He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it to the floor, then gingerly went to work on his pants, grimacing every time he ventured too close to the bandaged thigh. He finally got the pants off and flung it away, but it didn’t get very far (Damn, was he getting weaker, too?) and watched it land in a pile next to the shirt.
Hank found himself staring at his wet clothes. He was tired and didn’t move. He didn’t want to move. And there was something—
What the hell is that?
There was something sticking out of one of his pant pockets — the sharp corner of a white piece of…something. Hank bent down and picked the still-wet pants off the floor and stuck his hand into its pocket.
He rummaged around, found it, and pulled it out.
It was a folded piece of paper — one of those slips the waitresses used to jot down orders at Ben’s Diner. This one was for a cheeseburger (with extra pickles), diet soda, and a side of fries. There was no reason it should have been in his pocket. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to order before his bladder forced him to visit the bathroom first, and then the robbery had happened—
So how the hell had it gotten into his pocket? Did someone…put it there?
He flipped the piece of paper over and saw a phone number scribbled on the empty white spaces in blue ink. The numbers were slightly distorted because of the water and heat from the shower he had taken, but there was still enough intact that he could make out all ten digits. He didn’t recognize the area code; it wasn’t a local number.
“Grab his phone,” the Brit had said.
“He doesn’t have one,” the woman answered after going through his pockets.
She had gone through his pockets. While she was doing that, it wouldn’t have taken much for her to leave something behind — like a piece of paper with a phone number on it.
But why would she do that? That was the part that didn’t make any sense. Why would you put a piece of paper with a phone number in the pocket of the guy you just shot?
Then again, she had also refused to finish him off, and even argued with the other two over it.
What the hell is going on here?
He stared at the phone, then at the piece of paper in his hand…then back at the phone.
He didn’t move or act for the next five minutes.
Finally, Hank picked the old receiver off the cradle and punched in the numbers. He swallowed, then cleared his throat, then spent the next few seconds waiting for the number to connect, going through a few hundred scenarios about what he was going to say when someone finally picked up—
“Hello?” a female voice answered on the other end.
“Um, hello,” Hank said.
“Who is this?” the woman (girl?) asked.
“Someone, uh, gave me your number.”
The girl (Hank was sure of that now) didn’t answer right away. But she didn’t hang up on him either, because he could hear breathing on the other end. Was that because she was nervous? Suspicious? Maybe both. And where exactly was she? Hank had called a lot of numbers in his life, but he still couldn’t recall the area code he had just punched in.
“You still there?” Hank said, if just to be sure. Who knows? He was getting old, and weren’t eyesight and hearing the first things to go—
“Is she okay?” the girl asked.
“Who?” he was going to say, but stopped himself in time. The girl was looking for information and was clearly just as uncertain about him as he was about her, so the last thing he wanted was to spook her. Right now, she was his only link as to what had happened at Ben’s and to the woman who had shot him.
“I can’t say,” he said.
“Why not?” she asked.
“I can’t say too much over the phone. We should meet in person. It’ll be, uh, safer that way.”
The girl hesitated.
Shit. Did he just blow it? He had stammered a bit there at the end. Did the girl catch it? Did she know he was talking out of his ass? And the thing about not being able to say too much over the phone. Who did he think he was, James fucking Bond?
Maybe he should have called Miller and given the number to him. The state police had a lot more resources on hand. Hell, they could have just punched the number into a computer and come up with a name—
“Okay,” the girl finally said. “You have a pen?”
Fuck me, Hank thought.
Three
“So this is why I’m here,” Allie said. “Why Juliet was here before me.”
Reese nodded. “We’ve found, through trial and error, that they respond better when there’s a woman around. Most of them aren’t inclined to cause trouble, but there’s always a rebel or two in the midst. It’s really just an emergency option — a just in case. Chances are we won’t need you for most of the trip, but it’s better to have you here when we do than not.”
“What exactly am I supposed to do?”
“For now, just keep them calm. Get them to trust you, in case a situation arises later where you’ll be needed. The more cooperative they are now, the easier it’ll be for all of us. And them.” He looked closely at her when he added, “Didn’t Juliet tell you?”
“Not in so many words. But she didn’t tell me you’d make me rob a diner full of people just to see if I could do it, either.”
He smiled. “We had to be sure you had it in you.”
“And are you?”
“The bags of money in the trunk say yes.”
She stared at the door and didn’t move. There were no locks on it, nothing to keep anyone from coming out if they so chose. Except, of course, all the big bad men waiting on this side of the door.
And right now, she was one of those “big bad men.”
“As Dwight would say, it’s not rocket science,” Reese said next to her. “Be…motherly.”
“Motherly,” she repeated.
“It’s the presence of another woman that counts. After all the testosterone they’ve encountered so far, you’ll be a breath of fresh air. Get them to trust you. It shouldn’t be too hard. Reassure them that everything’s fine.”
“So lie, then.”
“Yes, but maybe don’t say that.”
She took a breath (and hoped he didn’t see) before reaching for the lever when he put a hand on her arm. In the two to three seconds after his fingers tightened around her wrist, Allie had to battle every instinct to reach for the Sig Sauer holstered behind her.
She looked over at him instead and matched his intense gaze. He was taller than her, so she had to tilt her head slightly upward to see his eyes. “What?” she said, injecting just the right amount of annoyance into her voice.
“Don’t tell them anything. About us, why they’re here, and more importantly, where we’re going. The less they know, the more pliable they’ll be. Best-case scenario, remember?”
“Got it.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“In you go, then.”
He removed his hand, and she jerked the lever open and stepped inside before he could say another word.
The room smelled of sweat and urine — and, most of all, fear—despite the ventilation and two high windows that were open to allow sunlight and fresh air inside. There was a single squiggly eco-friendly light bulb in the center, and it was just enough to highlight the frightened faces looking back at her — or, at least, the ones who had managed to overcome their terror to look at all. The rest either had their heads turned so that they faced the walls or were leaning into each other’s shoulders.
It took every ounce of willpower Allie had not to turn around and leave the room and shoot every single man outside. The only reason she didn’t was because it wouldn’t have done any good…except lead to her death. And for the occupants of this room, her blaze of glory moment would just be another horrifying ordeal for them to survive.