“No one will question a dead horse or a dead girlfriend after a plane crash, even if I did sabotage the plane. Plus, Suzie was so sweet to add me to her life insurance policy two months ago. No one will question or know the truth because I’ll be the sole survivor. I’ll talk about our love, our dreams, and the guilt of surviving when no one else did, all the while collecting the insurance and not having a single person question me.”
Miss Mambo was growing frantic as Carter looked around for something to defend himself with. Nothing. Stewart was slumped over his small desk, not moving. The door partially obscured him from view. Daniel was similarly unmoving, but Carter could see blood dripping down his head. Then the back of the plane creaked and shuddered. The back steps under the tail opened and lowered to the ground. Mick turned when Miss Mambo kicked down her stall door and frantically scrambled into the back of the plane. And that was when Carter made his move.
* * *
Reagan heard her name being called. It sounded as if it came from a far off distance as she slowly opened her eyes. Her head was pounding as she reached a shaking hand to her forehead and felt something warm and sticky there. Looking up, she saw her window was cracked and all she could see were trees.
“Carter?” Reagan asked, turning her aching neck and seeing Daniel slumped in his chair as if he were a rag doll. She heard noises, but she couldn’t figure them out. Grunting, flesh hitting flesh, and the far off sounds of a panicked horse fading from her ears.
“Carter?” she cried out a bit more frantically as she worked her unsteady hands on her seatbelt. When it finally gave way, she slid off the side of her seat. On unsteady legs, she reached over to feel Daniel’s pulse. Dammit. She couldn’t feel anything. Her own body was pulsing with fear and pain, and she couldn’t tell if he were dead or alive. But one look at Daniel and Stewart told her if they weren’t dead, they would be soon if they didn’t get help.
“You son of a bitch! You won’t get away with this.”
Reagan turned her head to Carter’s shouting. Carter and Mick were going at it, hand-to-hand, as they rolled on the uneven cabin floor in the small entryway near the main door of the plane. Diego was limp in his seat, blood dripping from a nasty cut on his head. Suzanne was crumpled against the wall, completely unmoving. Oh God, she’d killed them when she crash-landed. Reagan’s gut clenched as she forced back the waves of nausea.
She could see light coming from the back of the plane. Someone, probably Paul, must have opened the exit steps down to the tarmac. It was then she noticed Miss Mambo was gone. A heavyset man in overalls climbed his way inside and she could see Paul using his hand to steady himself in the back of the plane as he moved toward them.
Reagan felt as if her brain couldn’t function. It was frozen as though nothing made sense. But when Mick landed a hard punch that snapped Carter’s head back, her body moved quickly on pure instinct.
Reagan jumped on Mick’s back, sliding her arm around his neck and going for a chokehold. Carter scrambled to his feet and landed a hard punch to Mick’s face. “He killed Suzanne and Diego. He sabotaged the plane!”
Rage filled Reagan. But rage and a fuzzy mind were no match for Mick’s strength. He grabbed her shoulder, bent at the waist, and tossed her over his shoulder and right into Carter. They crashed to the ground and slid to a stop against Mick’s duffle bag. Reagan’s hand felt something familiar in the bag. A rifle. She had to get to it, but Mick was already reacting. He reached behind him and pulled a 9mm from his waistband.
“I don’t think so, babe. Hands up, both of you.”
Reagan swallowed hard. They’d survived the crash only to die now? “Why?” Reagan asked as Carter’s hand covered hers. There was so much she wanted to do in her life. She wanted to marry the man she loved. She wanted to have his children. She wanted to see her family again. She wanted to live.
“Suzanne was smarter than I gave her credit for. She was going to go to the police after she had Carter confirm her suspicions. Do you know how many millions I’ve made doing this? I couldn’t risk it. There’s too much on the line,” Mick said as they heard Paul at the back of the cargo hold calling out.
“Are you hurt? This guy says emergency services are on the way!”
“Run!” Reagan screamed as Carter leapt forward. He drove his shoulder into Mick’s stomach as he wrapped his arms around the man’s waist, driving him to the ground.
“Run, Reagan!” Carter yelled.
Reagan grabbed the duffle bag and scrambled to her feet. Holding the rifle barrel through the bag, she raised it above her head and slammed it down on Mick’s head. Carter went for the 9mm, but Mick refused to let it go even in his dazed state. Reagan slammed the rifle down again, causing Mick to groan and blink his eyes as if battling unconsciousness.
“Come on,” Carter yelled as he grabbed her hand and ran as fast as they could through the narrow aisle for the open cargo door.
“Call the police!” Reagan yelled at the confused, round man standing next to Paul. “Hurry!”
The man and Paul stood there staring blankly at her, and Reagan yelled again. “He has a gun. He killed Suzanne and Diego. Call the police!” Reagan hated leaving Mick armed, but right now they needed to get as far away from him as possible.
The man finally moved as Carter and Reagan leapt from the plane, hitting the paved airstrip hard. They heard a primal roar from inside the plane and forced themselves up.
They heard Mick bellow as he began to move toward them. “You’re not getting away from me!”
“Come on,” Carter yelled, grabbing her hand and pulling her around the plane to hide behind the slanted wing. Before losing sight of the mountaintop as they rounded the plane, they saw three small hangars and a tower off to the side of the runway, but they were a good distance away. The man in the overalls ran for the main building, and Paul ran to the other side of the plane as Mick emerged from it.
“We can try to make it to one of the hangars,” Reagan whispered. Before Carter could answer, three shots rang out. Reagan’s eyes went wide. She didn’t need to see the old man being shot to know what had happened.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Mick sang as if they were playing hide-and-seek.
“We’ll never make it to the hangar. We’d be out in the open and easy targets,” Carter whispered.
Reagan looked around. The airstrip was literally shaved off the top of a mountain surrounded by national forest. “The woods. We need to get into the woods. We can hide until the first responders arrive.”
Carter nodded in agreement. Hand in hand, they began to creep toward the front of the plane. The nose was smashed into a row of trees and from the ground, Reagan could see Daniel’s body still limp in his chair though the cockpit window.
“Boo!” They heard Mick yell a second before a gunshot pinged off the nose of the plane.
“Run!” Carter ordered, grabbing her hand tight and sprinting for the trees just feet in front of them. Reagan adjusted the strap of the duffle bag that she’d slung over her shoulder and across her chest and ran for all she was worth.
The trees were right there. They were close together and thick. They’d protect them. Carter turned sideways and slipped through, but when Reagan tried, the duffle bag wouldn’t make it. Instead it flung her backward when it became wedged in the trees.
“Dammit!” Reagan cried as Carter was pulling her hard into the woods and the bag was refusing to let her budge. She shook his hand from hers, raised her arms, and dropped to the ground. The duffle bag fell to the ground on the other side of the tree line. Reagan reached for it, but a bullet lodged into the tree next to her head.
“Leave it!” Carter ordered as he lifted her up by her arms and shoved her forward. “I’m right behind you. Run!”