“That explains why she’s stopped,” Donny murmured, eyeing the accident as they approached. “She must be in an inside lane. Look for a red Explorer. That’s what she drives.”
Scotty grunted. Their SUV was now crawling as slowly as the rubberneckers on the other side of the median, and he had a huge tight ball of “something’s fecking wrong” in the pit of his stomach.
“Can you see any of the other vehicles involved?” Scotty asked as they drew even with the end of the truck and got their first view of the vehicles behind it.
“Mortimer says we should be right beside her vehicle,” Donny murmured, the phone still pressed to his ear as he craned his neck to get a better look around Scotty. “But the only red vehicle I see is . . .”
“The one under the back of the flatbed,” Scotty finished grimly when the lad’s voice died. He didn’t wait for a response, but glanced around to assess the situation. Unfortunately, there was a concrete barrier on this side of the three lanes and no shoulder to pull off onto. He had to get to the outside lane to move the SUV out of traffic. Taking control of several drivers at once, he slowed them to create an opening, and then steered the SUV across the lanes and onto the right shoulder.
Leaving him to it, Donny unsnapped his seat belt and climbed out of his seat and then over the back seat to get to where the weapons locker and blood cooler were.
“Good lad,” Scotty muttered as he brought the vehicle to a halt, shifted it into Park and shut it off.
“How are we going to get across traffic?” Donny asked, hurrying to his side with the portable blood cooler in hand as Scotty got out of the vehicle.
“How do ye think?” Scotty asked, shifting his attention to the drivers of several passing cars.
“Mind control to make them stop?” Donny asked.
“Got it in one, lad,” Scotty said grimly as he made the drivers slow almost to a stop. He then jogged across their side of the highway with Donny hurrying after him.
They had to climb over the three-foot-high concrete barrier, cross the grass median and then climb over the concrete barrier on the other side as well. Scotty didn’t even have to control the mind of the driver of the first vehicle crawling past the accident. He slowed on his own to allow them to cross. It was probably a good thing, because at that point Scotty could see the vehicle under the back of the flatbed and would have had trouble concentrating enough to control anyone. It was definitely a red Explorer. The girders had sheared off the top of the vehicle, which now lay on the asphalt behind it, leaving a clear view of the blood-covered backs of the front seats.
“Those girders took off the headrests,” Donny pointed out with concern. “You don’t think—”
That they took off Beth’s head too? Scotty finished what the boy wouldn’t, or couldn’t, say. But he did so silently and didn’t respond to the unfinished question. He couldn’t bear to think about that, let alone say it. She could not have been decapitated, he assured himself as they approached the damaged vehicle. He had waited too long to—
“She’s not here,” Donny said with surprise as they reached the ruined vehicle and peered over the front seats that were empty not only of Beth, but blood as well, other than a couple of drops here and there.
Scotty merely nodded, his attention now on the crushed front end of the Explorer where it butted up against the right back tires of the flatbed. The front of the red vehicle hadn’t only been crushed accordion-style against the huge tires on impact, but the tires of the flatbed had also blown, dropping the back of the trailer with its stack of girders onto the hood of the engine. He was surprised the combination hadn’t caused an explosion and wondered if everyone shouldn’t be giving the vehicles some serious space.
“Donny? Scotty?”
Both men turned to see Beth straightening from where she had been kneeling on the roadside beside a somewhat traumatized-looking man in his late fifties.
Surprise evident on her face, she walked toward them now, her eyebrows lifting in question. “What are you doing here?”
“We came looking for you,” Donny explained. “You were late, and Mr. Scotty had a feeling something was wrong.”
“He’s Mr. MacDonald if you want to address him formally,” she said with a crooked smile, and then corrected herself. “Well, Laird MacDonald, really. But Mr. Scotty just sounds wrong.”
“Oh, sorry, Laird Scotty,” the lad said at once.
Scotty merely shook his head, his attention remaining on Beth as his gaze slid over her from top to toe. Much to his relief, she didn’t appear injured at all. Although she did have splashes of blood on her back and side. “The blood in yer vehicle?”
“I keep a cooler of bagged blood there in case of emergencies,” she explained, glancing to her car and grimacing at the shape it was in.
“Ah,” he murmured, relaxing. Obviously, the cooler had spilled, its contents flying about and tearing on impact. That explained the massive amount of blood on the backs of the seats while there was little in the front and on her.
Finally meeting her gaze again, he commented, “Ye managed to avoid injury.”
Beth nodded solemnly, and glanced toward the vehicle behind them. “Barely. The seat belt held me up and nearly got me beheaded, but snapped at the last moment.”
Scotty paused briefly, sucking in air to calm himself as he realized how close he’d come to losing her, but then asked, “And the driver o’ the flatbed?”
Beth gestured over her shoulder to the man sitting on the roadside who she’d been talking to when she spotted them. “He seems fine, but a little out of it. I just got him out of the truck and practically had to carry him. I was going to search his mind to see why he suddenly swerved in front of me, but then noticed you two. It all just happened a few minutes ago.”
Scotty nodded. “I’ll handle him. Ye see if any o’ yer belongings survived the crash.”
Beth smiled wryly and shook her head, but muttered, “As you will, m’laird,” and headed toward the Explorer.
Scotty’s lips twitched at her words. He knew Beth hated it when he got “all laird of the manor bossy,” as he’d once heard her put it. But that’s what he’d been trained for. He had been laird of the MacDonald clan, expected to take charge and handle any situation that came up. After that he’d had many titles, but every one of them were as a man in charge, right down to his now being head of the UK Council as well as the UK Rogue Hunters. Being “all laird of the manor bossy” just came naturally to him.
More important to him, though, was her reaction to it today. In the past, she would have snarled and snapped at him like a rabid dog. This time, there was little anger. It was more irritation and even some amusement, which seemed to suggest the reports he’d been receiving were correct and she was finally healing from her past. She might actually be ready for him to claim her as his life mate. Something he’d been waiting nearly one hundred twenty-five years to do.
“Donny,” he said suddenly, tearing his gaze away from Beth’s swaying hips as she walked to her Explorer.
“Yes, Mr. Laird Scotty,” Donny said promptly. The boy actually stood at attention.
“Scotty’ll do,” he growled. “I’m no’ a laird anymore. I gave that up shortly after I was turned.”
“Oh, right, the aging thing would have forced you to,” Donny said with a nod.
“Aye, the aging thing,” he agreed and then said, “Call Mortimer and tell him what’s happened and that we need a cleanup crew here.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, pulling out his phone.
Leaving him to it, Scotty then moved over to the truck driver.
Several cars had pulled over on the shoulder, the passengers and drivers all piling out to see if they could help. A lot of them stood crowded around the driver, gazing from the truck to the red Explorer with its crushed front end and sheared-off roof. Scotty sent them away with little effort and then dropped to crouch next to the man and search his mind.
The driver was dazed and confused. He recalled pulling onto the highway and merging with traffic, and then his memory skipped to sitting shaking in his truck, staring into the side-view mirror at the Explorer with its top sheared off.