everything. “No doctor. I’m… I’m running away from some bad people. If I go to a doctor, they’ll find me.”

“So, not a suicide attempt, then.” The man stroked his chin. “Didn’t anybody tell you jumping off things could get you killed? What were you jumping away from?”

“I jumped off the Holiday Inn,” I replied. “The roof. There were people up there trying to kill me.”

The man gave me a sympathetic look. “Seems we’re gonna need to take you to a different kind of doctor, too.”

It took only a moment for me to realize what he meant. “I swear I’m not crazy. I’m a protected witness. Except the people we’re testifying against keep trying to kill us!”

“Should I be calling the cops, then?” the man asked.

“No. No! For all I know, he’s paying them, too.” I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to trust this man, but I could barely move, and he was all I had at the moment. “I know this sounds like one big mental conspiracy theory, but this guy, Masterson, we found out he does human trafficking and a lot of other bad stuff. He’s been paying people to try to kill us so we can’t testify in court. I swear I’m telling the truth!”

The man stared at me for a long moment. “Who’s ‘we’?”

“My boyfriend and me. Well, I mean, we’d be married now if it weren’t for everything that’s going on…. It’s complicated.” I felt miserable, not just because of whatever injuries I had but also because Caleb was in danger. Probably worse danger than me.

“You can’t be more than twenty. What do you want to go and get married for?” the man scoffed.

I frowned at him. “Is that really the point right now?”

He held up his hands in surrender. “All right. I get you. I don’t want to move you—Lord knows what injuries you might have—but I’ll call a friend. He’s a veterinarian. We’ll get to the bottom of this. Oh, and my name’s Billy, by the way. What’s yours?”

“Jacey,” I said. “And thank you.”

“Not a problem. It’s not every day I get involved in my own spy movie,” Billy responded, shaking his head. “You sit still so you don’t hurt yourself more.”

“Okay.” As Billy walked away, I focused on being as still as I could be.

That was until a state trooper in a wide-brimmed hat poked his head over the top of my manure crater. I saw the somewhat pointed roof of a barn afterward. “Well, I’ll be damned, Billy. You weren’t kidding.”

“I said I wasn’t. This little filly says her name is Jacey, and she’s a protected witness, but there’s a whole bunch of people trying to kill her. She jumped off the Holiday Inn when I was driving through the city. Can you believe that?” Billy said.

I started trying to squirm my way out of the manure. I needed to get away!

The state trooper looked at Billy. “Jacey Collins?”

“She didn’t tell me her last name,” Billy replied with a shrug.

“Oi, stop squirming around until Horace gets here. Though I still think we should probably take her to a hospital,” the state trooper mused. “I’m Officer Jake Alexander. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“People tell me that all the time.” I grunted, but I did stop moving around, mostly because I wasn’t getting anywhere.

“Pretty sure they do.” Officer Alexander actually stepped up into the truck, getting his boots covered with manure. “Everybody’s looking for you. Mostly for your body, but this is a nice surprise.”

I snorted. “What? Didn’t you hear the ransom was dead-or-alive?”

“I’m not interested in any ransom,” Officer Alexander said. “They say you’re going against a man who’s involved in drugs, arms dealing, human trafficking, and that kind of crap. I’d rather my kids grow up in a world where you can’t get away with that kind of shit than become a corrupt cop and sell you out. Not even for a hundred-million dollars.”

Billy gave a low whistle. “Dang, Jacey. That’s a lot of zeros.”

“Don’t worry about Billy,” Officer Alexander went on kindly when the blood drained from my face. “He wouldn’t even know what to do with a hundred-million dollars. If he wanted to be rich, all he’d have to do is sell his farm to developers.”

“They haven’t offered me a hundred mil, but I’d be plenty comfortable, I can tell you that,” Billy said. “But I like my life the way it is.”

Huffing and puffing began to fill the air, and Billy and Officer Alexander looked off to the side. “Horace, you fat bastard. You finally made it,” Officer Alexander joked.

“Yeah, you glorified meter-maid, I did.” Horace panted. “Speaking of which, I’m missing a great big bowl full of strawberry fluff for this, so you’d better tell me what I’m doing here. What’s in the manure?”

“You’d have to see it to believe it.” Officer Alexander offered him a hand up.

Horace, indeed a rather rotund man, was then looking down at me. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes, then looked again. “Isn’t that the girl on TV?”

“It is,” Office Alexander said. “What they don’t say on TV is whoever’s after her killed two seasoned FBI handlers.”

“She jumped off a hotel roof. Thank the sweet Jesus it was only five stories,” Billy added. “And Lord only knows how she ended up landing in my truck while I was hauling manure. That’s got to be some kind of miracle.”

“I’ll say.” Horace knelt down next to me. “She isn’t a horse, though. She should go to a real hospital.”

“Why? So I can get killed trying to protect her? No thanks,” Officer Alexander said. “I swore I’d be willing to die in the line of duty, but I’d rather keep that as a last resort.”

Horace sighed. “I was afraid you’d say something like that.” He turned to me. “I’m going to start looking you over. I’ll tell the other two to go if I need to take off any of your clothes, okay?”

“Okay,” I responded cautiously.

“I suppose someone put a lot of money on your head,” Horace mumbled absently while he carefully began to examine me.

“Yeah. A hundred-million reasons to do bad things,” Officer Alexander said.

Horace blinked. “Damn. Okay. Good thing I’m not hurting for money, then. I’d almost be tempted.”

“Your fat ass couldn’t catch a snail, much less a full grown girl,” Billy snorted.

“Another reason I’m not tempted.” Horace frowned as he got to my injuries. “Well, that’s broken. I wouldn’t be surprised if your ribs were cracked. And that leg’s at least fractured. I need to take her back to the clinic for some X-rays.”

“Is it okay to move her?” Office Alexander asked.

“Yeah. Mind the arm, but otherwise, she should be able to be carried.” Horace stood back and looked at Officer Alexander and Billy expectantly.

Officer Alexander ignored the manure that surrounded me and scooped me up, handing me down out of the truck into Billy’s arms while I whimpered with pain.

“Really ought to go to a hospital,” Horace grumbled, but he seemed resigned to the situation.

“Not an option right now. Okay, so, Billy, lay her down in the back of the squad,” Office Alexander said.

Billy took me to the trooper car and laid me down in the back. The cage between me and the front of the vehicle really rattled me, and I started struggling again.

“Woah, there. Calm down. It’s just how squad cars are made.” Officer Alexander interceded quickly, pushing Billy out of the way so he could gently pat my ankle. “No problems here. Just taking you to the vet.”

I took several deep, calming breaths and squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the cage out of my vision. All the times I’d been trapped had risen to torment me, but breathing helped them recede. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Officer Alexander repeated.

Horace got in the passenger seat, and then we were off.

Every bump in the road, and I was sure the first part of it was gravel, made me groan. I tried not to, but I was in a lot of pain, though apparently not enough to blessedly pass out.

Still, it wasn’t long until the squad car stopped, and Officer Alexander carefully scooped me out. “We’re here. Just want to make sure no one sees you.” He put his jacket over my face.

I heard three sets of footfalls and decided Billy must have come as well.

Then I heard a door swing open with the tinkling of a bell. “Peggy, take the rest of the day off,” Horace said.

“What’s going on?” Peggy asked.

I was sure it was probably obvious to Peggy what was ‘going on,’ seeing as there was a covered, clearly human form being carried in, but I understood her incredulity.

“Just go. I don’t want you involved in this if there’re any consequences,” Horace said.

There was some scuffling, another jingle.Then someone locked the door behind us.

A zip-zip-zip filled the air, then Horace gave a long puff. “All right. Blinds are all closed.” The jacket came off my face.“Bring her into the back,” Horace said.

What followed was a series of painful, but necessary, exams. Apologizing profusely, Horace carefully cut my clothes off so he could treat me properly. Officer Alexander stayed because I said he could, but Billy waited in one of the doggie exam rooms.

In a couple of hours, my arm was set—a thoroughly unpleasant experience—and wrapped in a make-shift cast. My leg was put into a brace that fit okay except for being a little short.

“It’s Peggy’s,” Horace explained. “Good thing she left it here.”

He also wrapped my ribs and filled up a paw-printed pill container with pain medication. “Don’t go undoing my hard work. You need some rest. Are we keeping her at Billy’s?”

“Can’t think of a better place right now,” Officer Alexander said. “At least not until I can figure out who’s safe to contact about her. That’s gonna take a while.”

“Is Caleb okay?” I asked. “Someone has to make sure Caleb is okay.”

“Her boyfriend,” Officer Alexander told the other two. “And I’ll check in. So far, he’s in the hospital. There was a kind of incident at the jail.”

I groaned. “I knew it. I knew Chalmers provoked Caleb on purpose!”

“He’s got to rest. Just like you,” Officer Alexander said. “I’ll let the right people know you’re okay. As soon as I figure out who they are.”

“Maybe the Attorney General?” I suggested.

“Maybe.” He sounded uncertain. “I want to look into that more, though. Somebody knew where you were staying. Somebody told whoever’s after you. Frankly, I don’t trust anybody.”

My throat went dry at the idea that the Attorney General could be in on it. Was that why she didn’t shut down Chalmers’s disgusting line of questioning? Was that how Bea and Hansen got killed?

“Can you please check on Caleb?” I asked. “I just don’t think the hospital is the safest place for him.”

Officer Alexander grunted. “Neither do I.”