Addicted to You (40 page)

Rill just stared at Sherona’s pale face for a stretched moment. Her dark eyes were wild with anxiety.

“Is Katie in there?” he asked slowly.

A strange sensation like a burning chill went through him when Sherona nodded her head.

“She told me she’d look out for the diner while I ran home to check if my coffeepot is off. Rill . . . my little brother is in there, too. His friends said he walked in there just minutes before Marcus called me.” Sherona’s voice shook. “I can’t believe this is happening. Why is Marcus doing this?”

“It’s like you said. He’s gone a bit mad, I suppose,” Rill said, his gaze running over the ancient storefronts that lined the street. “How long have they been in there?”

“Marcus just called me on my cell phone not much more than five minutes ago. He told me to call Mulligan, and then have Mulligan call him back. I was lucky enough to catch Sheriff Mulligan while he was here in Vulture’s Canyon. Then I saw a couple of Derek’s friends walking home from practice, and that’s when they told me Derek had gone to the diner instead of home after practice. Derek
must
be in there.”

Rill tried to focus on Sherona’s face, but it was difficult with his mind churning through a thousand thoughts a second.

Katie was in there with a madman. What the hell would he do if something happened to her?

He acknowledged the icy blade of fear that seemed to have lodged in his chest and then he pushed it to the periphery of his consciousness.

“Okay, so let me get this straight. You ran to your house to check on your coffeepot and asked Katie to watch over the diner. Who else was in there?”

Sherona shut her eyes as though she were trying to see a film clip in her head. “Monty was there with Nick Brown. Errol was sitting next to Katie. Miles Fordham was having dinner with that man from the gaming commission that Marcus says he’ll shoot, George Harlan, but then Miles left right before I did. I have no idea if anyone left while I was gone.”

“And then Derek went in, you think?”

A single tear skipped down her cheek when she nodded.

“Did you say that Marcus Stash called you? Not the police directly?”

“No, he called me while I was still at my house. He wanted me to call Mulligan and have Mulligan call him. He seemed angry that I was there instead of at the diner.”

Rill noticed Sheriff Mulligan—a squat, balding, middle-aged man—coming to join them in the distance and spoke quietly under his breath.

“Stash has a bit of a thing for you, doesn’t he?”

“Yes,” Sherona admitted reluctantly.

“He didn’t realize you weren’t in the diner. He must have been disappointed.”

Sherona looked at him with glazed shock, but Rill didn’t explain as Mulligan approached. Rill had met the sheriff on only two or three occasions and wasn’t a huge fan. Mulligan disliked Rill in return, and Rill had never done anything to alter that opinion. He’d never much cared about the local sheriff’s opinion one way or another, but he’d made his own character assessment of the man. Mulligan wasn’t that bright and he must have known it on some level, because he bulldozed over people who even hinted at challenging his authority.

“What are you doing here, Pierce?” Mulligan blustered.

“My fiancée is in there,” Rill said levelly. Sherona glanced at him in surprise, but he continued. “She’s pregnant. I suggest you call Stash immediately and try to encourage him to release Katie Hughes and Derek Legion. Stash considers himself a hero . . . a patriot, not a murderer of women and children. You can start negotiating with him for the release of the others following that.”

Mulligan blinked, obviously shocked that Rill had the nerve to issue such concise instructions.

“This isn’t a movie set, Pierce. What
I
suggest is that you leave this to me. We have local backups and hostage negotiators on the way from St. Louis.”

“Who knows how long they’ll take to get here?” Rill asked. “Besides, you aren’t taking Stash’s character into account. He
hates
outsiders. That’s one of the reasons he’s doing what he’s doing, because he doesn’t want outsiders polluting Vulture’s Canyon. You’d be much better off negotiating with him now, before the others get here. Federal agents from the city will just make Stash more paranoid.”

Rill knew he’d gone too far when Mulligan shoved a fat finger at him. “You need to keep your mouth shut. You’re not the expert here; I am.”

Fury and helplessness boiled near the eruption point in Rill’s chest. “Neither one of us are experts, you idiot. Don’t tell me you’ve ever handled a hostage situation before. The fact of the matter is, though, you
do
have some pull with Stash because you
are
the local authority. He knows you. He asked Sherona to call you.
You
,” Rill repeated loudly. “Would you pick up the fuckin’ phone and at least try? What could it hurt and you’ll more than likely save a couple lives with just a few dozen words?”

Mulligan’s face turned beet red. “I will do no such thing. I’m waiting for the hostage negotiators to handle this, as will you! I’m ordering you to vacate this area and move a full block away. This is a restricted area. You, too, Sherona.”

“But, Rodney, Derek is in there,” Sherona pleaded.

“That building may blow at any second,” Mulligan said, his face getting redder. “I can’t have civilians standing around here.” He gave Rill a venomous glare. “Or ordering me around. Now, get out of here!”

Rill had to stop himself from causing bodily harm to the sheriff when Sherona’s knees wilted under her at his mention of the diner blowing up. Instead, he steadied Sherona in his arms and led her down the sidewalk.

When they reached the steps in front of the now-closed Vulture’s Canyon Savings and Loan, Rill eased Sherona down on the stone steps. In the distance, a couple men wandered out of the tavern and Rill caught phrases like “go on home” and “restricted area” as Mulligan shouted at them.

“He’s an idiot,” Sherona said numbly.

“Are any of his deputies any better?” Rill asked hopefully.

Sherona just shook her head, her gaze glued to the diner as though she thought she could retract her little brother by staring at it hard enough.

“Rill, what did you mean earlier, when you said Stash must have been disappointed I wasn’t in the diner? Are you suggesting he’s pulling this crazy stunt for me?”

Rill gave her a quick glance before he went back to studying the strip of buildings across the street. “He had to get your attention somehow . . . show you how powerful he was. It wasn’t as if you were giving him the time of day otherwise.”

“You can’t really believe that.”

“Not entirely, no, but it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if his obsession with you played a part in all this shit,” Rill replied distractedly. He nodded across the street. “These storefronts are relatively new, even if the structure is ancient. Sometimes when you have old buildings like this, they’re divided in different ways over the years. Any chance the diner is connected to the vacant space next to it, or the Trading Company?”

“Yes,” Sherona said so quickly he blinked. She seemed to come out of her trance and sat up straighter. “The Trading Company and the diner share a common coal room—where they used to keep the coals to run the furnaces.”

“What’s the layout of the coal room, exactly, in relation to the diner?” Rill asked. He’d helped Sherona on a couple of occasions load supplies into the back room. He listened carefully while she described the interior structure of the buildings in relation to the diner storage room. It seemed that the coal room was attached to the large pantry in her storage room.

“Does Stash know about the coal room?”

“I can’t imagine why he would,” Sherona replied.

“I’m going to go tell Mulligan. It could be key information for them to have,” Rill said, standing. He paused when he saw that two more police cars had pulled up in the street, cherry lights flashing. A cop wearing a light brown uniform charged out of the driver’s seat and ran around Mulligan’s car, only to jolt backward and barely catch himself from falling on his ass when he ran straight into Mulligan’s opening car door. Mulligan began shouting at the dazed deputy.

“Oh my God, Rill, what’s going to happen to Derek and Katie and the others?” Sherona murmured behind him, obviously watching the same thing he was. She sounded desperate, and Rill understood why. It was a little like realizing Barney Fife had been put in charge of your most valuable treasure.

Rill cast a grim look over his shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Sherona.”

He headed toward Mulligan and his bumbling crew, wishing he really believed what he’d said. Mulligan immediately started ranting at him to leave the “restricted area” or face arrest when Rill approached. He was trying his hardest not to lose his temper and find an opening to give the information about the coal room when he glanced down the street and saw Sherona was missing from the steps.

“Now, are you going to get out of here, Pierce, or should I get out my handcuffs? I’ve had just about enough of your interference.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. Sherona had just run behind the long strip of ancient storefronts that lined Main Street.

“Shit,” Rill muttered under his breath.

“
That’s it
. You’re under arrest for interfering with an officer of the law,” Mulligan shouted.

Rill looked down at the sheriff in mixed outrage and disbelief and staggered backward. He suddenly turned and jogged down the street.

“Set foot inside this restricted area again and I’ll arrest you for sure, Pierce,” Mulligan shouted.

Rill hardly heard him. He reached the end of the street and glanced around, wondering if any of the police were watching him. All three men were on their radios, receivers held up to their mouths, jabbering rapidly, each absorbed in his separate communications.

Rill ran across the street at top speed, wondering if he’d be too late to stop Sherona from doing something stupid.

Twenty -nine

“Do I really
have
to tie up Errol?” Katie asked Marcus Stash.
“You know he’d be much better if he could look at one of his airplanes while we sit back here in this storeroom, Marcus.”

Stash seemed undecided and beleaguered by her request, but eventually barked out an order for her to tie Errol up and be quiet. Rill had always told her she wouldn’t know how to shut her mouth even if her life depended on it.

Katie found out for certain that was true on the day Marcus Stash went crazy.

“Why don’t you let Derek go, Marcus?” she reasoned as Stash tied her hands behind her back once she’d restrained her fellow hostages. He’d checked to make sure she’d tied the others tight. She’d thought to fight Stash when he put down his gun to restrain her, but at the last second, he told her he’d shoot Errol if she so much as moved a muscle while he did it. He set down the gun much closer to him than her, so Katie couldn’t justify anything rash with Errol’s life at stake. Still, she continued with the only weapon she had.

Her mouth.

“You can’t have meant for Derek to be caught up in this. Sherona wouldn’t like it. You wouldn’t want a kid to get hurt in all this, would you?”

Stash’s blondish-brown hair seemed to stand straight up from rising agitation versus a crew cut. A sheen of sweat shone on his ruddy features.

“All right, I’ll think about it, okay? Just . . . give me some peace for a minute, will you?” he barked.

“Sure,” Katie said as she immediately began to work her nimble wrists around in the knot. Nobody tied her hands up aside from Rill, she thought irritably.

She glanced around, taking in the details of her surroundings. The fluorescent lights made everything seem surreally bright. She sat next to Errol and a sack of potatoes. The back door was at the end of a short hallway to the right of her. An enormous pantry entrance was to her right, as well, but in her vision, whereas the rear exit wasn’t. The door to the pantry was partially opened, and she saw shelves filled with cartons and cans of food. Stash had taken Errol’s crutches from him and leaned them against the wall next to the pantry.

Katie watched, trying to contain her terror, as Stash placed the switch box for the dynamite on a crate. The green light at the top of the box that flickered on and off struck Katie as very ominous. It was strange and awful to consider what it would be like to die in an explosion. She’d never see her parents, or Everett . . . or Rill again.

She’d never see her and Rill’s baby. Period.

The possibility seemed too untenable to think about, so Katie squashed the idea down until it was a distant nightmare.

Stash began to pace in front of the hostages’ feet. Once, he slinked out to the front of the diner, obviously checking what was happening on the street through the front windows.

She glanced down the line of people who had been tied up. Derek Legion seemed calm enough, his expression a mixture of fear and outrage. Katie got the impression he wanted to footballtackle Marcus. Monty looked precisely as he always did, observing the proceedings with an aloof, wry interest. Katie thought if his hands were untied and he had a newspaper, he could have made himself quite content while being held hostage. Errol was growing increasingly antsy in his restraints, but seemed more anxious about being tied up than afraid of what Stash threatened. Nick Brown looked frightened and shocked, but not as much as George Harlan.