Free Leaving Annalise (Katie & Annalise Book 2) by Pamela Fagan Hutchins Page B

noise escaped Crazy’s lips. I leaned my head closer to his mouth. “Lotta,” he rasped.
    “Lot of what?” I asked.
    Rashidi snapped his fingers. “Not ‘lot of.’ Lotta. He wife. Carlotta.”
    Crazy closed his eyes. His right arm stopped twitching. I put my fingers against the inside of his wrist. He still had a pulse. “Do you know her, Rash?”
    “Yah. I call her.” He leaned over Crazy. “Crazy, mon, I borrow you phone and call Lotta.”
    Crazy’s head moved. Just a tiny nod, but enough. Rashidi gently patted Crazy’s front pockets, then reached under his hips to his back pockets. Nothing. He ran to Crazy’s truck and climbed inside, then jumped back out holding Crazy’s cell phone as Nick pulled up in my truck.
    Nelson and his partner, a thin gentleman with a beard and Graham embroidered on his chest, gently lifted Crazy as Nick opened the door to the bench seat in back. He got in on his knees and held out his hands for Crazy’s shoulders.
    Rashidi said, “I meet you at the hospital. I gonna call Lotta from the house, tell men dem what happening.”
    Nelson and Graham slid Crazy as Nick pulled him into the cab. Crazy groaned.
    I shuddered. Poor, poor Crazy. I climbed into the driver’s seat and the guys shut the back doors. Nelson leaned in my window.
    “We make a report. I pray he OK.”
    “Thank you,” I said.
    Nick buckled into the passenger seat and reached for my hand. I let him give it a quick squeeze, but then pulled it back to the steering wheel. Crazy was in for a bumpy ride.
    We didn’t speak as I navigated the twists and turns of the overgrown rainforest road. I drove as fast as I dared. Cars on St. Marcos are from the US and have left-hand drivers’ seats, but they’re driven on the left side of the road, and the fast-growing foliage crowds both sides of the road, tending to push drivers toward the center. It’s nerve-racking, especially around blind right-hand curves. As I turned the corner to the right past a hilltop outdoor church, an ancient Range Rover barreled down the center of the road at us.
    “Look out!” Nick yelled.
    I screamed and hit my horn. The Rover didn’t flinch or change course. I broke hard to my left and we crashed into the underbrush as I mashed the brake. As we slowed to a stop, the front bumper connected with something solid and low, something impossible to see with the thick undergrowth around it. I put the truck in park. Nick and I looked at each other.
    “That was close,” he said.
    I exhaled. “Hang in there, Crazy. I’m sorry,” I said.
    I put the truck in reverse and pressed the gas, but softly. The truck whined, unwilling at first to back up the hill. I pressed harder. The passenger’s side wheel spun without making contact, but the driver’s side bit into the ground and threw us up and over the first large bump. The bumper scraped loudly as it bid the obstacle adieu. Small trees and large bush grabbed at the undercarriage and scratched at the doors. I let off the gas when I judged the back bumper had reached the edge of the road.
    “I’ll direct you,” Nick said. He jumped out and ran into the center of the road. He checked both directions, then signaled with his hand for me to back out. When I had maneuvered into my lane, he hopped back in. Rashidi pulled up behind us and tooted his horn. I waved to him. Explanations could wait.
    “That was exciting,” I said to Nick as I hit the gas and lurched forward.
    Nick’s head slammed against the headrest. “Still is.” He turned to look back at Crazy.
    “Is he OK?”
    “Fine. The same.”
    Five minutes later, we broke out of the rainforest and onto clearer, more level ground. Nick’s phone dinged four times in rapid succession. He pulled it out of his back pocket and checked the screen.
    “Shit, shit, shit,” he said.
    I was pretty sure I knew who those messages were from. I gritted my teeth. I could grow to resent the rivals for Nick’s attention pretty easily. I forced myself not to