James Patterson - Thriller - Stories to Keep You Up All Night

"And you needed armor."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I did."

She found herself close to him, a foot maybe-he'd been speaking quietly and drawn her in, and there was an instant where she thought she'd just keep leaning until their lips met. His heaviness seemed to match the weight of her disappointments. A single child raised motherless in a frozen plain. She'd tried to get out, even to Detroit, but she'd chosen young and then her marriage had dissolved, leaving her mired like a shot bird. Twenty years old then and she'd never found it in herself to risk again.

She'd gone to Florida once-Disneyworld with Sue Ann-but as for spreading her wings, well, she'd always stayed in her childhood bedroom, except for during her brief marriage. And even then she'd made it not ten miles, just across the gully. A decade and a half ago, now. And so she'd spent her years since laughing with the truckers, shooting stick with the COs and taking the occasional roll in the sheets just to get some warmth inside her. Her indiscretions bought her snickers in church and criminating looks from her father, exaggerated into a kind of horror now by his palsied left cheek and the white film ringing his lips. It stung her deep and hard, the murmur that preceded and followed her, but she'd long resolved herself to getting what sustenance she could where she could, and to hell with the rest of them.

She'd been saving up though, a few years now, and maybe that money would get her out of Upper Ridgeway or at the very least out of her father's house. Or maybe-a notion almost too painfully hopeful to entertain-it would help her get a house with someone else someday. But her radar was off, as her father liked to say. She saw what she wanted to see in men and sometimes these days she didn't even see that.

Brian raised a hand to her cheek (impossibly, impossibly warm), his elbow braced on the bar so she could give his palm the full weight of her chin and then the door smashed open and a man with a gun charged them, screaming so loud flecks of saliva dotted the bar.

"The safe-I know there's a fucking safe get it open now."

Laura backed against the glass shelves, a bottle of Triple Sec bouncing twice on the floor and clattering to a quiet roll. Brian remained on his stool facing forward, enveloped in an intense calm that spoke of experience, his hands spread in view on the bar. His eyes stayed straight ahead; he seemed to be tracking the man's movement in the mirror behind her.

The gunman wore several long-sleeved T-shirts, one on top of the other. Snow and sweat had matted his wispy blond hair to his skull. He fumbled a credit-card-size block of what looked like beige Play-Doh from his pocket, his stare level on Laura.

"You'd better move, bitch." The gunman shoved Brian's shoulder with his gun. "And you, get up against the-"

Brian pivoted on the stool and drove his fist into the man's gut. The gunman doubled over and the gun barked once. Brian grunted and staggered forward.

The man shuffled backward toward the door, screeching, "Dammit, Goddammit. You stupid idiot," and then the bells shivered, the wind rushed, and he was gone.

Laura vaulted the bar. Gritting his teeth, Brian fought off his boot and hurled it into the fireplace. His sock, drenched with blood, made a peeling sound as he slid it off. This too went the way of the flames.

The bullet had pierced the outside of his right foot, two inches back from his little toe. The shock had just caught up to Laura, moistening her eyes. The comforting smell of the fire drifted in, further disorienting.

"You're okay." Disbelief tinged her voice, and not a little relief. "You're okay."

"It's fine. Passed through the side, here."

"I'll bandage it and we'll get you to the hospital. I have a first-aid kit."

"Lock the door first. And check the parking lot, make sure he's gone."

She did, bending the cheap venetians over the window. The interstate was an oblivious white strip. A wall of snow encircled the empty parking lot, white fading into the white trunks of the firs. A white Subaru was parked at the side of the frontage road, though she had to press her face flat to the glass to see it. The headlights shot twinning beams into the snowfall, but the car was apparently empty. "No one. But there's a car still there. Lights on."

"It's gotta be his. No one else out here. And he's not going far on foot."

"He could be hiding in it. Or in the trees." "Call 911."

She ran behind the bar and snatched up the phone. Dead. "He cut the line."

"Okay. We're isolated here. You have a gun?"

"No. You think he'll come back, this guy?"

"Looked like he had C4 with him. For blasting a safe."

"Jesus Christ," she broke in, "C4, like action-movie C4?"

"I spooked him, but maybe he settles himself out in that car, realizes that we're holed up and injured. Plus, we're riding the aftermath of a blizzard-not exactly the best time for a speedy police response even if he hadn't cut the phone line. I say we split."

"Not before I stop the bleeding." She was pulling bowls and plates from the cabinet. She found the first-aid kit and returned to him. He was sitting, arms braced over his knees, smiling at her in the orange glow. She felt his stare as she worked. He seemed oblivious to the pain. She didn't really know what she was doing, but she cinched a tourniquet midway up his foot and wound an Ace bandage over some sterile pads, applying pressure on the entry wound.

"That happen a lot around here?"

"A correctional officers' bar? You kidding me? A normal night, someone came in here, they'd get beaten within an inch of their lives."

She finished and patted his calf. She could see the fire's glow reflected in his eyes and she touched his face, gently, letting her fingers drift down over his lips.

His face darkened, his gaze shifting nervously to the window. "Let's get going."

"My Bronco's out back." She helped him up.

He leaned on the walls, making ginger progress. "What are you doing?"

Laura was on her knees, rolling back the shitty carpet by the jukebox. She worked the dial of the floor safe until the gears clanked. She withdrew three tight rolls of hundred-dollar bills and stuffed them in her pockets. "There's fifteen grand here. My life's savings. If that guy comes back, he'll have plenty of time to tear the place apart. If he doesn't already know where the safe is."

"Let's go, let's go."

She put an arm around his waist and kicked through the back door, waiting for the gunman to fly out of the white haze at them. But it was just the wide swath of alley, the soggy stack of Bud-weiser cartons under the overhang and her truck. The wind hit them hard, whipping flecks of snow into their faces. It tore at her collar, the cuffs of her jeans. She deposited Brian in the Bronco and waded around to the driver's seat, her eyes holding fearfully on the Subaru. The gunman's car remained maddeningly motionless, its headlights beaming forward like a dead man's gaze.

Brian was shuddering by the time she got the engine turned over. She'd left the heat blasting and the radio on-Don down at KRZ was spinning the Highwaymen, Kris Kristofferson as smooth as good scotch, save for the pulses of static from the weather. She blasted the heat. The Bronco bucked over drifts of snow past the Subaru, its shadowed interior drawing briefly into view through ice-misted windows, and then they were skating on the frontage road, heading for the interstate entrance. She studied the rearview, frightened. As if on cue, the radio went to fuzz, then warped into silence.

The windshield of the Subaru continued to stare after them, but the car didn't pull out. She watched it recede, her heart pounding.

Barely visible up ahead through the snow were two sets of flashing red lights. Laura eased up to the sawhorses, fighting down the window. Four deputies blocked the overpass.