by Nicole Snow
Oh, God.
Don’t vomit.
Do not.
Don’t spit hot coffee in his eyes, either.
No matter how insanely satisfying it might be.
Just breathe.
Focus.
Keep him talking, spilling idiot things from his mouth. Every gross word burns up time he could be using for diabolical actions.
I lean forward against the counter, folding my arms, eyeing him. I can’t quite pull off a coy smile, but I hope he thinks he’s caught my interest.
“You’ve got that kind of pull with Paye? Wow. What do you have on her? She’s not an easy lady to convince.”
“Let’s just say she owes me.” He grins toothily, like he’s just on top of everything. “You thought you were being funny teasing her with that gold? She already knew. I told her. Lucky me, running into her after Charter chased her out of your house...”
My eyes widen. “You were at my house?”
“No shit. Wanted to know what was going on. Charter’s never gone crazy like that before, throwing a punch at me. Figured if anything could make him that nuts, it was a woman.” He runs his tongue over his lips, still grinning at me like a jackal, eyes roving over me possessively. “You must have that good shit. No wonder everybody wants a turn. Or is he just that psycho over gold? Always did have a soft spot for it, the thieving prick.”
I feel slimy, greased over, with the nasty way he’s ogling me.
It takes everything I’ve got to smile like I’m enjoying this stupidity, toying with one of the stirrer straws in an empty cup.
“Maybe I do have good shit. So that’s what you want?”
“I sure as hell deserve it more than he does,” Gavin snarls. “Man’s out here living it up like a king with hot chicks and this nice mountain life, and he thinks he’s gonna get to live high off that gold, too? Fuck!” He curls his upper lip. “Take it from me. All he’s after is the gold and a little pussy. You can’t trust him. Even if he’s dumber than a bear. Asshole falls for anything. He never realized I was skimming off the mine. And when I came begging for work, he actually believed I got some girl knocked up and needed cash for some brat I didn’t want. I’m telling you, toots, you’re better off without the bonehead. Alaska’s a liar and a chump.”
Defensive hellfire flares up inside me.
That’s not who Paxton is.
He could’ve taken the gold and ran off anytime. Even a couple of bars would’ve set him and Eli up for life, and he’d never have to worry about anything again.
Instead, he stayed.
He worried.
He fought.
He cared.
All for me.
I set my jaw so tight my teeth hurt.
Lord, give me strength.
Because I can’t keep this farce up any longer, and I need to get Paisley’s butt inside so she’ll be boxed in—and possibly suffering from a concussive head injury—when the cops show up.
Straightening, I toss my head toward the back.
“C’mon. Let’s just do the handoff. I’ll show you the gold. Paye gets her stuff, and all of you get out of my life. Deal?”
That gross, clingy gaze slides over me again. I feel like I’m being watched by a bloated snake.
He puckers his lips. “Sure thing, sweet cheeks.”
Barf.
I try to stay ahead of him as I slip around the counter, but he comes up behind me fast, crowding the space in the hall. His body brushes mine, this sick, too-hot, mealy feeling.
I skitter away, keeping a few inches of space between us as I head for the storeroom and fish out my keys.
I can practically hear his breath huffing down the back of my neck as I unlock the room, mentally calculating whether or not I can get back to the front and that hidden emergency call button in time.
There’s another one in my office, but I don’t have any reason to go there that won’t make Gavin and Paisley way too suspicious.
Right now, though, I’m worried about him figuring things out as I push the door open and flick on the light. The cord running across the ceiling and dangling down against the wall just inside the door isn’t super obvious, but someone astute—someone like Alaska, with a trained eye—might notice.
Lucky for me, Gavin’s no Alaska.
Because Gavin’s so hungry for gold that he doesn’t see anything else.
Eyes wide, his face shines like a little boy who’s just found his literal golden ticket to good fortune, the splendor before him, the possibilities.
I can practically see cartoon dollar signs lighting up his eyes—along with that cunning duplicity.
Yep, he’s plotting something.
Whether to double-cross me, double-cross Paisley, or both of us...who knows.
I just have to hope I can turn them against each other before they both turn on me.
“It’s all there,” I say, lingering in the doorway. “Careful, it’s crazy heavy. I think my father took the Lockwoods’ money and converted it into gold before hiding it. Smart man. With inflation, it’s worth a lot more today than it was when he took it and laundered it into gold bullion. So Paisley’s getting her daddy’s money back with a ton of interest. You’re welcome.”
I’m not sure Gavin even hears me. But his gun arm lowers, the weapon hanging slack in his fingers like it suddenly weighs a hundred pounds.
I have a split-second idea—kicking it out of his hands, knocking him down, and running.
Not yet.
I have to remind myself to be patient.
To play the long game.
There’s a bolt of panic running through me as he finally snaps out of his trance, shaking himself and then glancing back at me with greed glittering in his eyes.
He seems to think better of it and stops a second later, pulling a phone from the breast pocket of his shirt.
He lifts it to his ear and waits a moment, then says, “...yeah. Yeah, it’s here. It’s the gold, all right. Don’t see anything fishy. Coast is clear. She’s playing straight. Yeah, she’s alone.”
A shudder tiptoes up my spine.
I don’t need that reminder of what a precarious position I’m in.
How trapped I am.
I know all too well about thirty seconds later when the bell over the front door jingles again.
This time, I know who’s coming.
I know those sharp, clicking footsteps anywhere, dainty heels pattering across the floor.
She’s here.
And I don’t want to be stuck with Gavin in front of me, Paisley behind me, and nowhere to run.
But the weight in my back pocket feels ten times heavier as I head out to be a good hostess and meet the demon in the front of my café.
I try not to be obvious about scurrying out there, slipping behind the bar, leaning my elbows on the counter.
Paisley comes strutting up flanked by no less than six of her paid slabs of muscle. She looks like a poodle today with the giant pink bow in her hair—and her ridiculous purple leather jacket with a giant floral P emblazoned on it, childish and bright.
Believe it or not, sometimes I almost pity her.
I get it.
I got stuck in emotional quicksand when my dad died, too.
Some dark, hurt part of me will always be that little girl waiting for her father to wake up before the crack of dawn, hoping that one perfect cup of coffee will make him smile like everything can still be all right.
But I never let missing him make me a monster.
I never let it make me cruel.
That’s where any pity, any sympathy, any similarity between us dies.
Especially when her nasty smile reveals everything as she reaches back and clicks the lock on the door with a decisive turn.
I’ll never get any pity or mercy from this woman.
“Well now, sweet Fe-lic-i-tee,” she purrs, her grin widening into this horrible Cheshire cat gash. “Look who finally came to play at the big girls’ table.”
; “Big talk from someone who looks like a doll.” At this point I’ve got nothing to lose by being honest. “Nice of you to send your new shithead as the advance guard.”
“Mmm, Coakley’s disposable. Just in case you had any nasty tricks up your sleeve.” She mock-pouts at me with a sick gloss of girlish giggling. “But you’re going to play real nice with me, aren’t you?”
“Just take your crap and go.”
“Ooh, feisty.” She wrinkles her pert little nose at me. “Not until you tell me what you were talking about with the kid. What child had you so scared?”
“Misunderstanding,” I say slowly. Carefully. I can’t breathe a word about Eli to her. I won’t put him in more danger, even if she knows he exists and he’s close to me. “Some tourist’s kid got lost in the woods. Thought you stole him to make a point.”
With an exasperated sigh, she props her hands on her hips, rolling her eyes. “So paranoid. As if I’d bother with children. They’re loud, annoying, and smelly.”
“Such a delightful sentiment.”
“You’re cranky today.” Paisley smirks. “I think I like sassy Felicity better.”
“You done?” I stare at her flatly.
“And cut this bonding moment short?” She gives a little twirl, then sighs. “Fiiine.”
My fingers creeps toward the panic button, but Gavin emerges from the back, and I freeze.
From where he’s standing, he’ll see.
“Hey,” he says, grinning like he actually did something. “There’s really a metric fuck-ton of gold in here. It’ll be a workout just to carry it all.”
Paisley’s smile vanishes, and she gives Gavin a look of such loathing I almost laugh.
At least we agree on something.
“Is that your problem?” she asks icily—then flicks her fingers at me. “You. Go. Show me where it is.”
Gavin’s face falls. “I just said it’s—”
“And I said shut up, Mr. Man!” Paisley hisses.
Jesus. I’m sure they’re all armed. If they start fighting right on top of me and it escalates into a shoot-out...
Keep it calm. Breathe.
I straighten, let out a nervous yawn, and use the motion to disguise hitting that small silent panic button. Langley should be here in fifteen minutes or less, the Missoula police maybe another hour or two.
Let’s hope I’ll still be alive.
I step into the hall, staring Gavin down coldly until he backs up to the storage room door. I get one step forward.
And then feel something cold jabbed in the small of my back.
A gun.
My stomach turns over.
Paisley leans in close, hissing in my ear, her breath scalding hot on my neck.
“In case you get any funny ideas. I know what a comedian you are,” she whispers. “Even if you live, you’d enjoy your retirement as a paraplegic. So behave, Fe-li-ci-tee.”
“Wouldn’t dream of doing anything else,” I croak dryly, and let myself be frog-marched forward into the storage room.
Paisley stops me just inside the door and my eyes flick to the side.
The string’s hanging right there.
I could pull it right now, but I’ll get shot, so I can only stand there and watch helplessly as her men muscle past and move to the shelves, whispering to themselves as they count the loot.
“Yo, why are you counting it?” Gavin frowns.
“Because,” Paisley says mockingly. “You’ve already made it clear you’ve got very big, very hungry pockets. You better not have lied to me about how many bars there are, Coakley.”
“I told you,” Gavin snarls. “Seventy-two. Seventy-one, now that you’ve got one. I counted them way back at their old hiding place in the woodpile.”
“He’s lying,” I interject quickly.
Paye’s doll-like face snaps toward me.
He’s actually not lying, but this is my chance.
“There were eighty bars, Paisley,” I say. “I left him alone in here and he must’ve swiped a few. I don’t know where he hid the others.”
Gavin whirls on me. “What the fuck? You bi—”
“Enough!” Paisley snarls—and suddenly the gun swings away from me and dead onto Gavin. She jerks her chin at her men. “Search. He probably stashed them behind those coffee sacks.” Then she turns her narrowed eyes on him with a cruel smile, all teeth, so coy and yet so terrible. “Unlucky for you that little Miss Fe-li-ci-tee here has a well-honed sense of self-preservation. Do you know what I do to people who steal from me, Coakley?”
I hold in a searing breath.
Finally, something’s going right. I think.
Paisley’s men are right under the shelves, rummaging around in sacks for gold that isn’t there.
Paye’s distracted with Gavin, and Gavin’s distracted with Paisley.
They don’t even look at me as I slowly edge a little farther inside, pressing my back against the wall, moving toward the dangling cord, and just making it look like I’m trying to get out of the way to save my own skin.
Gavin stares at Paisley, fingers tightening on his gun, his rough face red. “I didn’t steal nothing. Are you mental? You owe me, anyway. What the fuck about my cut? You never would’ve found this shit if I hadn’t—”
“Actually, I would,” Paisley says tiredly. “Since Felicity was kind enough to have her guilty little conscience fess up. So, you didn’t do anything but lend us splatter protection in case she had a nice stick of dynamite waiting for us.”
“Meaning...what? You’re telling me to my face you’re screwing me over?” His face sours and I know his trigger finger must be itching.
“Meaning I have no use for you anymore,” she says coldly.
Gavin doesn’t get a chance to swing his gun up.
Doesn’t even get a chance to say the last word.
Not before Paisley’s finger tightens on the trigger, and there’s the deafening bark of a bullet firing in such a small space the sound explodes off the walls.
I flinch, a scream caught in my throat as Gavin’s head turns into an explosion of red in front of me, like a flower bursting into bloom—blood spattering everywhere.
My hands fly up to shield me, but I can still feel it hitting me.
Wet and hot and salty and terrible.
Awful enough to nearly make me retch, my heart slamming fit to break, panicky raw fire in my throat.
I’m frozen, hunched against the wall as Gavin’s lifeless body tumbles to the floor, and suddenly I realize how absolutely screwed I am.
I’m not going to survive until Langley gets here.
I’m not surviving this at all.
There’s just my own death whirling in Paisley’s eyes as she advances on me, her smile like the empty grin a pretty porcelain doll wears.
“Now,” she whispers. “We’ve got one last bit of very important business besides the gold, sweet Fe-li-ci-tee. About my daddy’s knife.”
26
The Golden Ticket (Alaska)
Okay.
Turns out I was a little overconfident about getting the Employees Only exit open from the outside.
The damned lock refused to break or jimmy no matter how much power I threw at it.
One thing you’ve got to give Felicity Randall; she’s had so many break-ins that she made sure no one could get in through the side entrance without having a key or shooting the entire strike plate off the door.
Can’t risk that when it could reveal my presence and accelerate whatever’s going on inside. The only kind of distraction I want to be is a useful one.
Not the fatal error that causes Paisley to shoot Felicity in cold blood and run.
Not a gamble I’m willing to take.
After a frantic minute searching around, I found my next best option—the roof.
I hear muffled voices inside as I scale the small service ladder leading to the top of the building—nothing but an array of HVAC housings, a narrow service shed, a few vents for the boiler system
, and fuck yes, there it is.
A window.
A skylight, technically, looking in on the back room.
That’s my way inside and my one chance to save her.
I creep across the concrete slab of the roof, without letting my gear jingle in the slightest, placing every tread so my weight won’t vibrate to jostle anything below.
It’d be just my luck, giving myself away with a heavy step that sends a spoon clattering to the floor in The Nest, ruining everything.
Even if I’m starting to think this plan wasn’t very well thought out.
I’ve got no clue how in hell I’ll mash my giant ass through that tiny skylight.
Guess we’ll find out how well I can hold my breath.
I don’t even make it to the edge of the window before I hear a gunshot.
My heart stops like I’m the one who was struck, straight through the chest.
Felicity.
Dammit—don’t let me be too late.
Please don’t let her die just feet away from me, bleeding out below because I wasn’t fast enough, because I didn’t protect her.
No.
Forget quiet and worries and tactical thoughts.
There’s exactly one way in: hurling myself at the window like a human cannonball, and hoping the force will punch a big enough hole for access.
No time to think.
Just reflex, master of fate—decide, act, move.
And I’m moving.
Skidding to my knees.
Hand gripping the edge of the skylight’s frame.
My other hand swings to the hilt of one pistol as my entire body lashes on my outstretched arm like a pendulum, arc up, boots down, and—
Through!
Glass shatters into pulverized glitter under my boots.
Metal bends with a howling shriek and tears out of its housings.
Then I’m plummeting straight down, falling like a rock, pistol snapping out of its holster and thumb catching the safety.
I land in the room in a shower of biting glass, fuzzy colors whipping past and startled shouts rising everywhere.
Even under me, apparently.
My feet hit something soft and yielding. It crumples under my boots. My aching legs absorb the shock before I roll free and come up on one knee.