There was a loud crack! and the window where the gun barrel had been exploded.
Sam grinned grimly. Molly Jasper was the best shot in the county, and while she sat on the rooftop, there was no one to touch her.
A shout came from the back of the police station and the sound of gunfire, so Stu must be doing his part creating a diversion in the parking lot.
Sam ran toward the police station as Molly shot out another window. They were taking a risk, not only in him and the mushers being out in the open, but that Dylan wouldn’t get hit in the crossfire. He was hoping the policeman was smart enough to hit the floor the moment he heard shots.
Sam reached the municipal building’s front and flattened himself against the façade, making himself as small a target as possible as he scrambled for the front door. Beridze’s men had obviously broken it open when they stormed the building yesterday. Sam had expected them to barricade it, but apparently the mafiya were too confident for such measures.
He smiled grimly. Their mistake.
He pushed open the door and went in, Beretta up and ready, but no one was in the lower office. Sweat was gathering at the base of his spine despite the cold. Too bad Coot Lake didn’t have the funds for body armor—it would’ve been nice right about now. Outside he could hear Karl whooping as Molly blew out another window.
Now or never.
He turned quickly into the enclosed staircase, meeting a thug coming down. The man’s eyes widened as he shouted something in Russian.
Sam shot him once in the chest and again in the head as he passed him on the stairs. He ducked as he burst into the upper police station, keeping himself low. And a good thing, too—the first volley of gunfire went over his head. Sam rolled to the side, behind Tick’s desk, and shot a charging mafiya. Only two men remained—where the hell was everyone else? One raised his weapon. Shit.
The air filled with the thunderous rattle of automatic gunfire as the desk burst into splinters.
Sam lay low, breathing, waiting for his moment, as shards of wood pelted his arms and the back of his head. Auto was scary as hell, but it ate bullets.
A pause.
Sam popped out and took out one of the shooters.
The other was frantically fiddling with his gun. He looked up, wide-eyed, and threw the weapon at Sam, turning to dive for the dead man’s gun.
Sam shot him as well.
In the sudden silence, Dylan swore.
Sam got up and checked the men he’d shot—all dead or close to it. Then he took the cell keys down from the wall.
Dylan had taken cover under the cell bunk, but now he got up. “That last guy—his gun jammed.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “How you doing?”
“I’m… I’m good,” Dylan replied. His face was white, but he picked up one of the fallen semiautomatics. “Did Haley Anne get to you?”
“Yup, she’s fine.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“Okay,” Sam said as he reloaded the Beretta. “We’ll go out the front and we’re moving as fast as we’re able. Got it?”
“Gotcha,” Dylan said.
“Going down first,” Sam said, turning to the side and descending the steps. “Clear!”
The lower reception room was dark and cold. Had he underestimated Beridze’s men—or were they waiting somewhere?
Dylan made the bottom of the stairs just as the door to the back started to open.
“Out the front!” Sam shouted as he shot through the back door.
A bang and the reception counter exploded.
Sam returned fire and glanced over his shoulder. Dylan right behind him. Damn it! Were they walking into a trap?
He backed toward the front exit, still firing, just as Dylan opened the door.
Nothing.
“Out!”
They tumbled through into the white snow-covered street.
Then Stu was there beside them, the dogs all yapping. “Get in!”
Dylan threw himself into the basket and looked up at him. The younger man’s brows knit. This close Sam could see that he had a nasty bruise on his forehead and a dried spot of blood on his upper lip. “What about you?”
“I’ve got a way out.” Sweat poured off Sam’s forehead. “Go!”
He didn’t wait to see Stu drive off before breaking into a run in the opposite direction, moving awkwardly through thick snow in his stiff ski boots. A gunshot. The snow kicked up next to his boots and he felt something sting his thigh and then he was at the old library. He flung himself around the corner, panting, and found where he’d thrown the skis earlier. Sam stooped to set the skis flat. He toed them on, pocketed his Beretta, picked up the poles, and started skiing.
The snow was unbroken, crusted by wind in places and too fluffy in others, but he’d been skiing since he was a kid. His body fell into the long, loping rhythm, not pushing too hard because he didn’t want to sweat anymore than he already had. Sweat could be dangerous in cold like this.
And then behind him he heard the one thing he hadn’t planned for: a truck engine.
Chapter Thirty-One
A truck engine revved somewhere, and all Maisa could think inside the Laughing Loon Café was that Beridze must really be insane. Everyone knew you couldn’t drive on snow like this. It was simple common sense.
But there was something about a man disregarding the laws of nature—of common sense—that sent a shiver of dread down her spine. That SUV—if that was what it was—shouldn’t be able to move in knee-deep snow, and yet it seemed to be getting nearer.
Dear God, Sam couldn’t outrun a truck, no matter how slow the snow made it.
For a moment, she wavered. She’d watched him get Dylan into the sled, seen Sam run off afterward, and breathed a sigh of relief. He was no longer in the line of fire. But if the mafiya could get that truck moving, that wasn’t necessarily true, was it? He might be killed as she stood here, dithering.
No.
She actually reached out to catch one of the booths. No. She couldn’t think about that right now. Sam was trusting her—above Karl and Stu and Doug and even Molly, trusting her to get the diamonds. And she wasn’t going to let him down, damn it. All she had to do was pocket them and leave.
He was the one trying to out-ski a truck.
She inhaled and blew out a breath forcefully and then continued methodically looking under the booths. A minute more and she found the suitcase, shoved way to the back under a booth. She hauled it out and unzipped it. There, twinkling among the awful men’s briefs was the ziplock bag with the pink gems.
Maisa pocketed the bag and stood, listening.
A shadow crossed in front of the big front window. A man, silhouetted against the outside sunlight, a gun in his hands.
Maisa froze. She was in the middle back of the Laughing Loon and, yes, the lights were off, but all the gunman had to do was turn his head and maybe squint.
She was standing right out in the open.
Carefully, moving slowly, inch by inch, she eased her right hand into her parka pocket, closing her fingers over the cold grip of the little revolver Sam had given her. She could do this. If he turned, if he lifted the gun, she’d have to be quick and act without hesitating. She had a revolver.
He had an automatic weapon.
And then he simply walked past.
She swallowed, nearly choking on the dryness of her throat. Oh, God, that had been close. Too close.
Maisa turned and walked quickly to the back of the café. Her ski boots tapped against the black-and-white linoleum floor—they weren’t made for stealth—and she winced at the sound. If anyone entered the kitchens in back, they’d know at once that she was in here.
She almost couldn’t open the door to the kitchen. She’d seen too many horror movies in which the monster lurked behind the closed door. But that was silly. She was a grown woman and she had to get out of here.
So she shoved through quickly, scanning the room, her hand still on the revolver in her pocket.
br /> Empty.
A burst of gunfire out front nearly made her shriek.
She gulped again and scurried across the kitchen. Outside it was so cold the warm air in her nostrils caught. Her skis were just outside the back door. Dark clouds had begun to gather in the sky, and she glanced at them anxiously as she put her skis flat on the ground. The very last thing they needed was more snow.
She was about to step into the skis when she heard it: the crunch of boots in snow. Had Sam come back for her? Or maybe Molly was on the ground?
Or of course it might be someone entirely different.
Maisa felt herself panting as she picked up her skis and looked around. There was a Dumpster beside the back door, but anywhere she went she’d be trailed by telltale footprints in the fresh snow.
The crunch of snow was coming closer.
Maisa thrust the skis behind the Dumpster and slipped back into the Laughing Loon.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Karl peddled with one foot off the runner as he walked the dogs around the back of Tracy’s Antiques—not an easy maneuver because what with the shouting, the gunfire, and the revving of that truck, they really wanted to race. Phase One of The Plan had already been implemented: Sam had rescued Dylan, and Maisa had presumably grabbed the diamonds—Maisa’s getaway skis by the back of the Laughing Loon were missing, so she was gone, anyway. Now it was time for Phase Two: Super-Cool Sledding Action Plus Bonus Badass Molly Shooting.
For some reason Sam had shot down Karl’s suggestions for plan titles.
“Whoa. Whoa!” he hissed at Cookie, who was straining against her harness and pretending she’d gone suddenly deaf. He had the drag pad down—a sort of auxiliary brake—but it was hardly slowing Cookie in her present mood.
“Molly?” If he missed her, it’d spoil Phase Two: SCSAPBBM, and she’d be stuck on the roof of Tracy’s Antique’s, and then who knew what would happen to her? “Molly.”
“Why are you whispering?” she asked in a normal voice from behind him, nearly giving him a heart attack.
Karl stomped on the drag pad, bringing the sled to a halt. “Because of bad guys?”
She rolled her eyes and climbed in the basket, holding her rifle across her knees. “Like they wouldn’t hear the team coming from a mile away.”
Karl kicked off and let Cookie have her head as they skimmed. “Well, okay, sure, but that doesn’t mean we need to be—”
He broke off with a shriek that wasn’t at all unmanly as they rounded the corner to cross Main and came face-to-dog-muzzle with an armed mafiya.
The thug looked nearly as startled as Karl felt.
“Haw!” Karl yelled, trying to get the dogs to turn to the left so they could get the hell out of there. “God damn it, haw!”
But Cookie took one look at the hulking thug, laid her ears flat, and lunged.
There was a rattle of automatic gunfire, growling, a scream from the thug—really girlish—and a thump as the dogs kind of ran over him. The sled ricocheted off the sprawled man and then they were past.
Karl whooped and pumped his fist in the air as they shot across the street. Molly hadn’t made a sound but she was gripping the sides of the basket hard. Cookie was ready to race off into the country and maybe not stop until she got to Canada, but Karl somehow got her under control—well, partly under control—and they turned by Mack’s Speedy, bumped along the snow next to the gas station, and then turned again onto Fourth, which ran behind the buildings on the south side of Main.
The wind blew in Karl’s face, the dogs panted and galloped, and somewhere up ahead shots were still being fired. Electricity zinged in Karl’s veins. This was by far the coolest thing he’d ever done, even including that time he’d made bat wings out of tinfoil and coat hangers and tried to fly off the top of the Red Earth Elementary School, a one-story structure that, as it’d turned out, was just as well. One of the lilacs planted along the foundation of the school still looked kind of stunted after all these years, and Molly always glanced at him a bit suspiciously when she saw it.
Karl smiled with affection at the back of Molly’s head. “Think Doug got to the fuel tank in the municipal parking lot?”
Molly shrugged, not bothering to turn around. “I saw him go back there. Guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
The back of the municipal building came into view—along with the shed at the end of the parking lot that housed the back-up generator. The door to the shed was open. Thank God—Doug must’ve done his job. Time to implement the second half of Phase Two: Badass Molly Shooting.
“Whoa!” Karl called, stomping on the drag pad. “WHOA, God damn it, Cookie!”
For once the dog listened, which was kind of odd, but Karl was just happy he wouldn’t have to do another lap around the town to come back.
Molly heaved herself up and stepped out of the sled.
“What are you doing?” Karl asked nervously. The last thing he wanted was the sled taking off without Molly.
“I can’t hold the rifle steady in the sled,” she said quietly.
He watched as she braced herself, standing tall—well, tall for five foot two—and bent over the rifle sights, aiming at the fuel tank in the municipal parking lot shed. In theory Doug had already been by and taken off the tank cap. With any luck there’d be a build up of fumes in the little building.
Well. If all had gone according to plan.
Molly inhaled quietly, steely calm even though there was still a truck revving somewhere and gunshots now and again. His chest swelled with pride. Molly was the best damn shot in the county.
Crack.
He flinched without meaning to, both hands flying up to shield his face.
Nothing happened.
Molly took a breath and slowly exhaled.
Crack.
Nothing.
The truck engine was coming closer, and for a split second Karl felt admiration for anyone who could drive in this snow. Then a jittery feeling began jumping through his veins.
He glanced behind them. A truck grill rounded the corner down by Mack’s Speedy. Fuck.
“Molly—”
Crack.
He turned back to her, well into full-fledged, lets-get-the-fuck-outa-here panic. “Molly!”
BLAM!
The shed went up in a humongous volcano of orange and black fire, like something straight out of any movie Arnold Schwarzenegger had ever made in his life, and it was so incredibly awesome that Karl would’ve cried.
If it weren’t for the fact that they were about to die.
“Getingetingetin!” he babbled at Molly, not losing his cool at all, and Molly tumbled into the sled and he let the brake go, jumped off the drag pad and screamed, “HIKE!”
Cookie took off like a bullet out of a gun, nearly giving him whiplash, and the sled bumped and swung wildly onto the street.
Karl clung to the bar and risked a glance behind him.
The SUV was roaring up their ass. As he watched, a gunman hung out the window and took aim at them.
Karl turned back around, yelling at the dogs. He wasn’t even forming words anymore, it was more like inarticulate screaming.
The automatic rattled behind them and for a horrible moment Karl was sure he’d been hit. But then he realized there was no blood and he was probably just having a terror-induced heart attack.
They made the end of the street and he got the dogs to head back toward Main, which was a mini-miracle in and of itself.
The SUV growled behind them.
“Shit!” Why the hell hadn’t the truck gotten stuck by now? It shouldn’t be able to even move in the snow. Thank God the snow was at least slowing it—the dogs were fast, but not fast enough to outrun a truck at speed.
“Head to the rez!” Molly hollered, proving that she was as smart as she was pretty.
“Yeah,” Karl panted. They’d lose these assholes there, or preferably on the way there.
They hit the highway going like a zillion miles an hour, just flying ov
er the snow, and for a moment Karl thought they’d lost the SUV. But then the thing roared behind them, much bigger and scarier than any Christine.
“Fuckfuckfuck,” Karl chanted into the wind and then a miracle happened.
Behind them, there was a muffled whump! and then the awesome, wonderful, erection-inducing sound of an engine whining as the SUV’s tires spun uselessly.
“Whoa!” Karl yelled, and Cookie slowed at once.
He turned to look.
There sat the SUV, spun around and half buried in a snow bank, its tires whirring as they made ice in the snow.
“Ha!” Karl yelled, making a superrude gesture he’d learned in the army. “Ha, motherfuckers, ha!”
“Uh, Karl,” Molly said.
“Oh, sorry,” Karl said at once, because it was just wrong for him to be swearing and rude-gesturing in front of Molly, even though she still hadn’t even smiled at him yet today and wouldn’t even let him explain about the arrowheads.
“Hey, Molly,” Karl said, “about those arrowheads—”
“Karl!”
And Karl’s chin jerked in the direction of Molly’s horrified stare in time to see the SUV reverse out of the snow bank and continue reversing toward them, gaining speed as it loomed. Which, really, he should’ve seen coming.
The monster never died in the movies.
“Hike, Cookie! Hike for your life!”
Cookie leaped forward. The sled lurched and swung before catching and then they were racing down the highway, the SUV gaining behind.
Shit! They were going to die, and Molly would think for eternity that Karl was a thief.
“I didn’t steal them!” he shouted into the wind.
“Take the exit,” Molly screamed back.
“What?”
“Take the fucking exit, Karl!”
So he did, shouting orders at the dogs, racing down the exit ramp to the road that ran by Lake Moosewood.
Molly was clinging with both hands to the rails, but she twisted to look at him. “The ice.”
And he had one of those moments that seemed straight out of the romance books he used to sneak out of his mother’s room when he’d been twelve and any mention of a nipple would give him an erection: perfect and complete understanding such as could only be achieved by twin souls bound as one.