Point taken. “None, but I could still help.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Get rid of the attitude, John Paul. I can help. I have a few moves of my own.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Never mind.”
She was doing a slow burn. Out of all the people in the world, she had to get stuck with the most obnoxious one. “You think you’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?”
“Just about,” he drawled.
Avery concentrated on the road. Thankfully, Jungle Boy didn’t have any other sarcastic remarks to make. His scowl could have been chiseled in stone.
She thought she heard something, quickly rolled her window down, and strained to listen. “Do you hear that?”
John Paul flipped off the heater blower, rolled his window down, and then nodded. The sound of running water was faint, but there. “We went farther than I thought if we’re close to the river. Maybe it’s a tributary. It sounds like a waterfall.”
They came to yet another crossroad. This one was traveled more than the last. And there was a sign nailed to a tree: Last Chance Country Store. Beer and Raft Rentals. Below the sign was an arrow pointing to the west.
The road curved downward. They hit a deep rut and lurched forward as they once again broke through the trees.
“The store’s got to be around the bend down there,” he said as he shot across the road and up into the trees on the other side. There was just enough room to turn the car around. Satisfied that they were concealed from the road, he put it in park and turned the motor off.
“How much time do we have left?”
“Twelve minutes,” she said. “You think that’s the spot?”
“It’s gotta be the place. It sticks out, doesn’t it?”
He was right. Please, God, let him be right. She could just make out a small rustic building through the trees. It sat on the bank of a river and was a place where river travelers could stop for supplies.
He unhooked his seat belt, reached under the seat, and pulled out a SIG Sauer. When she saw the gun, her mouth dropped open.
“I’m leaving the keys,” he said, ignoring her reaction to the gun. “If you hear gunshots, you get the hell out of here. You hear me?”
She wasn’t about to leave him, but she thought he’d want to argue if she told him the truth, and so she simply nodded.
“Is it loaded?” she asked as he opened the door.
“Hell, yes.”
Stupid question, she thought. Of course it was loaded. “Be careful.” She moved into the driver’s seat.
“Hand me the watch.”
“You’re taking it?” she asked.
“You think I’m going to leave it here with you and let Monk know exactly where you are? Give it to me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Go hunting.”
Chapter 14
TIME HAD RUN OUT. AVERY HAD JUST DECIDED TO GO AFTER John Paul when he opened her door. She never heard him coming. “Monk isn’t close. He could be on his way, but he isn’t here now.”
“Are we driving down or walking?”
“I’ll drive.”
She scrambled back into the passenger seat, bumping her knee on the dashboard. He slid in and started the engine.
“How do you know he isn’t hiding behind a tree or a bush somewhere?”
“Because I looked. There weren’t any signs.”
“You would have seen them?”
“Of course I would have seen them.”
She was reassured by his arrogance. “Okay, then.”
“There’s a trailer behind the store about thirty yards to the south, and next to it is an old beat-up truck. No one was inside the trailer.”
“You went in?”
He didn’t answer. “There’s a man and a woman inside the store. The woman’s in the back office using the phone, and the man’s in front, working the counter. He keeps looking out the window like he’s expecting company. While I was there, a milk truck pulled out and another guy was unloading cases of beer. There are three or four customers.”
He drove onto the road and continued down the slope. His gun was in his lap.
“Do you see that man looking at us?” he asked. “He’s on the right by the door.”
They watched a young couple herd their two little boys out the front door, then saw the man inside slam the door.
“What the hell?” John Paul muttered when the man turned the sign over in the window. “Closed, my ass.”
He parked close to the side of the building so that she would be protected when she stepped out. He turned the motor off, slipped the keys into his jeans, and as he sprinted around the hood of the car, she saw him tuck the gun into his waistband.
They heard rap music blaring as a car pulled into the parking lot. John Paul went to the corner of the building and looked out front. Four young men in their late teens piled out and stood laughing and guzzling their beers. On top of the old Chevy were two kayaks roped to the roof.
John Paul motioned to Avery to stay put, retraced his steps, and said, “I’m gonna check out the back again.”
He let the man at the window watch him walk into the woods, then circled around, swung over the railing at the back door and looked inside. The woman was hunched over the desk, still talking on the phone.
Even though she was much too young, she reminded him of Ma Kettle from the old movies he used to watch on television when he was a kid. Dressed in dirty overalls and a muted plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, she was rattling off numbers into the phone as she turned the pages of a Sharper Image catalog. She didn’t notice him watching her. He stepped back as the swinging door opened. A man poked his head in the room and braced the door with his hand to keep it from hitting him.
“Chrystal, we got us a problem,” he said in a thick hillbilly accent. “There’s two cars out front now. Four drunks just got out of one car. They’re most likely stoppin’ to stock up on more beer, I expect, but I’m most worried about that gal in the other car. She’s gonna be knockin’ on the front door any second now. I think maybe she spotted me peekin’ out the window at her ’cause that car she was in is parked on the side of the building now. Think she’s the one?”
“Can you hang on a minute, hon?” Chrystal said into the phone. She turned in the swivel chair and frowned at the dark-haired man. “Most likely she is, but I’m not finished with this catalog yet, and you promised me I could—”
He interrupted. “Maybe she ain’t the one. Maybe she just needs to use the facilities. There was a big fella with her, but he went off into the woods to find his own facilities, I expect, like those four drunken boys. One of them is peein’ on the petunias.”
“Can’t you see I’m busy here, Kenny? If that gal wants to use our facilities, you make her buy something first, and don’t let her wander back here. I’ve still got a good ten pages to go.”
“Don’t know why you didn’t think about doin’ that earlier. Had to wait till the last minute, didn’t you?”
John Paul went back to the entrance and was on the porch by the time Kenny unbolted the door.
Avery slipped around the corner of the building and ran to stand next to him. He pushed her behind him. He was being protective, and she didn’t mind. She was so worried that they might not be in the right place, she couldn’t think about anything else.
“Can’t you read the sign? We’re closed,” the man said.
Avery stepped to John Paul’s side. “It’s an emergency,” she blurted.
“Then you got to buy something first.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You got to buy something, and after you pay, I’ll let you use the facilities.”
Kenny was snarling at her like an attack dog. He was a thoroughly unpleasant looking man with blue-black dyed hair and bushy brown eyebrows. He wore a dark plaid shirt tucked into his faded black jeans. His gut hung down over his belt.
“Did you hear me?” he asked when she didn’t respond. “I ain’t gonna budge until you agree.”
He changed his mind when John Paul stepped forward. If Kenny hadn’t gotten out of the way, he was sure the big man would have walked right over him.
Up close, Kenny was much younger than John Paul had estimated. He couldn’t have been more than thirty-five or forty years old. He was also agile. He warily kept his eye on John Paul and hurried around the counter as though the barrier would protect him.
Planting his big hands on the counter, he leaned toward Avery and smiled. One of his eyeteeth had a gold cap that gleamed in the sunlight streaming in through the dirty window. “All right, little lady. I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. Since you’re so pretty, I’m gonna break the rules for you. You don’t have to buy nothin’. Nothin’ at all. The bathroom’s right over there,” he said, pointing to the door in the far corner.
She shook her head. “My name’s Avery Delaney, and this is John Paul Renard. Has anyone come in here asking for us?”
“No,” he answered, a little too quickly.
He was lying. All the telltale signs were there. He couldn’t look her in the eye, and he was becoming more and more agitated by the second. Hostile too. He kept glancing up at John Paul as he shifted his weight from foot to foot.
The door crashed into the wall when it was thrown open. Avery and Kenny turned to see who was coming inside, but John Paul kept his attention on Kenny. He wasn’t going to trust the bastard for as much as a second.
Three of the four boys sauntered in and staggered to a stop when they spotted Avery. She could hear the fourth boy. He was leaning over the porch railing throwing up.
“Hi there,” one of them called out. Another tried to whistle, but he couldn’t get his lips to work. Spit sprayed out of his mouth instead.
Two of the boys were obviously brothers, for they looked alike and sported identical eagle tattoos on their forearms. The oldest-looking one of the group had a scraggly goatee and a pierced eyebrow with a silver ring.
“The store’s closed,” Kenny shouted.
“No, it ain’t,” Goatee said. “You let them in,” he added, pointing to Avery and John Paul. “We only want some beer.”
“Yeah, beer,” one of the brothers parroted.
They staggered toward the cooler against the back wall. One of them tripped into a display of cans and sent them careening everywhere. Goatee thought that was hilarious.
Kenny wasn’t amused. He looked as if he wanted to kill someone. “You pick up every damned one of them cans and put them back like I had them. You hear me?”
A brother snickered while Goatee gave Kenny the finger.
“Get the hell out of my store,” Kenny bellowed. He turned his wrath on Avery next. “If you ain’t gonna use my facilities, and you ain’t gonna buy nothin’, then maybe you folks ought to leave.”
“What about phone calls?” she asked, sounding as desperate as she was feeling. “Have you gotten any calls for me?”
“No.”
One of the brothers was standing about three feet away from Avery and was fixated on her as he swayed on his feet. His stare was unnerving.
“Stop staring at me.”
He grinned stupidly at her, then lunged with both arms outstretched with the obvious intent of hugging her.
John Paul was about to pull Avery into his side, but she was already moving. She lashed out at the drunk with a kick that was quick and effortless. Her foot struck him square in the stomach and sent him flying into the wall. He hit with a loud thud, slid down, and landed on his butt.
She pointed a finger at him. “You stay there.”
And still the stupid grin remained on the drunk’s face. He was too far gone to feel any pain.
She turned her attention to Kenny again. “May I use your phone?” Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Goatee and the other brother coming around the corner. Each of them had two six-packs of beer and a bag of ice. She didn’t mince words. “Over there, both of you. Sit down next to your friend and be quiet until I’m finished.”
Goatee shook his head. “You can’t tell me what to do, sweet cakes.”
“We don’t have a phone,” Kenny muttered at the very same time.
“Sure you do,” John Paul asserted as he stepped toward Kenny.
“What happened, Mark?” the other brother asked.
Goatee strode forward, thinking he could elbow his way between Avery and John Paul.
“My turn,” John Paul drawled a scant second before he sent Goatee sailing headfirst into the wall. He dropped the beer and the ice on top of Mark, then fell down next to him.
They didn’t have to tell the third drunk to join his friends. He staggered over, put the beer down, and sat. Leaning back, he opened one can and took a long swallow.
Kenny realized John Paul was looking at the phone on the counter. “What I meant to say is that we got a phone. Of course we do, but it ain’t workin’. Line’s down and it takes weeks and weeks to get a repairman to come all this way. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re sittin’ out in the middle of nowhere.” He was talking so fast the words were tripping over each other.
Kenny could see John Paul wasn’t buying it, and so he turned to Avery. The phony smile was back. “Your mister have a problem?” As he continued to smile at Avery, he slowly reached underneath the counter.
He looked down and too late realized he never should have taken his eyes off John Paul. He heard a click and jerked up to find the barrel of John Paul’s gun pointed at his forehead.
“Now hold on. No need for that,” Kenny stammered.
“John Paul, we need this man’s cooperation,” Avery said.
“And this is how we get it,” he replied. “Kenny, turn around and put your hands on the wall behind you. Avery, get his gun from under the counter.”
She walked around the counter and immediately spotted the Magnum on the shelf underneath. She slowly picked it up and then checked it. The weapon was loaded and ready. She engaged the safety, noticed a box of cartridges, and grabbed that too. She put both in a plastic sack with a picture of a squirrel on it.
“What are you doing with a Magnum? Do you have a permit?” she asked Kenny.
“That’s none of your damn, nosy business.”
The good-old-boy façade was gone now. True colors were finally spewing out. Kenny’s face twisted with rage as he snarled, “I can refuse service to anybody I want to, and if I want to keep a loaded gun on the premises, then that’s what I’m gonna do. Can I turn around now? I’m getting a crick in my neck. You can use the phone. I was just . . . worried you was gonna make a long-distance call, and my cousin George, he’s the man who owns this place, well, he would see the bill and then he’d say to me, ‘Kenny, you’re gonna pay for this.’ ”