The Night Delaney Ward Opened Her Diner to a Dying Kingpin

“That’s why you press.”

Evan swallowed and increased the pressure. Sartori’s face tightened faintly.

“That’s good,” Delaney said. “If he reacts, he’s still in there.”

She took the flashlight and headed toward the kitchen.

Curtis followed.

“No.”

“I’m not letting you walk into a dark back room alone.”

“It’s my dark back room.”

“And somebody killed the power.”

“The storm killed the power.”

“The generator should’ve started.”

Delaney stopped at the swinging kitchen door. Curtis’s reasoning irritated her because it was the same conclusion she had reached.

“Keep your hands where I can see them.”

He held them slightly away from his coat.

The kitchen smelled of fryer oil, dish soap, and the beef stew she had planned to serve until nine. Stainless-steel counters reflected the red emergency light. Snow rattled against the small window above the sink.

Ruth’s recovery room had once been the diner office. Delaney had moved in a narrow bed, a reading lamp, and a television after her mother’s abdominal surgery. The door stood closed.

“Mom, lock it,” Delaney said.

The lock clicked.

Curtis glanced at her. “She always listen that fast?”

“No.”

At the rear of the kitchen, Delaney opened the service door leading to the generator enclosure. Cold air knifed inside. Snow had already piled against the step.

Curtis touched her shoulder before she could go out.

“Look.”

The fuel line had been cut.

Not torn. Not loosened.

Cut.

A thin stream of diesel darkened the snow beneath the generator.

Curtis drew his pistol.

Delaney stared at the clean severed hose. The plow truck had passed too far from the building. Whoever cut it had done so before the power failed, while the storm covered the sound.

“Someone was already here,” Curtis said.

“Or one of your men did it.”

His eyes moved toward her.

“You brought nine armed people into my diner,” she said. “I’m not giving any of you the benefit of the doubt.”

“That makes two of us.”

A metallic sound came from the storage shed beyond the enclosure.

Curtis stepped into the snow.

Delaney caught the back of his coat. “Don’t.”

He looked at her hand, then at her face.

“There may be someone behind the shed,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“With a rifle.”

“Yes.”

“And your plan is to walk toward him?”

“My plan is to make sure he doesn’t walk toward you.”

The simplicity of the answer unsettled her more than bravado would have.

Curtis moved along the wall, keeping low beneath the kitchen window. Delaney remained in the doorway, flashlight pointed down so it would not announce his position. Wind drove snow through the opening and around her bare calves.

Curtis reached the shed, waited, then swung around the corner with his pistol raised.

Nothing.

He crouched and picked something out of the snow.

A black cable.

He traced it to a small device attached beneath the diner’s exterior junction box.

“What is that?” Delaney asked.

“Signal jammer.”

She stared at him.

“Cell phones,” he said. “Maybe the landline too, if they tied into it.”

“The dispatcher heard me.”

“For how long?”

A movement flickered near the tree line.

Curtis shoved Delaney backward into the kitchen.

A gunshot cracked through the storm.

Wood splintered beside the doorframe.

Curtis fired twice into the darkness, then kicked the service door shut. Delaney dropped behind a steel prep table as glass shattered over the sink.

The men in the dining room began shouting.

“Rear contact!”

“Lights off!”

“Who fired?”

Ruth called Delaney’s name from behind the office door.

“I’m okay!”

It came out too quickly and too loudly.

Curtis crouched beside the service door, listening.

“Was that him?” Delaney asked.

“He moved after one shot. Could be a scout.”

“Could be?”

“Do you want guesses or honesty?”

“From you, I’m not sure there’s a difference.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then lowered his voice.

“We were hit twelve miles west of here. Two vehicles boxed us at a bridge. They knew which SUV he was in. They knew our route, our timing, and the backup road.”

“So one of your men told them.”

“Or someone had access to his phone.”

“Why come here?”

Curtis did not answer.

Delaney’s fear changed shape.

“Why did you come here?”

“We received an instruction before the ambush.”

“From whom?”

“Mr. Sartori.”

“He was unconscious.”

“Before that.”

“What instruction?”

Curtis’s gaze shifted toward the office door.

“Ask your mother.”

Delaney stood.

The movement made her dizzy. She put one hand on the prep table until the room steadied.

“My mother has never met Gage Sartori.”

Curtis’s silence lasted too long.

Delaney crossed the kitchen and knocked on the office door.

“Mom. Open it.”

“Is the shooting finished?”

“No.”

“Then I feel the lock is doing excellent work.”

“Why did Gage Sartori tell his men to come here?”

No answer.

Behind Delaney, Curtis watched the kitchen entrance.

“Mom.”

The lock turned.

Ruth opened the door three inches.

She was sixty-one and looked older in the red emergency light. Surgery had hollowed her cheeks and left her moving with one arm protectively across her abdomen. Her gray-streaked hair hung loose around her shoulders. She wore Delaney’s old college sweatshirt and thick socks with yellow lemons on them.

Her eyes went first to Curtis, then to the gun in his hand.

“You’re James Holland’s boy,” she said.

Curtis’s face did not change, but his pistol lowered.

“Curtis.”

“I know your name.”

Delaney stared between them. “You know him?”

“I knew his father.”

“You told me his father was a truck driver.”

“He was, occasionally.”