by Chris Bostic
I thought it might be the visitor’s lot by the gift shop, so I looked up as we closed on the back door to the office. Lee kept driving all the way past the gift shop without slowing.
I watched out the side window and found myself surprised to see three cars in the lot, not just my old Ford. Clarice’s Honda and a sedan I’d never seen before occupied the spaces next to mine.
Over the grumble of the truck’s motor and bouncing of old shocks, I picked up on the higher-pitched whine of the UTV’s engine. I looked across the pasture at our side-by-side racing off in the distance, headed to where the barrel workers all parked by a metal maintenance shed.
“No way we can catch him.” Lee slowed our truck to a crawl. Venom dripped from his voice when he said, “The cops can deal with him if they ever fucking get here.”
Lee parked broadside across the road, blocking entry into the gift shop parking lot, gazing into the distance at the escaping perpetrator.
The whine of the UTV faded to a dull grumble as Little Willie parked it next to an old beater truck in the employee parking lot.
We watched him climb out of the side-by-side and duck inside his truck. Then he came right back out.
“Oh, shit,” Lee muttered. “He’s not leaving.”
CHAPTER 28
My eyes weren’t working together well enough to tell, so I asked Lee, “What’s he doing?”
“Gettin’ his shotgun.”
“Awesome.” Damn hillbillies and their gun racks in the rear window.
“We gotta go.” Lee took his foot off the brake and bounced the truck all the way back to the front door of the gift shop. “We’ll lockdown in here.”
“Better call the cops again too,” I said as I pulled on the door handle.
My legs wobbled when I practically fell out of the seat, but Lee was around in seconds to guide me around the truck and toward the door.
He tried to twist the knob, but it didn’t turn. Rather than take the time to get his keys, he propped me up against the wall so he could throw his shoulder into it.
The door flew open, slamming into the wall behind it. Probably knocking a hole in the drywall, I thought with a grimace, though that came more from the rattling in my brain that any worry about superficial wounds on an already damaged distillery.
Lee helped me through the door and took me straight to the cashier’s desk. Once I was propped up there, he rushed back over by the door to close it, and proceeded to push a big couch up against it.
After a quick look through the blinds, he came rushing back toward me.
“Too many windows here. C’mon.”
He went to take my arm, but I shrugged him off.
“I got this.” I pushed off the counter to straighten up and worked my way around it, though I kept hold of it at the same time. “You just watch our back.”
Past the counter and around a corner, we walked into the spacious gift shop, replete with fireplace and more comfy couches—along with all kinds of elaborate merchandise befitting a premium bourbon brand.
Bottles of our different offerings lined the walls in fancy bookshelf-style cabinets. I snagged a polo shirt off the nearest rack as I stumbled toward the offices in the back. Then I plucked some windbreaker-style pants off another.
We weaved through rack after rack of logo merchandise. I reached from one frame to another for balance. Midway across the room, I startled when the far door opened.
“What’s goin’ on out here?” Clarice bellowed across the room. Her eyes met mine. “Holy shit!”
“Nice to see you too.”
“Your face. Oh my God.” She came running toward me, but pulled up short upon seeing Lee brandishing his pistol.
“Better stay down,” Lee said. “We’ve got a shooter in the complex.”
“Still? I didn’t get another text,” she blubbered. “It was like…should’ve been like all clear hours ago.”
“How could you not have heard?” I asked, incredulous.
Lee’s impatience reached a crescendo. He waved her to the back before she could answer. “Just go lock yourself in your office. Now!”
Once she turned to go, he pushed a couch up against the side exit, where the daily tours typically started.
Not content with that, he threw a couple clothing racks on top, and shoved another couch over.
He looked back to me, obviously winded.
“That’s good enough,” I said.
“Still too many windows,” he said as he went to glance out the pair next to the table where the departing tours would gather. “You should get back there with Clarice.”
I hesitated, wondering if he was going to follow.
“Please go on. I’ll be there.”
I nodded and turned to follow Clarice, who was already out of sight.
The whine of a motor became evident. Definitely the side-by-side.
I flattened myself back against the wall in the hallway, making sure to pick the side where I could keep my eyes on Lee.
He stayed at the windows but kneeled to where he could peek out the bottom under the miniblinds.
The sound of the motor grew louder, before tapering off. Then it picked up again on the other side of the house.
“He’s circling.” Lee scooted back a little and pulled the big pistol out of the waistband holster. He slid it across the hardwood to me. “Watch that back door. It’s only locked, not blocked.”
I bent over to retrieve the weapon, causing blood to rush to my aching head. So I sank to my knees instead.
My heart hammered against my ribcage, making my bruised ribs feel nothing short of excruciating.
The UTV motor whined again. That time from the rear as Little Willie zipped past the building. I tightened my grip on the gun and kept watching the back hall, even after I’d heard the side-by-side again from around front.
“Hopefully he’ll take his shit and go,” I called to Lee, meaning the cases out in the bed of the lopsided truck.
“I wish,” he replied cryptically.
“You don’t think?”
“A guy like that, he’s in deep now. Desperate and totally irrational.” Lee shook his head. “I don’t expect he’ll just walk away.”
“He can’t get in here,” I insisted, oddly confident in our abilities to hold him off.
“No, maybe not. But he can riddle this place with buckshot or worse.”
Though I wasn’t sure at that moment what worse might entail, I used my favorite phrase to dryly reply, “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
Lee turned up an eyebrow at that one but let me have my snarky little moment without further comment.
I looked at an endlessly long cabinet of liquor on the far wall, and my imagination ran wild. I could see bottles shattering under a hailstorm of gunfire. Then I got a darker image.
“He hates this place, probably more than he hates us,” I said. “He’ll burn it to the ground.”
“The thought crossed my mind.” Lee rested his head in the palm of his hand and exhaled. “We need to be ready for anything.”
Nothing like stress to bring out another little joke.
“Do they have sprinklers in this place, ‘cause I’m ready for a shower?”
Lee shook his head.
“I mean look at me.”
He remained quiet for a while as he peered out the bottom of the window. On occasion, he glanced up toward the main entrance, though we would obviously hear the thug if he tried to break in that way.
Lee seemed itching to go confront the guy. Maybe to try to get a clean shot and knock him off the side-by-side. Or ambush him unloading bottles from the old truck.
But I sure read that wrong.
Out of the blue, he turned to me and said, “Why don’t you go get cleaned up?” He pointed down the hallway toward the employee bathroom. “I got this. I’m just gonna call the cops again.”
He held up his phone as if to prove the point.
I didn’t want to leave him alone, although there was little I cou
ld do other than take up space in the hallway.
“I can watch the back door too,” he said, sliding farther back into the room and tipping over a coffee table to make a toddler’s fort. He sat behind it and punched the three buttons on his phone. “So go on. Get that, uh…blood off you.”
“When you put it that way.” I struggled to my feet and started to head down the hallway. Then I paused to tell him, “But before I do that, I’ll help Clarice push a couple desks up against the back door.”
“Good call.”
“Wishing you the same,” I mumbled, and prayed he got a better response from the operator that time. It had to have been pushing thirty minutes since the last call by that point.
Short of the bathrooms, I reached my office space and turned the door handle. It didn’t budge. Evidently my boss had taken Lee a bit too seriously.
“Clarice, it’s me. Can you unlock it?”
“Coming,” she chirped.
The second I heard it click, I turned the handle and shoved it open, nearly knocking her over in the process.
“We need some desks out here to-”
Further words evaporated when I spotted the creepy grocery store vice-president, Paul Phillips, sitting behind her desk, staring back at me.
“What the fuck are you still doing here?” I asked him pointblank.
“Hope, dear,” Clarice said, her voice catching. Her eyes ballooned when she saw me wave the gun.
“Hope nothing.” I brushed past her. “Where’s James? Is he hiding in here too?”
“No, young lady.” Paul stood up slowly, which only helped draw my attention to the fact all her desktop knickknacks looked to have been swept onto the floor. “He’s, uh, he’s gone back.”
“James left after the alert cleared, and I sent Bethany home the same time he went.” She directed a thin smile at Paul. “Mister Phillips didn’t want me here alone. We were just, uh-”
I spun back around to face down Clarice. “I don’t even want to know what you two were doing.” I marched back to the door and pointed my pistol down the hallway to the rear. “Just push some desks over here and block the back door.”
At least Paul nodded and got to work. Clarice blubbered some kind of excuse that I ignored. I went on to the bathroom, shoving the door open like a cowboy entering a saloon.
Once I saw my face in the mirror, I felt more like a rodeo clown. I looked like one too.
CHAPTER 29
I doused my face in the sink multiple times. The cold water worked wonders on my headache, thought nothing less than a generous handful of ibuprofen and sleep could have really knocked it out.
I set to work scrubbing my neck and cheeks. It took a while and a mountain of paper towels. When I looked back up, I managed a crooked smile.
Not too shabby besides this dress.
My ribs and assorted muscles groaned as I slipped the straps off my shoulders. Then I pulled it down to my waist to where I could use the rest of the paper towels on my torso.
Stumbling to the door, I shoved it open. I stuck my head out into the hallway and nodded approvingly at the pair of desks blocking the back door.
“What’d I do with my new shirt?” I yelled down the hall toward the gift shop.
“Say what?” Lee replied.
“I grabbed a new shirt and some pants. What happened to ‘em?”
Lee shuffled around and retrieved a new polo off the rack. He wadded it up in his hand and tried to throw it down the hallway.
“Nice job,” I said as it burst open and fell like a parachute twenty feet away. “How about some pants too?”
“Sorry. I’ll grab some.”
He turned away to shop for me.
Of course, he spun back around for a good long look when I’d already stepped out into the hallway in my bra and rolled down dress to retrieve the shirt.
“Sorry again,” he mumbled.
“I’ll bet you are.”
“Really.” He went over to a different clothing rack. “I should probably change too.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t watch,” I shot back, as I pulled the shirt over my head. In the process, I scraped the knot on the back of my head, provoking a stab of pain and a wince.
Still, I stayed out in the middle of the hallway, admiring the way his muscles flexed as he pulled his dirty, bourbon-soaked polo off. That helped me forget the pain.
“No watching, huh?” he said, when he caught me staring a little too long.
“Just guarding your back, you know? In case the freakin’ madman tries to sneak in here.”
I finished pulling down my new shirt and then unclasped my dirty bra. I struggled to wriggle a sore arm out of it. Once free on one side, I pulled it out through the opposite shirtsleeve.
There were obviously no clean replacements in the shop, so Lee watched with a raised eyebrow as I tossed my bra on the floor and straightened the tail of my shirt.
“Feeling…better?” he asked.
“Just about.”
“You’re looking better.”
I gave the charmer a shake of the head, and said, “I’ll get my own pants.”
I hurried out of the hallway to the nearest rack so I could grab a new pair of stretchy workout pants.
As quickly as my tired, achy muscles would allow, I pulled down my dress and stepped out of it, then fought mightily to slip on the tight pants. All the while, I surveyed the gift shop and found another new change.
Lee had moved more furniture around to the point that no one could possibly budge the side door, not even the barrel rolling giant. Or so I hoped.
“It sounds quiet,” I noted as I dropped to a crouch.
“Yeah, I haven’t heard him in a while.”
“Maybe he’s emptying out the truck?”
“Maybe. Or gone back to Bottling to finish up.”
“I doubt that.” I got down on hands and knees and crawled over toward the coffee table to join Lee. “We need to find out though.”
“I know. Been thinking about that.”
I remembered he was supposed to have used the phone while I cleaned myself up. “Been thinking about calling the cops too?”
“Oh, I did.” He shook his head and growled, deep and guttural. “The useless bastards. They swear someone is on the way now.”
“Now?” I asked, but he didn’t offer an explanation. Rather than press him right away, I said, “Tell me it’s not gonna be like another half hour or something.”
“I sure as hell hope not.”
“Did they say anything about when?”
He shook his head. “No estimate this time.”
“Great. I’m not even gonna ask about what happened before.”
“Probably a good idea.” Lee growled again.
I put my hand on his knee to soothe the savage beast and tried to not be the one who acted like I could really use some soothing, even though I craved it.
He obviously had a lot on his mind. I didn’t need to have him worrying about me too.
Lee put his hand over mine. Our fingers linked together, but not a word was spoken. Lee didn’t even look at me.
I could practically see steam pouring out of his ears, cartoon-style, as he stewed over whatever the police had told him. I wanted to know so badly, but didn’t want to poke the bear right then.
The longer we sat there in silence, the more I pondered our situation. It seemed maybe for the best that he was so locked in, focusing on his anger and keeping us safe, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I should try to help him relax a little.
For the longest time, I didn’t know what to say. Then I remembered my quick run-in with Clarice and Paul. Seeing how those two had stayed back in the office doing who knew what, the story seemed worthy of sharing with Lee.
“Sooo…you’re not gonna believe what those two were up to back there.” I pointed with my head toward the offices.
“So that’s Paul, huh?” His expression softened a little as he turned to look at me. “I have to say I was s
urprised when I saw that dude come out to move those desks, but I kinda forgot they’re still holed up back there.”
“Holed up alright.” I shook my head and groaned. “You have no idea. Her desk was all cleaned off…like the classic arm sweep.” I demonstrated for full effect.
“Like a landing strip.”
“So to speak.” I chuckled at that before turning up my nose.
Lee nudged me with his shoulder and winked, saying, “I never thought about trying something back there.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “I’m fine if we don’t.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“I think it left me sometime this afternoon…probably to never return.”
I’ll admit it was nice seeing the cute pout form on his lips. Not to mention the way he’d loosened up so quickly.
“C’mon, Hope,” he pressed, nudging me again. “I’ll bet I could-”
Lee suddenly quieted at the sound of the whining engine again. It seemed to come from well behind us, possibly from the bottling hall like he had theorized earlier.
Rather than tell me he’d been right, he said, “Wait here. I gotta see what’s up.”
He crawled around the table and over to the nearest window. He popped open a couple slats with two fingers and stared through the sliver.
“Dang, he’s loaded up a bunch,” Lee reported. “The bed is full of boxes.”
He watched until the thug slipped out of sight, presumably to take the goods to his personal truck.
It seemed totally impractical given the situation for the brute to be wasting so much time. Little Willie knew we could identify him to the cops. Between the robbery and a dead accomplice, he had to assume things would end badly for him.
Lee didn’t disagree with my theory when I offered it up, but he did suggest, “Maybe he’s gonna run after all. The loser probably doesn’t have a dime to his name, so he’s gotta try to sell whatever bottles he can to get some money.”
“But he has to know the cops will be here any second. It’s risky as hell.”
“Yep. Stupid and greedy too. Plus irrational, but that’s how most criminals operate. They always think they can get away with it…until they can’t.”