Page 101 of Colton's Last Resort

Chapter 18

Fireworks crackled and thundered. Their lights sparkled across the path to L Building, illuminating her escape route in intermittent bursts.

She melded into the manicured hedges and cacti that lined the path, willing the rocks under her feet not to give her away. She’d lost her other heel. The sharp edges of stones bit into the undersides of her feet. She didn’t slow. With her knowledge of Mariposa, she could locate help before he found her.

There was blood in her mouth. She’d bitten her tongue when he’d mashed her face into the wall. She swallowed it and kept going. Something dripped across her lips. She licked them and tasted blood there, too. Reaching up, she swiped the space above them. It came away wet and warm.

Her nose was bleeding. The pulse of pain around the bridge alerted her to the damage there.

Her fist was still knotted around Allison’s bracelet. She hadn’t lost it in the altercation.

She wouldn’t lose it, she determined as she pushed on. The roof of L Building was visible through the foliage. She could see the lights of the pool. Her heart lifted. She was almost there. Someone would be there. Someone had to be.

First, she had to cross the open pathway. She glanced around. Hearing no footsteps, she made a break for it.

A cut on the bottom of her foot slowed her, but she half sprinted for the shape of the first pool cabana—the one where they’d found Allison.

Before she could reach it, fingers dug into her arm. She fought them, reaching for escape.

Doug shoved her off the path into the rocks on the other side. Her hands and knees scraped across them.

He covered her mouth before she could scream. “You couldn’t leave it alone, could you? Couldn’t live and let live?”

His hand covered her nose. She fought for air, her nails digging into his hand. Desperate, she threw her head back into his face.

He grunted. His hold loosened.

She turned over, scrambling away from him. Her back met the long stalk of a cactus plant. Its fine needles dug into the exposed skin of her back.

Doug was on her in a flash. She did scream now—before he could silence her.

He struck her across the face. The shock of the blow silenced her, as did the fingers he wrapped around her throat. The pressure he exerted made little rockets of flame blossom before her eyes. Her ankles kicked against the rocks. The stones scattered, preventing her from gaining purchase. Again, she clawed at his hand. The bracelet dropped.

He glanced down at it, then back up at her. “I don’t like killing,” he groaned as he watched her struggle. He shook his head to emphasize the point. “I never meant to kill anyone. If she’d been willing...if she’d just spread her legs for me...I wouldn’t have had to subdue her. I wouldn’t have given her too much.”

Her lungs burned. Her eyes went blind.

“It was such a waste,” he muttered. “Wasn’t it? I hate thinking about it. Just as I’m going to hate thinking about you, Ms. Colton. Such a beautiful waste.”

She fought to stay conscious. She fought to see something other than the whiteout she found when her eyes rolled back. Still, her kicking slowed and she hooked her hands over his arm because they’d fallen away from his fingers. The ocean roared in her ears. It was so loud, it drowned his words.

His grip fumbled away from her. His weight lifted. She gasped, choked, wheezed and coughed. As she fell sideways across the rocks, she reached for her neck, where the phantom hold of Doug’s fingers stayed even as she took a breath that raked across her airways.

In the light from the path and the stunning bright lights screaming into the sky—the fireworks’ grand finale—she saw two figures, one on top of the other, struggling on the ground.

Her hearing sharpened with the whistle and boom of rockets overhead and shouting. The haze around her vision broke and she realized what she was seeing.

Noah, his face a mask of fury, arced his fist down to meet Doug’s face again and again.

Someone else—Detective Fulton—raced forward to pull Noah off. Noah fought him. Fulton didn’t let go.

Doug stayed on the ground, curling in on himself. His face was a mess of blood. He didn’t get up.

Noah shrugged Fulton off him. Rocks slid underneath his feet as he scrambled over them. He crouched, his hand going to the back of her head. “Laura.”

She was afraid to speak. Her throat felt bruised. Sucking air in and out in careful repetitions, she watched his features sharpen.

There was fury there. But more, there was desperate fear. “Hey,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

---