by Bethany Kane
“Yes,” Sherona said so quickly he blinked. She seemed to come out of her trance and sat up straighter. “The Trading Company and the diner share a common coal room—where they used to keep the coals to run the furnaces.”
“What’s the layout of the coal room, exactly, in relation to the diner?” Rill asked. He’d helped Sherona on a couple of occasions load supplies into the back room. He listened carefully while she described the interior structure of the buildings in relation to the diner storage room. It seemed that the coal room was attached to the large pantry in her storage room.
“Does Stash know about the coal room?”
“I can’t imagine why he would,” Sherona replied.
“I’m going to go tell Mulligan. It could be key information for them to have,” Rill said, standing. He paused when he saw that two more police cars had pulled up in the street, cherry lights flashing. A cop wearing a light brown uniform charged out of the driver’s seat and ran around Mulligan’s car, only to jolt backward and barely catch himself from falling on his ass when he ran straight into Mulligan’s opening car door. Mulligan began shouting at the dazed deputy.
“Oh my God, Rill, what’s going to happen to Derek and Katie and the others?” Sherona murmured behind him, obviously watching the same thing he was. She sounded desperate, and Rill understood why. It was a little like realizing Barney Fife had been put in charge of your most valuable treasure.
Rill cast a grim look over his shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Sherona.”
He headed toward Mulligan and his bumbling crew, wishing he really believed what he’d said. Mulligan immediately started ranting at him to leave the “restricted area” or face arrest when Rill approached. He was trying his hardest not to lose his temper and find an opening to give the information about the coal room when he glanced down the street and saw Sherona was missing from the steps.
“Now, are you going to get out of here, Pierce, or should I get out my handcuffs? I’ve had just about enough of your interference.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. Sherona had just run behind the long strip of ancient storefronts that lined Main Street.
“Shit,” Rill muttered under his breath.
“That’s it. You’re under arrest for interfering with an officer of the law,” Mulligan shouted.
Rill looked down at the sheriff in mixed outrage and disbelief and staggered backward. He suddenly turned and jogged down the street.
“Set foot inside this restricted area again and I’ll arrest you for sure, Pierce,” Mulligan shouted.
Rill hardly heard him. He reached the end of the street and glanced around, wondering if any of the police were watching him. All three men were on their radios, receivers held up to their mouths, jabbering rapidly, each absorbed in his separate communications.
Rill ran across the street at top speed, wondering if he’d be too late to stop Sherona from doing something stupid.
Twenty -nine
“Do I really have to tie up Errol?” Katie asked Marcus Stash. “You know he’d be much better if he could look at one of his airplanes while we sit back here in this storeroom, Marcus.”
Stash seemed undecided and beleaguered by her request, but eventually barked out an order for her to tie Errol up and be quiet. Rill had always told her she wouldn’t know how to shut her mouth even if her life depended on it.
Katie found out for certain that was true on the day Marcus Stash went crazy.
“Why don’t you let Derek go, Marcus?” she reasoned as Stash tied her hands behind her back once she’d restrained her fellow hostages. He’d checked to make sure she’d tied the others tight. She’d thought to fight Stash when he put down his gun to restrain her, but at the last second, he told her he’d shoot Errol if she so much as moved a muscle while he did it. He set down the gun much closer to him than her, so Katie couldn’t justify anything rash with Errol’s life at stake. Still, she continued with the only weapon she had.
Her mouth.
“You can’t have meant for Derek to be caught up in this. Sherona wouldn’t like it. You wouldn’t want a kid to get hurt in all this, would you?”
Stash’s blondish-brown hair seemed to stand straight up from rising agitation versus a crew cut. A sheen of sweat shone on his ruddy features.
“All right, I’ll think about it, okay? Just . . . give me some peace for a minute, will you?” he barked.
“Sure,” Katie said as she immediately began to work her nimble wrists around in the knot. Nobody tied her hands up aside from Rill, she thought irritably.
She glanced around, taking in the details of her surroundings. The fluorescent lights made everything seem surreally bright. She sat next to Errol and a sack of potatoes. The back door was at the end of a short hallway to the right of her. An enormous pantry entrance was to her right, as well, but in her vision, whereas the rear exit wasn’t. The door to the pantry was partially opened, and she saw shelves filled with cartons and cans of food. Stash had taken Errol’s crutches from him and leaned them against the wall next to the pantry.
Katie watched, trying to contain her terror, as Stash placed the switch box for the dynamite on a crate. The green light at the top of the box that flickered on and off struck Katie as very ominous. It was strange and awful to consider what it would be like to die in an explosion. She’d never see her parents, or Everett . . . or Rill again.
She’d never see her and Rill’s baby. Period.
The possibility seemed too untenable to think about, so Katie squashed the idea down until it was a distant nightmare.
Stash began to pace in front of the hostages’ feet. Once, he slinked out to the front of the diner, obviously checking what was happening on the street through the front windows.
She glanced down the line of people who had been tied up. Derek Legion seemed calm enough, his expression a mixture of fear and outrage. Katie got the impression he wanted to footballtackle Marcus. Monty looked precisely as he always did, observing the proceedings with an aloof, wry interest. Katie thought if his hands were untied and he had a newspaper, he could have made himself quite content while being held hostage. Errol was growing increasingly antsy in his restraints, but seemed more anxious about being tied up than afraid of what Stash threatened. Nick Brown looked frightened and shocked, but not as much as George Harlan.
Harlan had heard what Marcus Stash said on the phone earlier with Sherona about being shot unless he refused the gambling license to Fordham. Apparently it hadn’t occurred to Harlan that all he had to do was lie to Stash.
People tended to get a bit discombobulated when they heard they were the target of a madman’s bullet.
“We need to try to keep him talking . . . encourage him to let Derek go first, then Errol,” Katie whispered at them.
She looked around anxiously at the sound of Stash reentering the storeroom.
“It’s going to be okay, Errol,” Katie murmured, feeling Errol squirm around beside her “Calm down. I’m right here with you.”
“Why doesn’t that idiot sheriff call?” Stash mumbled under his breath after what seemed like an eternity to Katie, but probably was no more than twenty minutes.
“Maybe you should call Sherona back,” Katie suggested.
Stash’s head snapped around when she spoke. She couldn’t help but recoil at his glance. He looked rabid.
“You could ask her again to have the sheriff call,” Katie said tentatively. “She may not have understood you before . . . out of shock, you know? Maybe you could let her know, since you’ll be calling her anyway, that you plan on letting Derek go. I know you want the world to know that the gambling boat would be a very bad thing for Vulture’s Canyon, Marcus, and I think Sherona would agree with you, don’t you?”
Stash’s feral expression shifted at the sound of Sherona’s name.
“She’d agree,” he muttered. “We always talked about how much she hated the idea of that gambling boat. Vulture’s Canyon is about nature, and the c
lean air, and privacy, not some damn playground for rich people who want to party and drink and tear up this forest.”
Katie nodded sympathetically. “But I’d imagine Sherona’s in a state right now, thinking about her little brother being in here, you know . . . with all that.” She glanced sadly at the dynamite strapped to Stash’s heaving torso. “Don’t you think it’d be best to call her and let her know you’re going to let Derek out the back door?”
Stash seemed undecided between his tough-guy-Rambo role and his adorer-of-Sherona role. He seemed to deflate slightly and he nodded his head.
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”
“That’s the courageous thing to do, Marcus,” Katie assured as Marcus withdrew his cell phone. She increased her efforts to get her hands free as he started to dial. When she noticed Monty looking at her, she nodded her head toward Stash, indicating he should distract him while she tried to break free.
“Do you really think this will work, Stash?” Monty asked evenly. “The only thing that’s going to maybe happen is we all get blown up, and we’re all on your side. Nothing you’ve done will stop the riverboat from coming.”
Katie rolled her eyes in exasperation when Marcus stopped, giving Monty a crazed glare.
“What about Sherona?” Katie prodded, trying to turn his attention back to releasing Derek.
Stash glanced down at his phone. “No service.”
Shit, Katie thought. Damn these hills. She glanced over at Monty, who raised his eyebrows in a “now what?” gesture. Katie winced in pain as she almost got her wrist through one of the rope loops.
“You know, Marcus, I wish I would have known how important it was to you to keep that gambling boat out of the area. I really do. I could have helped you,” Katie blurted out. From the corner of her vision, she saw Monty give her an incredulous look.
“You? Help me? Some fancy girl from California? What could you have helped me with?” Stash asked belligerently. He started to pace again, his gun in one hand and cell phone in the other.
“I may be an outsider, but I have some insider information that I think could have made a difference in Mr. Harlan’s decision.”
“Well, go on; spill it, then. Harlan’s right there. We’re all listening,” Stash said bitterly, obviously not believing a word she said.
Katie glanced to her left and saw four pale, sweat-glazed faces staring at her. Errol was too busy twisting around and looking uncomfortable to notice her.
“It’s just that I have proof that Miles Fordham is involved in offering prostitution services to the men who come to his club.”
Marcus Stash abruptly stopped pacing. Even Errol quit his squirming for a few seconds.
“It’s true,” Katie said after a pregnant pause. “I saw some records at Fordham’s office that proved what I’d suspected, once and for all. I wouldn’t have been able to pull it all together if I hadn’t been asked by Monty and my new job with the county to help Joe Jones file a tax return. He insisted on showing me his daughter Amber’s financial records as well. On our first visit to Joe’s trailer, Monty had alluded to the fact that Amber had been taking her share of Joe’s money from the sale of his land. So when Joe offered Amber’s records the second time, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try to figure out what was happening to all Joe’s money. Anyway, that was where I first saw for a fact that Amber Jones was being paid by Miles Fordham to spend time with certain men. Amber kept pretty good records of all the men she slept with, including all her paid checks from Miles. I believe, given what I saw at Miles’s offices, that there are two other ladies besides Amber Jones that Miles has been paying to entertain his customers. I would imagine he plans something on a much larger scale when he opens the new casino, though.”
Katie appealed to George Harlan. “Maybe I don’t know everything about your line of business, Mr. Harlan, but I assume it would make a difference, in the state’s final decision, to know that Miles Fordham has been involved in prostitution? It was my understanding that gaming commissions tended to steer clear of folks dabbling in the sex trade.”
Monty gave her a small, sly smile in the distance, but George Harlan just looked confused.
“Well, of course . . . of course if something like that could be proved by legal means, that would be one thing—the gaming commission is highly cautious about screening applicants for past crimes—most especially for prostitution—but—”
“Oh, it can be proven. Trust me,” Katie interrupted Harlan before he dug them all a deeper grave by not playing along with her scheme.
“How?” Stash asked.
“I made copies of the records,” Katie lied. She met Stash’s beady-eyed stare, forcing herself not to blink. It was imperative that he believe her. “I don’t like that sleazebag Fordham any more than you do.”
Stash resumed his agitated pacing. Katie swallowed through an achy throat and jerked one hand out of the rope.
Bingo.
“I think she’s on to something, Stash,” Monty said, his voice lending a calm, sure note to the proceedings. “Maybe you ought to end this thing before someone gets hurt. We can stop Fordham through legal means.”
Katie was busy getting her other wrist free, her gaze fixed on Stash to make sure he didn’t notice her shoulders twitching around, when movement occurred at the corner of her vision.
She gasped so loudly that everyone in the room stared at her.
“Ouch!” she wailed, jerking her gaze to her lap. “Leg cramp.”
She glanced up covertly from under a lowered brow and saw Stash resume his pacing.
“It’ll never work. Fordham and all his fancy lawyers—he’ll slime his way right through the courts,” Stash mumbled.
“Not necessarily,” George Harlan said nervously. Katie had the impression Monty had just elbowed him hard, trying to knock some sense into the government official. As Harlan began to elucidate how a claim and subsequent proof that Fordham had been involved in prostitution would damage his bid for a gambling license irreparably, Katie glanced toward the pantry cautiously.
She really hadn’t been hallucinating.
Rill stood in the opening of the entrance to the pantry, the partially closed door blocking him from Stash’s view. She saw another person standing behind him and recognized the auburn color of Sherona’s hair.
Rill held his finger up to his lips. She couldn’t believe she was staring at Rill . . . in a pantry . . . in a back room . . . in Vulture’s Canyon . . .
. . . when she’d suspected he wasn’t ever going to return.
He did something that looked too realistic to be a dream. He pointed in Stash’s direction through the door. Then he held his hand up and mimicked holding a switch down, and then jerking his thumb upward.
Katie nodded her head, understanding what he meant.
Maybe they were just a couple idiots from Hollywood, but both of them had been well educated from movie plots about a “dead man’s switch.” Stash wasn’t going to detonate the dynamite if somebody clobbered him and he released a button in his unconscious state, blowing them all to oblivion. He wasn’t carrying the radio-operated switch. It needed to be activated or deactivated manually.
She couldn’t take her eyes off Rill, and was glad Stash seemed so intent on listening to George Harlan. For some odd reason, Rill’s right cheek and forehead were smudged with black cinder. Was it a disguise?
Katie glanced nervously to a pacing Stash and back to Rill, letting him know with her eyes where Stash was in the room. But she needn’t have worried because Stash started talking, giving away his location.
“You can’t guarantee me, or anyone in Vulture’s Canyon, that Fordham wouldn’t wiggle his way past the legal obstacles, Harlan. You don’t know Fordham. He’s the devil.”
Katie’s eyes went wide and her heart lodged in her throat when Rill reached out of the pantry—quick as a snake at the strike—and snagged one of Errol’s crutches. It suddenly struck her what Rill was going to do.
Terror sliced t
hrough her when she thought of Stash’s gun . . . the dynamite. All Stash had to do was run eight feet, pick up that switch, flip it, and POW.
All of them were dead. It somehow seemed a thousand times worse when she considered that Rill would die in the explosion with them.
Rill edged up right next to the opening of the door, his expression intent as he listened to Stash talking. Katie realized with rising anxiety he was waiting for the sound of Stash’s voice so he could tell the moment when he turned his back to Rill.
“If I had some solid proof, it’d be one thing. But I can’t take that chance. I’ve got to stop Fordham. He’s taking away my rights as a citizen,” Stash ranted. “I’m the last line of defense Vulture’s Canyon has.” He seemed to be gaining momentum as he listened to himself talk. Katie watched in a misery of anticipation as Stash pivoted and turned away from Rill. “I’ve got to stop that son of a bitch before he ruins—”
Thwack.
Rill had lunged out of the pantry and swung the thick part of the crutch at the back of Stash’s head like a baseball bat. Katie recalled the way he’d chopped logs with one clean, powerful blow. He had a similar effect on a human being, she realized through a haze of shock.
Marcus Stash fell to the floor like he was a robot that had suddenly had its battery yanked. His gun slid all the way across the wood floor where it disappeared down the back hall. Sherona went after it and returned to the storeroom. She trained the weapon on the fallen Stash. Katie was impressed by how confidently she handled the gun.
“Where is it?” Rill asked Katie, and she knew he meant the switch box.
“There.” Katie nodded toward the crate behind him.
They all breathed a collective sigh of relief when Rill flipped a switch and the light on the mechanical box blinked out.
Katie jumped up from her sitting position like she was on springs. She flew at Rill, who caught her against him after a surprised umph at the impact of her body hitting his.
