Scott Free Read Online Free Page B

divorce such a damn war, then she wouldn’t have to constantly up the ante. How else could she hope to overcome the lock those two had on each other? Team Bachelor. Why not just settle for Super Dad and Scott the Wonder Boy? Brandon had always resented her career and her money, always looked down his nose at her because she didn’t have time for Little League and soccer and brownie-making. She could already hear his condescending tone and see his supercilious sneer as he confronted her on this one, as if it were her fault that Scotty had wandered off.
    â€œI know you think I’m crazy, Larry, but I really think we need some data before we mobilize the cavalry.”
    â€œWell, what do you want to do?” Larry checked his watch. “It’s almost seven o’clock.”
    Sherry thought about it, and the more she turned it over in her mind, the less she believed that Scott was really in any jeopardy. “Let’s first verify that the plane is missing.”
    â€œHow? I just told you—”
    Sherry waved him off. “You’ve been talking to the wrong people. For what they charge paying customers to stay here, I bet I can get resort management to find out anything I want to know.” She picked up the portable phone again and started to dial, then stopped after three digits to stare at the buttons. The reality of it hit her all at once, and her breath escaped her throat in a gasp. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Scotty might be dead.”
    Larry hurried toward her to lend comfort, his arms wide, prepared to envelop her in a hug. “Oh Sherry…” When he was still five feet away, he stopped abruptly and ducked as Sherry hurled the phone at him, missing his head by inches.
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell me he was going up in an airplane?” she shrieked.
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    C ODY J AMIESON WAS INDEED righteously fucked. A sliver of broken tree about the size of a two-by-four had skewered him through the belly, entering dead center at what looked to be the base of his rib cage, and exiting through the back of his seat. Scott gasped as his flashlight beam found the damage, and he quickly looked away.
    â€œI’m gonna die, aren’t I?” Cody asked. There was a resolution to his voice that Scott found unnerving.
    â€œNah, you’re gonna be fine.”
    â€œYou’re a fuckin’ liar, dude. And not a very good one. Anyone ever tell you that?” Again, he faked a chuckle, and again, his body—and the plane—shook from his wracking cough. “The freaky thing is, it doesn’t hurt. I mean, I can feel with my hands where the spear goes in, but it must have done something to fuck up my spine, so it’s like I’m touching somebody else, know what I mean?”
    No, Scott didn’t know what he meant. And he didn’t want to. He wanted to know nothing at all about what it felt like to die. He didn’t want to hear about bright lights, or angels or any of that crap. Right now, all he wanted to know was how in the hell he was going to get out of this tree without getting killed himself.
    Think, Scott, think.
    â€œJust promise me you won’t pull this thing out, okay?” Cody said. “If I judge things right, the pressure from the wood is about the only thing keeping me from bleeding to death.”
    â€œWe’re up in a tree,” Scott said, daring another look out the window and over the edge. “Way up in a tree.”
    â€œThinking of leaving me here, are you?”
    A blast of wind howled like a train whistle through the evergreen boughs, rolling the plane a good five or ten degrees. Cody and Scott both yelled as debris slid across the ceiling and out into the vastness of the night.
    Yeah, Scott was thinking of leaving him; but even as he did, his conscience burned. If Scott saved himself, Cody would die. It was that simple. Never in his life had Scott ever read a story or seen a