They’re evidence.
The worst part of it all? Their sheer, dumb optimism. These brothers weren’t criminal masterminds. Not even close. Even if they torched every square inch of this building to cinders, the Colorado police would find something. A stray hair. A skin flake. Something distinctive about the Astro’s tire tracks. A thumbprint on one of Ashley’s steel nails. Or even some circumstantial detail connecting Sandi to them; something they’d overlooked in their rush to eliminate her before she cracked under police scrutiny. They’d been careless. This entire ransom plot had been na?ve and stupid, and it was almost certainly doomed to fail, but not before costing innocent people their lives tonight, and to Darby, that was somehow the most offensive part of it all.
She wiped an oily strand of hair from her face. Dripping with accelerant, moments from burning to death, she knew she should be terrified, screaming, hysterical, but she couldn’t summon the energy. She just felt tired.
The front door creaked — Ashley was walking outside now. Just a few seconds left. He’d go out behind the visitor center, and find his keychain in the snow, and then Darby’s life would become as worthless as Ed’s and Sandi’s. A nail or bullet to the skull if she was lucky, and a flicked match if she wasn’t. Either way, she’d die right here, with her right hand smashed in a door, and then her bones would blacken in this fiery grave while Ashley and Lars escaped with Jay. The burning visitor center would be a useful distraction until authorities discovered the three skeletons inside the wreckage. By then the Brothers Garver would be hours ahead. Plenty of time to vanish into an indifferent world.
But this left one unknown.
One final, itching question.
What are they going to do with Jay?
Ashley had been planning to meet Sandi here, to murder her and sever ties. But what about Jay? If it’s not for a ransom . . . then what?
Jay approached her now.
“No. Don’t come any closer.” She spat again. “I have gasoline on me.”
But she came anyway, her little footsteps rippling the dark puddle, and sat quietly on Darby’s knee. Then she buried her face in the shoulder of Darby’s Art March hoodie. Darby wrapped her unhurt arm around this stranger’s daughter, and they huddled there together, in a shivery little embrace over their own reflections, as Ashley’s footsteps faded outside.
“You didn’t tell me your mom died,” Jay whispered.
“Yeah. It just happened.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright.”
“Was she mean to you?”
“No. I was mean to her.”
“But you still loved each other?”
“It’s . . . complicated,” Darby said. It was the best answer she had, and it broke her heart. It’s complicated.
“Are your . . . are your fingers okay?”
“They’re locked in a door. So, no.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
“Does it hurt, Darby?”
“It hurts less now,” she lied, watching a second bead of her own blood inch down the doorframe, thicker than the first. The gas fumes were clouding her mind, smearing her thoughts like watercolors. “Can we . . . hey, can we just talk about your dinosaurs for a while?”
“No.” Jay shook her head. “I don’t want to.”
“Come on.”
“No, Darby—”
“Please, tell me about your favorite one, the Eustrepto-thing—”
“I don’t want to—”
The tears came to Darby now, now of all times. Hard, choking sobs, like a seizure in her chest. She turned away. She couldn’t let Jay see.
Then Jay shifted her weight, and Darby thought the girl was only settling in her lap — until she felt something touch her left palm. Small, metallic, ice-cold.
Her Swiss Army knife. She’d forgotten all about it.
“Later,” Jay whispered. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
Darby looked back at her, understanding in a silent flash. Those glassy blue eyes now pleading into hers: Here’s your knife back.
Please don’t give up.
But it was too little, too late, because the two-inch blade was better in Jay’s hands than hers. Knife or no knife, Darby was about to die in this room. She was trapped here, with her shattered hand locked in a door, and Ashley was coming back to finish her off. Any second now.
“You should keep the knife,” she said to Jay. “It’ll . . . it’ll just be wasted with me. You’re going to save yourself now. You understand?”
“I don’t think I can—”
“It’s all you now.” Darby blinked away tears and racked her brain, trying to recall the layout of their Astro, whispering so Lars wouldn’t overhear: “I . . . okay. You broke the kennel, so they’ll probably tie you down in the back, under the windows. But try to loosen a panel on the wall, and if you can reach inside, rip out every wire you can find. One of them might power the brake lights. And if the brake lights go out, the cops might pull them over . . .”
Jay nodded. “Okay.”
Long shots upon even longer shots. It was so grimly futile. And Jay’s adrenal crisis was as volatile as a hand grenade; any additional stress could trigger a fatal seizure. But Darby couldn’t give in to despair, her thoughts swimming, her words racing: “If . . . if they get careless, try to stab one of them in the face. The eyes, okay? An injury that needs medical attention, so they have to go the hospital—”
“I’ll try.”
“Whatever it takes. Promise me, Jay.”
“I promise.” The girl’s eyes glimmered with tears. She stared up at Darby’s smashed hand in the door again, unable to look away. “It’s . . . it’s my fault they’re going to kill you—”
“No, it’s not.”
“It is. All of this is about me—”
“Jay, this is not your fault.” Darby forced a dizzy smile. “You know what’s funny? I’m not even a good person. Not usually. I was a rotten daughter and I planned to spend Christmas alone. My mom thought I was the flu when she was pregnant with me. She tried to kill me with Theraflu. Sometimes I used to wish she had. But tonight, at this rest stop, I’m something good, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me. I got to be your guardian angel, Jay. I got to fight for a good reason. And I’m going away soon, and it’ll be all you, and you need to keep fighting. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Never. Stop. Fighting.”
And then for a moment, the fumes dispersed, and Darby caught hold of a crystalline thought. Everything slipped into sharp focus.
She glanced up at the horror of her right hand — at her ring finger’s top digit, smashed between the door’s teeth. At her pinkie finger, crushed beyond recognition. At the squeezed beads of blood lining the hinge, the way red jelly blurts out of a donut. She knew it might appear hopeless, but no, there was one last option she could try. Maybe she was delirious from the gas vapors. Maybe it was pure fantasy. But maybe, just maybe . . .
I’m not trapped.