“I bet you are.”
“See, I’m not just lucky — I’m protected, I think. From consequences. It’s like a magic I have. In the end, things always go my way.” He leaned in closer, like he was imparting a delicate secret. “You might call it luck, but I sincerely believe it’s something else. My toast always lands jelly-side up, you could say.”
She had to ask. “You don’t really have asthma, do you?”
“Nope.”
“Do you even go to Salt Lake Institute of Tech?”
His grin widened. “Made-up school.”
“What about your phobia of doors?”
“Door hinges. That one’s true, actually.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. They give me the creeps.” He held his hand over his heart. “Swear to God. Can’t touch ’em, try not to look at ’em. Ever since I almost lost my thumb down in Chink’s Drop, they’ve just bothered the hell out of me.”
“Regular door hinges?”
“Yeah.”
“I was certain you’d made that up, too. It didn’t seem real.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Darby said calmly, “I didn’t think you’d be such a pussy.”
A floorboard creaked.
Ashley looked back at her coldly, like she’d defied his initial assessment, and the lights flickered overhead. Then he sighed, swallowed once, and when he finally spoke again, his voice was tightly controlled: “You’re gambling with a child’s life. Don’t forget that. Tonight has a happy ending, but you’re jeopardizing it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s not a sex thing,” Ashley said, frowning with exaggerated disgust. “It’s money. If you just have to know.”
Sandi stirred again on the bench. Luck of the Devil slid a few centimeters down her face. Darby wondered if she was really asleep. What if she was only pretending? What if she’d heard the whole conversation?
“I mean, tell you what.” Ashley suppressed a laugh, loosening up again. His demeanor came in chilling phase-changes; light to dark and back again. “You should see this house, Darbs. Looks like Mr Burns’ mansion. Daddy owns a tech startup, something to do with a video player. You know, computer shit, which is over my blue-collar head. I’m more of a practical nuts-and-bolts guy. Which is why we’re borrowing Jaybird here, taking her out to the Rockies for a few weeks, letting Mommy and Daddy get real worried and whip out their checkbooks, and once we’re fairly compensated for our work, we’ll cash out and leave her at a bus station in some shitsplat town in Kansas. She won’t be harmed. It’ll be like a vacation. Hell, maybe we’ll even teach her how to snowboard while we’re—”
“You’re lying again.”
His folksy grin vanished again. “I already told you, Darbs. Try to keep up. We won’t hurt her—”
“You already hurt her,” she snarled, half-hoping Sandi was really awake under her paperback, really listening. “You shot a goddamn nail through her hand. And I swear to God, Ashley, if I get the chance, I’ll do worse to you.”
Silence.
At the door, Lars slipped her wallet back into her purse.
“So . . .” Ashley paused. “You saw Jay’s hand?”
“Yes.”
He considered this for a few moments, sucking his lower lip again with a lizard-slurp. “Okay. Good.” He hardened, another eerie phase-change. “Good, good. Great, even. Let’s call this a teachable moment, okay? If it’s in my best interests to keep Jaybird alive — shaken, but alive — and yesterday morning I got sick of her whining and put a cordless nailer to her palm and pulled the trigger . . . well, Darbo, just imagine what I’ll do to someone who I don’t have to keep alive. Imagine what I’ll do to this rest stop. What I’ll do to Ed and Sandi. What I’ll make you watch. And it’ll all be your fault, because you felt too morally superior to play ball here. So I’m asking you again, Darby. And I’m warning you, too — think long and hard about what you say next, because if it’s the wrong thing, I promise you, you won’t be the only one who dies tonight.”
She stared back at him, afraid to blink.
“Also,” he added, “your nose is bleeding.”
She touched her nose—
He lunged forward, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and slammed her face into the tabletop. Fireworks behind her eyes. Dizzying pain. The cartilage in her nose made a wet crunch and she recoiled backward, nearly falling off her chair, clasping both hands to her face.
Across the room, Sandi jolted awake. Her paperback clapped to the floor. “What . . . what happened?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Ashley said, looking at Darby. “We’re fine.”
Darby nodded, pinching her nose. Hot blood dribbled down her wrists, vivid red. Her eyes stung, fighting back tears.
Don’t cry.
“Oh, honey, your nose—”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” Darby tasted coppery blood in her teeth. Big drops tapped the tabletop. Her fingers stuck together.
“What happened?”
“High altitude,” Ashley said crisply. “Low air pressure. It just sneaks up on you. My nose was bleeding like a faucet back at Elk Pass—”
Sandi ignored him. “Need a tissue?”
Darby shook her head sharply, squeezing her nostrils. Blood poured down her throat in clogged mouthfuls. Droplets speckled her lap.
Oh, Jesus, don’t cry.
Sandi crossed the room, her big purse swinging. She grabbed a lump of brown napkins from the coffee counter, and laid them in Darby’s lap. She touched her shoulder. “Are you sure? It’s . . . it’s really bleeding.”
Darby felt her face tighten up, like her skin was being stretched taut around her skull. Fiery heat on her cheeks. Her vision blurred with tears, her breaths hissing through her teeth, while Ashley calmly watched her from across the table with his hands tucked neatly in his lap.
Don’t cry, Darby, or he will kill everyone here.
“I’m fine,” she choked. “It’s just the elevation—”
“I had my first beer at eight thousand feet,” Ashley chimed in again. “Sliced my hand on a fluorescent light, and I bled pure red water for two straight days—”
“Oh, shut up,” Darby snarled.
He froze, startled by her sudden ferocity. This should have been another win for Darby, another small moment of prey catching predator off-guard, but she already knew it was a huge mistake.
Because Sandi had noticed.
“I . . .” The lady hesitated, palms up. She glanced between them, her yellow parka crinkling as she moved. “Wait. What’s really happening here?”
Silence.
Ashley chewed his lip thoughtfully, and then nodded to Lars.
No, no, no—
Lars reached into his coat pocket for his pistol. But the front door banged open beside him, hitting the wall, startling him—
“Finally found the coffee.” Ed came in, boots squeaking, spattered with snowflakes, and slammed a clipped baggie of ground Colombian Roast on the table between them. “The recipe is two tablespoons for every eight ounces of boiling — oh, holy shit, that’s blood.”
“The altitude,” Darby choked.
Sandi said nothing.
“Damn.” Ed looked Darby up and down. “You really got it. Keep pressure on your nose, and lean forward, not backward.”