“Oh, shit—”
He looked back up. Darby was still approaching, still coming at him like his personal angel of death, limping but eerily, inhumanly calm. And he noticed something else. Something carried in her swinging hand, concealed from his view behind her hip, an angular shape, half-glimpsed—
Lars’s Beretta.
No, his mind fluttered. No, that’s impossible—
*
Jay sprinted into the headlights, arms waving.
The snowplow stopped, big tires locking up, skidding sideways as the airbrakes whined a shrill cry. The lights surrounded her, igniting the snow at her feet, brighter than daylight. She couldn’t see anything else. Just those twin suns, overpowering.
She screamed — something she wouldn’t remember.
The engine made a chuffing sound. The cab door opened. The driver was older than her father, bearded, potbellied, with a Red Sox hat. He jumped out and raced to her, already out of breath, shouting something.
She was winded too, and she collapsed to her knees in the ice. He reached her, a stomping black shadow in the high beams, and the truck’s engine made another chuffing sound. Like her aunt’s German Shepard. Then the man grabbed her shoulders, his whiskery face in hers now, Dr. Pepper on his breath, bombarding her with questions.
Are you okay?
She was too out of breath. She couldn’t speak.
What happened?
Uphill, the flaming visitor center’s roof caved in, a shattering wooden crash that unleashed more fireflies into the night, and he squinted up at it, then back to her, his rough hands on her cheeks. You’re safe now—
She wanted to tell him about Ashley, about Darby, about the nail gun, about the life-or-death battle happening a short distance uphill. But she had no words. She couldn’t assemble any thoughts. Her mind was jelly again. She just started crying, and he took her into his arms and hugged her, and the world fell apart.
He was whispering now, like a chant: You’re safe. You’re safe. You’re safe—
Darby, she wanted to say.
Darby is not safe—
And then she saw it — a heartbeat of red and blue illuminated the trees. Behind the snowplow, halted bumper to bumper, was a police car. In the glow of the truck’s taillights, she read a banner on the side door.
HIGHWAY PATROL.
*
Ashley Garver ran like hell.
Impossible. I counted the shots.
The Beretta is empty.
He told himself this, over and over, but still he wasn’t brave enough to turn around and call Darby’s bluff. Instead he raced back to his parked Astro, where he knew he’d left a second battery rattling around inside the Paslode box. He could reload his nail gun, at least, and then decide how to handle this new development.
He tripped on a snow bank, wincing for the crack of a gunshot and a bullet in the spine, but it never came.
He reached the Astro. Unlocked. Flung the door open. Scrambled inside, reaching under the passenger seat, knocking Lars’s stupid plastic A-10 Warthog off the dashboard, and opened the Paslode’s hard case. Two latches to unclasp with trembling fingertips.
He knew he’d heard Lars fire four gunshots in the scuffle. He was certain of this. One-two-three-four. Plus the five shots he’d fired at Sandi’s truck, equaled nine. The Beretta stored eight in the single-stacked magazine, plus one in the chamber. How could Darby have willed another .45-caliber cartridge into existence? The floor of the van, maybe; he recalled Lars opening the Federal box upside down and dumping fifty clattering rounds to the floor—
He finally hurled the case open. The lid banged against the glove box.
The first battery box was empty, so he grabbed another. Ripped off the tape. Dumped it into his palm. Opened the Paslode’s trapdoor panel, dropped out the spent battery—
He froze.
He hadn’t heard anything, but somehow he just knew. Something about the way the hairs on his neck lifted and prickled, like static electricity . . .
She’s behind me.
Right now.
He turned around, slowly, slowly, and yes, there was Darby.
She’d caught up to him, standing outside the Astro’s ajar driver door. Beretta Cougar aimed at him in knuckled hands. He’d bought this very pistol for Lars as a gift six months ago, and now it was pointed at his heart. Un-freaking-believable. Here she was — the girl he’d tried to suffocate with a Ziploc bag six hours ago, back with a furious vengeance. A nine-fingered, black-winged angel of death. She was here for him, drenched in his brother’s blood, fire glowing on her sweaty skin.
“What were you going to do with Jay?” she asked. “Tell me now.”
“What? Really?”
She aimed up, from his chest to his face. “Really.”
“Okay.” Ashley slid up into a sitting position on the passenger seat, keeping the nailer concealed behind his back. “I just . . . you know what? Fine. You want to know? It’s nothing special. We just have an uncle up in Idaho, we call him Fat Kenny, who said he’d give me ten thousand for a healthy little white girl, plus ten percent. He runs a little ring out of his storm cellar for some truckers from out of state. Big guys who run long hauls, twenty-hour days, away from their wives, guys with . . . uh, you know. Appetites.”
Darby didn’t blink. She kept the Beretta trained on him, and that white scar coalesced on her eyebrow. Curved, like a sickle.
“Yeah, it’s gross, and it’s not my gig, but I needed to salvage things somehow.” Ashley kept talking, buying time, while his right hand quietly searched the seat for the Paslode’s spare battery. Then he would load it and surprise the bitch with a 16-penny to the face. “So, yes, I lied to you, Darbs, when I promised it wasn’t a sex thing. It was supposed to be a simple kidnapping, but then the cops got all over Sandi, and I had to change the plan, and now it’s definitely, absolutely, one hundred million percent a sex thing, and I’m sorry.”
Behind his back, his fingertips touched the Paslode battery, just a blind stroke — there it is — and closed around it.
“What’s his name?” Darby asked.
“Kenny Garver.”
“Where does he live?”
“Rathdrum.”
“His address.”
“912 Black Lake Road.” Ashley slid the battery into the nailer, gently, so she wouldn’t hear the click. He felt himself grinning, even at gunpoint. He held the nail gun behind his back, preparing to lift it and fire. “I mean, hell, you got me, Darbs. You win. I surrender. Let’s play a round of circle time while we wait for the cops to—”
“Let’s not,” Darby said, pulling the trigger.
CRACK.
6:01 a.m.
Ashley flinched at the gunshot. He hadn’t expected to be alive to hear it. You’re never supposed to hear the one that gets you.
But he’d heard it.
And yes, he was alive.
What happened?
Darby hesitated outside the Astro’s driver door, wobbling in shocked silence. She lowered Lars’s Beretta and looked at him, her eyes pierced with vivid terror. Only then did he notice it, just below her right collarbone. On her black shirt. A spreading, slimy circle. Blood.