Chương 9
Frank laughed from the floor. “He doesn’t have five minutes.”
Curtis grabbed the back of his coat. “What happens sooner?”
Frank looked at the burning SUV.
The flames had reached the rear compartment.
Curtis followed his gaze.
“Second vehicle is rigged?”
Frank smiled through split lips. “Not the second.”
The third SUV sat closest to the diner’s propane tank.
Delaney’s stomach dropped.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
Curtis hit him once.
Frank’s head struck the tile.
Delaney seized Curtis’s arm. “He said he doesn’t know.”
“He’s lying.”
“Then make him useful.”
Curtis knelt again. “How is it triggered?”
“Remote.”
“By Pike?”
“Vescari’s man.”
“Which one?”
Frank looked toward the east side of the parking lot.
Mason crawled to the broken window and peered out.
“Movement near the propane cage.”
Delaney pictured the tank exploding beside the kitchen wall, Ruth’s bed twenty feet away, the old wooden rafters, the grease hood.
“We have to move everyone out.”
“Into rifle fire?” Paul asked from the floor.
“The basement,” Ruth said.
Delaney looked at her.
The diner’s basement had one entrance behind the pantry and a coal chute sealed years ago. It would protect them from bullets, not fire.
“The propane tank goes, the floor may come down,” Delaney said.
“Not immediately,” Ruth replied.
“You sound confident.”
“Your father overbuilt everything.”
Even now, Ruth managed to sound annoyed by him.
Curtis began directing men toward the pantry.
Delaney shook her head. “Sartori can’t be carried down those stairs without losing more blood.”
“He can’t remain here.”
“He’ll die if you move him wrong.”
“He’ll die faster if the tank ignites.”
Gage’s hand moved weakly against the booth.
“Phone,” he said.
Curtis brought him Frank’s device.
Gage could not hold it. Delaney placed it near his mouth.
He gave a number from memory.
The call connected.
A man answered. “Yeah?”
“Vescari,” Gage said.
The voice changed. “Gage.”
“You missed.”
A soft laugh came through the speaker. “Not by much.”
Gage’s eyes closed.
Delaney watched the blood rise through fresh gauze.
Vescari said, “Give me the books and I send Pike home.”
“You send him home anyway.”
“Your authority is bleeding onto a diner table.”
“Then why answer?”
Silence.
Gage’s mouth tightened faintly.
“You don’t know what’s in the box,” he said.
Vescari recovered quickly. “I know enough.”
“No. You know Ruth has the old books. You don’t know what I added.”
Ruth looked at the brass key in Delaney’s hand.
Vescari said, “There is no box.”
Gage opened his eyes.
The denial had come too quickly.
“Then you have nothing to fear,” he whispered.
He ended the call.
Curtis leaned close. “You think he’ll stop the trigger?”
“No.”
“Then what was that?”
“Time.”
Delaney looked at the CB radio.
“Ray said thirty minutes.”
“We don’t have thirty.”
“No,” she said. “But Pike might not know that.”
She picked up the microphone.
“Plow Six, Lamplight.”
Static.
Then Ray answered. “Go ahead.”
“How far out are the troopers?”
A pause.
Curtis watched her.
Ray said, “Twenty-eight minutes.”
Delaney pressed the microphone again. “Say twelve.”
“What?”
“Tell me they’re twelve minutes away. Loudly.”
Another pause.
Then Ray’s voice came stronger through the speaker.
“Lamplight, confirmed. First state unit twelve minutes out. Additional units behind.”
Delaney held Frank’s phone near the radio.
Curtis understood. He called Pike and left the line open without speaking.
Ray continued, improvising badly but earnestly. “We have, uh, visual from the north hill.”
Outside, Pike’s loudspeaker went silent.
Mason peered through the broken window.
“They’re moving.”
“Leaving?” Evan asked.
“Two are. One’s staying by the tank.”
Curtis pointed to Paul and Mason. “Cover east.”
Both wounded men protested at once.
“You can cover from the floor,” Curtis said.
Delaney went to the pantry and pulled open the basement door. Cold, damp air rose from below. Ruth stood beside her, one arm against her abdomen.
“You’re going down first,” Delaney said.
“I am not leaving you.”
“You are the reason I cannot think.”
“That seems unfair.”
“It is.”
Ruth looked at her daughter’s face.
For once, she did not argue.
Evan helped her toward the stairs.
Before descending, Ruth caught Delaney’s hand.
“I did not keep the truth because I thought you were weak.”
“Go.”
“I kept it because once you knew, you would do exactly what you’re doing now.”
“What is that?”
“Refuse to hide.”
Delaney pulled her hand free.
“That was not your choice to make.”
“No,” Ruth said. “It wasn’t.”
She went down.
The admission hurt more than another defense would have.
Curtis and two guards lifted Gage using a tablecloth as a sling. Delaney kept pressure on the wound and supported his head as they carried him through the kitchen.
He regained consciousness on the basement stairs.
“Stop,” he said.
“We can’t,” Delaney replied.
“The books.”
“Safe.”
“Not from fire.”
“They are under a freezer.”
He gave a weak, almost disbelieving breath.
“My father built the platform,” she said. “Apparently he expected war.”
“He expected grease.”
The dry answer startled her.
She looked down at him.
For the first time, she saw something other than the face newspapers had taught her to fear. He was still dangerous. He had admitted killing a man as if violence were an old accounting entry. He had purchased her debt without permission and called it protection. Yet pain had stripped away the polished certainty. What remained was not innocence. It was limitation.
“You don’t get funnier because you’re dying,” she said.
“I wasn’t trying.”
“That helps.”
They reached the basement.
The room smelled of damp concrete, onions, and old cardboard. Shelves held canned tomatoes, cleaning supplies, and boxes of holiday decorations nobody had used since Ruth declared tinsel a fire hazard. A single battery lantern cast pale light over the group.
Frank was tied to a support post.
May you like
Paul sat against the wall with his leg stretched out. Mason leaned beside him, holding pressure on his shoulder. The other guards positioned themselves around the stairwell and the sealed coal chute.
Delaney checked Gage again.
