“Stay away from the goddamn window, Sandi. They’re going to shoot you.”
Darby chewed her lip, knowing Ed was right — the glass was a major structural weakness. A bullet, or even a big rock, and the two brothers could climb the snowdrift and slide inside.
She stood in the center of the room, spotlighted under fluorescent lights, running her fingertips along the table’s scratched surface. She turned a wobbly three hundred and sixty degrees, scanning from east, to north, to west, to south. Four walls on a cement foundation. A front door with a deadbolt. One large window. And two smaller ones, in each restroom.
We have the building.
But they have the cars.
“It’s a stalemate,” she whispered.
Sandi looked at her. “Then what happens next?”
“They’ll make their move,” Ed said grimly. “Then we’ll make ours.”
Each move would be a calculated risk. If they stepped outside they’d be shot. If the brothers attacked the building, they’d be leaving the cars unguarded. If one brother attacked, he’d be vulnerable to an ambush in close quarters. The possibilities and consequences made Darby’s head spin, like trying to think six moves ahead in chess.
She realized Jay had moved to her side and now held her hoodie sleeve, gripping the fabric in white knuckles. “Don’t believe Ashley. He lies for fun. He’ll say anything to get in here—”
“We won’t fall for it,” Darby said, glancing to Ed and Sandi for support. They offered only weary silence. Maybe stalemate was the wrong word, she realized in the growing tension. Maybe a better one was siege.
And she realized something else — everyone was now looking at her.
She hated it. She wasn’t a leader. She’d never been comfortable as the center of attention — she’d practically suffered a panic attack last year when the Red Robin servers crowded her table to sing happy birthday. Again, she found herself desperately wishing for someone else in her place. Someone smarter, tougher, braver, who everyone could turn to. But there wasn’t.
There’s only me.
And us.
And the monsters circling outside.
“And never insult Ashley, either,” Jay warned. “He . . . he acts like it’s okay at first, but he remembers for later. And he gets his payback if you hurt his feelings—”
“Trust me, Jay. Tonight, we are way past hurt feelings.” Darby emptied her pockets, placing Ashley’s keychain, her Honda keys, and her iPhone on the counter. Then she unfolded the brown napkin, exposing her handwritten message to Ashley, and his message to her: IF YOU TELL THEM I KILL THEM BOTH.
Ed read it and his shoulders sagged.
Sandi gasped, covering her mouth.
“When . . . when they realize we’re not running to the truck,” Darby said to everyone, “they’re going to change their tactics and come for us. They have no choice, because we’re all witnesses now, and we have their hostage. So this building is going to be our Alamo. For the next four hours.”
She pulled the final item from her pocket — she’d almost forgotten about it — and placed it on the faux-granite countertop with an emphatic click. It was Lars’s .45-caliber cartridge, gleaming gold in the harsh light.
Seeing the bullet made Sandi collapse into her seat, burying her red cheeks in her hands. “Oh, Jesus Christ. We are not going to last four minutes—”
Darby ignored her. “First, we need to block the window.”
“Alright.” Ed pointed. “Help me flip that table.”
*
Ashley watched the window darken.
A broad shape moved against the glass from the inside, rotating upward, reducing the orange light to glowing cracks. He imagined the glass creaking with pressure.
“Oh, Darbs.” He spat in the snow. “I love you.”
Lars glanced over to him. He was crouched in a diligent firing stance by the Ford’s tailgate, his elbow resting on the bumper, his Beretta aimed at the front door.
“Don’t bother,” Ashley said. “They’re not coming out. She called the ambush.”
“How?”
“She just did.” He stood up and walked a few paces, cracking his sore vertebrae, stretching his legs, inhaling the alpine air. “Jesus, isn’t she something? I just . . . I just love that little redhead.”
Perched against a vertical world of firs, white spruce, and rocky summits, the Wanapani visitor center looked like a nut to be cracked. The snowfall had ended; the sky had opened up to a pristine void. The clouds thinning away, revealing a pale crescent and piercing stars, and the world had changed with it, drawn in the icepick shadows of new moonlight. A moon begging for blood.
The fun, as always, was deciding how. He’d been through dozens of Lars’s pets — turtles, fish, two dogs, more shelter-rescue cats than he could count — and whether it was bleach, bullets, fire, or the meaty click of a knife striking bone, there’s no dignity in death. Every living creature dies afraid.
For all her cunning, Darby would learn this, too.
Ashley stood silent for a long moment, sucking on his lower lip. Finally, he decided. “Change of plans,” he said. “We’ll do it indoors.”
“All of them?”
“Yes, baby brother. All of them.”
*
“Weapons,” Darby said. “What do we have?”
“My pepper spray.”
“What else?”
Sandi pointed to Espresso Peak. “I mean, there’s a coffee kitchen there, but it’s locked—”
“Hang on.” Ed crossed the room. “Let me try my key.”
“A key? Where’d you get a—”
He smashed the padlock with his lug wrench, sending pieces skittering across the floor. Then he grabbed the security shutter by the handle and rolled it up to the ceiling. “Espresso Peak is open for Christmas.”
Darby vaulted the counter, landing hard on her sore ankles, and searched the front fa?ade — coffee machines, a bagel toaster, a cash register, syrup bottles. Then she opened the drawers, starting at the bottom and working upward. Bagged coffee beans, vanilla, powdered milk, jingling spoons— “Anything?”
“Nothing useful.”
Ed checked the back. “No landline phone, either.”
“There has to be one.” Darby searched the next set of drawers, peeling off a yellow Post-It note: REMINDER, PLEASE MOP RESTROOMS — TODD.
“Any knives?”
“Spoons, spoons.” She slammed another drawer. “Nothing but spoons.”
“What kind of coffee shop doesn’t have knives?”
“This one, apparently.” Darby wiped sweat from her eyes, glancing back to the cash register (too heavy), to the pastry case (not a weapon), to the toaster (nope), to the coffee machines lining the countertop. “But . . . okay, these things will dispense scalding hot water. Someone, please, fill a carafe.”
“For a weapon?” Sandi asked.
“No. For fucking coffee.”
“We already have coffee.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
Pattering footsteps behind her — she’d expected Sandi to come forward — but it was Jay. The little girl carried the COFEE carafe and placed it under the spout. She stood on her tiptoes to press the button. The machine grumbled.
“Thanks, Jay.”