NO EXIT a gripping thriller full of heart-stopping twists

by TAYLOR ADAMS

  She still had her Honda keys in her knuckles, on her lap. The sharpest one — her Dryden Hall dorm key — was gripped between her thumb and index finger. But she couldn’t trust herself to clear the table fast enough. Ashley would see her attack coming; he’d raise a hand to protect his face. It wouldn’t work. She wasn’t strong enough or quick enough.

  “I dare you,” he whispered. “Scream.”

  She almost called his bluff.

  Then Ashley glanced over Darby’s shoulder. He nodded again, and she realized with a shiver of panic — Lars was now standing directly behind her. She hadn’t heard him approach, but now she heard the crinkle of his ski jacket flexing, just inches behind her. Like the moment they’d first met. She flinched, half-expecting those scarred hands to clamp around her throat and squeeze — but Lars knelt instead, snatching her purse from the floor beside her ankle.

  “Yoink.” He carried it back to the door.

  Ashley glanced back to her, sucking on his lower lip. “Darbs, so we’re clear, I’m giving you a chance to undo all of this. A big, red reset button. It’s easy, too, because all you have to do is nothing. Just keep your mouth shut.”

  Twenty seconds.

  “See, Darbs, we’ll all agree that this little accident never happened. We — my brother and I — we’ll pretend you never broke into our van. You’ll pretend you never saw Jaybird. We’ll all just . . . just erase the last few hours from our brains, and when the snowplows rumble up here at the ass-crack of dawn, we’ll all just hop into our cars and go our separate ways. A peaceful resolution for everyone.”

  Pop-pop. Lars opened the buttons on her wallet. Credit cards click-clacked to the floor. He sniffed, checking out her Utah driver’s license, and unfolded a crumpled twenty, which he pocketed.

  Ten seconds.

  “I’ll be honest.” Ashley leaned forward. “I’m really, really hoping you’ll just look the other way. Get some rest. You’re tired. You look like boiled crap. You won’t stand a chance against Lars and me. So just . . . let the monsters do their thing, okay?”

  Five seconds.

  “Please, Darbs. It’ll be easier on all of us.” He glanced at Sandi as he said this, as if his threat wasn’t already clear enough.

  Darby felt her cheeks burn. “I can’t.”

  “We won’t hurt Jay, you know.” He cocked his head. “Is that it? Is that what you’re afraid of? Because if so, I can promise you—”

  “You’re lying.”

  “No one will get hurt tonight, if you cooperate.”

  “I know you’re lying.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Ashley said, waving his hand. “Hey, by the way. I saw a bunch of papers in the backseat of your car. Black papers. What’s all that?”

  “Why do you care?”

  His eyes hardened. “You peeked into Garver family business. So I peeked into yours. Answer the question.”

  “It’s . . . just papers.”

  “For what?”

  “Gravestone rubbings.”

  “What’re those?”

  “I take . . . I use crayons to, uh . . . to take an imprint of headstones.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I collect them.”

  “Why?”

  “I just do.” She hated being studied by him.

  “You’re kind of a damaged girl,” Ashley said. “I like it.”

  She said nothing.

  “And you have a scar over your eyebrow.” He leaned over the table, inspecting her in the fluorescent light. “That must have been . . . what, thirty stitches? It’s only really noticeable when you furrow your brow. Or smile.”

  She stared at the floor.

  “Is that why you don’t smile much, Darbs?”

  She wanted to cry. She wished it would be over.

  “Smile,” he whispered. “You’ll live longer.”

  It’s been over a minute.

  Where the hell was Ed? Possibilities cycled through her mind. Maybe he couldn’t find the camping coffee. Maybe he was sneaking in a drink. Or maybe . . . maybe he’d detected some subtle clue, pieced together the kidnapping plot, and now he was attempting to find cell signal to contact the police right now? Or, what if Jay cut through the kennel bars and ran to him? He’d be a second witness. That would give Ashley and Lars no choice but to start shooting.

  Every second felt volatile. She glanced up at the Garfield clock, and Ashley noticed. “That’s an hour fast, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s only one o’clock.”

  “I know.”

  He licked his lips, studying the clock. The image on it; of a love-struck Garfield offering roses to Arlene. “Hey, what’s that cat’s name? The pink one?”

  “Arlene.”

  “Arlene. That’s a pretty girl’s name. Like yours.”

  “Yours, too,” she said.

  He smirked, enjoying the back-and-forth, glancing back at her eyebrow. “How’d you get the scar, anyway?”

  “A fight,” she lied. “In junior high.”

  She’d crashed her bicycle into a garage door. If it could be called a fight, the garage door had won. Twenty-eight stitches and an overnight at Saint Joseph. The other fifth graders had called her Frankengirl.

  She couldn’t tell if Ashley believed her. He licked his lips. “I should warn you, Darbs, if you’re . . . you know, planning on fighting us tonight. Are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Planning to fight us?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “Well, if you are, you should know. I’ve always been kind of special.”

  “I bet you are.”

  “See, I’m not just lucky — I’m protected, I think. From consequences. It’s like a magic I have. In the end, things always go my way.” He leaned in closer, like he was imparting a delicate secret. “You might call it luck, but I sincerely believe it’s something else. My toast always lands jelly-side up, you could say.”

  She had to ask. “You don’t really have asthma, do you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you even go to Salt Lake Institute of Tech?”

  His grin widened. “Made-up school.”

  “What about your phobia of doors?”

  “Door hinges. That one’s true, actually.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. They give me the creeps.” He held his hand over his heart. “Swear to God. Can’t touch ’em, try not to look at ’em. Ever since I almost lost my thumb down in Chink’s Drop, they’ve just bothered the hell out of me.”

  “Regular door hinges?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I was certain you’d made that up, too. It didn’t seem real.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” Darby said calmly, “I didn’t think you’d be such a pussy.”

  A floorboard creaked.

  Ashley looked back at her coldly, like she’d defied his initial assessment, and the lights flickered overhead. Then he sighed, swallowed once, and when he finally spoke again, his voice was tightly controlled: “You’re gambling with a child’s life. Don’t forget that. Tonight has a happy ending, but you’re jeopardizing it.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s not a sex thing,” Ashley said, frowning with exaggerated disgust. “It’s money. If you just have to know.”

  Sandi stirred again on the bench. Luck of the Devil slid a few centimeters down her face. Darby wondered if she was really asleep. What if she was only pretending? What if she’d heard the whole conversation?

  “I mean, tell you what.” Ashley suppressed a laugh, loosening up again. His demeanor came in chilling phase-changes; light to dark and back again. “You should see this house, Darbs. Looks like Mr Burns’ mansion. Daddy owns a tech startup, something to do with a video player. You know, computer shit, which is over my blue-collar head. I’m more of a practical nuts-and-bolts guy. Which is why we’re borrowing Jaybird here, taking her out to the Rockies for a few weeks, letting Mommy and D
addy get real worried and whip out their checkbooks, and once we’re fairly compensated for our work, we’ll cash out and leave her at a bus station in some shitsplat town in Kansas. She won’t be harmed. It’ll be like a vacation. Hell, maybe we’ll even teach her how to snowboard while we’re—”

  “You’re lying again.”

  His folksy grin vanished again. “I already told you, Darbs. Try to keep up. We won’t hurt her—”

  “You already hurt her,” she snarled, half-hoping Sandi was really awake under her paperback, really listening. “You shot a goddamn nail through her hand. And I swear to God, Ashley, if I get the chance, I’ll do worse to you.”

  Silence.

  At the door, Lars slipped her wallet back into her purse.

  “So . . .” Ashley paused. “You saw Jay’s hand?”

  “Yes.”

  He considered this for a few moments, sucking his lower lip again with a lizard-slurp. “Okay. Good.” He hardened, another eerie phase-change. “Good, good. Great, even. Let’s call this a teachable moment, okay? If it’s in my best interests to keep Jaybird alive — shaken, but alive — and yesterday morning I got sick of her whining and put a cordless nailer to her palm and pulled the trigger . . . well, Darbo, just imagine what I’ll do to someone who I don’t have to keep alive. Imagine what I’ll do to this rest stop. What I’ll do to Ed and Sandi. What I’ll make you watch. And it’ll all be your fault, because you felt too morally superior to play ball here. So I’m asking you again, Darby. And I’m warning you, too — think long and hard about what you say next, because if it’s the wrong thing, I promise you, you won’t be the only one who dies tonight.”

  She stared back at him, afraid to blink.

  “Also,” he added, “your nose is bleeding.”

  She touched her nose—

  He lunged forward, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and slammed her face into the tabletop. Fireworks behind her eyes. Dizzying pain. The cartilage in her nose made a wet crunch and she recoiled backward, nearly falling off her chair, clasping both hands to her face.

  Across the room, Sandi jolted awake. Her paperback clapped to the floor. “What . . . what happened?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” Ashley said, looking at Darby. “We’re fine.”

  Darby nodded, pinching her nose. Hot blood dribbled down her wrists, vivid red. Her eyes stung, fighting back tears.

  Don’t cry.

  “Oh, honey, your nose—”

  “Yeah. I’m fine.” Darby tasted coppery blood in her teeth. Big drops tapped the tabletop. Her fingers stuck together.

  “What happened?”

  “High altitude,” Ashley said crisply. “Low air pressure. It just sneaks up on you. My nose was bleeding like a faucet back at Elk Pass—”

  Sandi ignored him. “Need a tissue?”

  Darby shook her head sharply, squeezing her nostrils. Blood poured down her throat in clogged mouthfuls. Droplets speckled her lap.

  Oh, Jesus, don’t cry.

  Sandi crossed the room, her big purse swinging. She grabbed a lump of brown napkins from the coffee counter, and laid them in Darby’s lap. She touched her shoulder. “Are you sure? It’s . . . it’s really bleeding.”

  Darby felt her face tighten up, like her skin was being stretched taut around her skull. Fiery heat on her cheeks. Her vision blurred with tears, her breaths hissing through her teeth, while Ashley calmly watched her from across the table with his hands tucked neatly in his lap.

  Don’t cry, Darby, or he will kill everyone here.

  “I’m fine,” she choked. “It’s just the elevation—”

  “I had my first beer at eight thousand feet,” Ashley chimed in again. “Sliced my hand on a fluorescent light, and I bled pure red water for two straight days—”

  “Oh, shut up,” Darby snarled.

  He froze, startled by her sudden ferocity. This should have been another win for Darby, another small moment of prey catching predator off-guard, but she already knew it was a huge mistake.

  Because Sandi had noticed.

  “I . . .” The lady hesitated, palms up. She glanced between them, her yellow parka crinkling as she moved. “Wait. What’s really happening here?”

  Silence.

  Ashley chewed his lip thoughtfully, and then nodded to Lars.

  No, no, no—

  Lars reached into his coat pocket for his pistol. But the front door banged open beside him, hitting the wall, startling him—

  “Finally found the coffee.” Ed came in, boots squeaking, spattered with snowflakes, and slammed a clipped baggie of ground Colombian Roast on the table between them. “The recipe is two tablespoons for every eight ounces of boiling — oh, holy shit, that’s blood.”

  “The altitude,” Darby choked.

  Sandi said nothing.

  “Damn.” Ed looked Darby up and down. “You really got it. Keep pressure on your nose, and lean forward, not backward.”

  She tilted her head forward.

  “Good. Forward makes it clot. Backward, and it all pours down your throat and you get a stomach full of blood.” He brushed snow from his shoulders. “And use those napkins. They’re free.”

  “Thanks.”

  As Ed moved past, Darby glanced over to Sandi, bridging a moment of shaky eye contact. Sandi was suspicious now, eyes wide, glancing between the two brothers. The outline of Lar’s concealed pistol was plainly shadowed in the overhead light.

  Darby raised an index finger to her lips: Shhh.

  Sandi nodded once.

  At the same time, Ashley must have been making a hand signal to Lars. Darby turned back and only caught the end of it, but it looked like a frenzied hand-to-throat gesture: Stop, stop, stop. That was it; the room had just been a split-second from exploding into violence. Ed had no clue that he might have just saved everyone’s lives by bumbling back inside when he did with a bag of instant coffee.

  Now, he reached through the security shutter and dispensed hot water. “It’s not quite boiling, but it’s hot enough for tea. Should be okay for some shitty coffee.”

  “Mana from heaven,” said Ashley. “Sweet, sweet caffeine.”

  “Yep, that’s the idea.”

  “You’re my hero, Ed.”

  He nodded, his patience for Ashley’s chatter clearly wearing thin. “Good to hear.”

  Sandi backed up and sat on the corner bench, where she could monitor the entire room. Darby watched her lift her paperback, but hold it in her lap. Her other hand tucked carefully inside her purse, behind the embroidered letters of Psalm 100:5. Gripping a canister of pepper spray, perhaps.

  Please, Sandi, don’t say anything.

  The Wanapani rest area was a powder keg. All it would take is a single spark — and this room was full of friction. Carefully, out of view, Darby opened the IF YOU TELL THEM, I KILL THEM BOTH note in her lap, beneath the tabletop, and wrote another message against her thigh. She capped her pen and folded the napkin tightly again, leaving a bloody thumbprint.

  “Who else wants coffee?” Ed asked.

  “Me,” said Lars.

  Sandi nodded, but didn’t speak.

  “Me, too,” Darby said as she stood up, gripping her sore nose and handing the note to Ashley, then turning to face Ed. “No sugar, no cream. And make it strong, please. Tonight is going to be one hell of a long night.”

  Behind her, she heard Ashley greedily unfold the napkin.

  He was reading her message now.

  1:02 a.m.

  YOU WIN. I WON’T SAY A WORD.

  Ashley smirked — she had no idea how right she was.

  This CU-Boulder girl was an unexpected complication, but he’d already figured her out. He’d seen her type before, although never in the flesh. See, Darby Elizabeth Thorne was a bona fide hero. She was one of those bystanders on a Shell Station CCTV tape who goes for the robber’s gun, or renders aide to a bleeding clerk. She was the type who’d throw herself under the meat-grinder-wheels of a train to save a total stranger. Protecting others,
doing the right thing, was an instinct for her, whether she knew it or not.

  Contrary to popular belief, that’s not a strength.

  It’s a weakness, because it makes you predictable. Controllable. And sure enough — with just a thirty-minute conversation, a half-round of circle time, and an aborted card game — Ashley already owned her.

  Breaking her nose? That was just a fun little victory lap.

  And he’d been surprised by how much he enjoyed watching Darby fight tears in front of Ed and Sandi, her nose a spurting red faucet. There was something great about it, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. She was humiliated, suffering in public, like some of his favorite porn. He loved the ones where the girl was secretly wearing vibrating panties in a street or restaurant, trying not to show it. Trying to hold back.

  It helped that Darby was undeniably pretty, too, in a feral way. She had a ferocity to her; a vicious streak to go with her fiery auburn hair. She didn’t know how tough she could be, if pushed to the edge. He’d love to take her there. He’d love to take her up in Rathdrum, to drive her out to the gravel pit and teach her how to fire his uncle’s SKS. Brace the wooden Soviet stock up to her little shoulder, guide her painted fingernail around the trigger, whiff her nervous sweat as she aligned the notched iron sights.

  Such a bummer, then, that he’d have to kill her tonight.

  He didn’t want to.

  Ashley Garver had never technically killed anyone before, so tonight would be a definite first. The closest instance he could think of was still more manslaughter than murder. And not via direct action — but inaction.

  He’d been a kid when it happened.

  This was a year or two before he nearly lost his thumb at Chink’s Drop. So he’d been five, maybe six. Back then, his parents used to offload him and Lars (just a toddler then) in the summer months with Uncle Kenny, who lived in the dry prairies of Idaho. He called himself Fat Kenny (Hey, hey, hey!), which Ashley only now understood was a riff on Fat Albert. He was a jolly man who huffed when he climbed stairs, smoked clove cigarettes, and always had a joke on hand.

  What do you tell a woman with a black eye?

  ‘Shoulda listened.’

  What do you tell a woman with two black eyes?

  Nothin’. She’s already been told twice.