He Can Fall: She Can Series

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HE
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UN

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ELL

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CREAM

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IDE

M
IDNIGHT
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XPOSURE

M
IDNIGHT
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ACRIFICE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Text copyright © 2014 Melinda Leigh

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

Published by StoryFront, Seattle

www.apub.com

Amazon, the Amazon logo, and StoryFront are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.

eISBN: 9781477874110

Cover design by Inkd

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HREE

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EVEN

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A
BOUT
THE
A
UTHOR

“You weren’t supposed to kill him,” Carl yelled at Win over the sawed-off’s barrel. “This job was supposed to be clean and quick.”

Lowering his 9mm, Win grinned down at the manager’s body. A wet red stain the size of a baseball bloomed across the front of the dead man’s yellow logo apron. His legs twitched a couple of times, then went still. Brown eyes clouded over.

“The asshole was going for the silent alarm.” Win’s pale-blue eyes popped out of the ultra-skinny face of an addict.

“He was opening the safe, Win.” Carl implied the
duh
with his tone. Sweat dripped behind the bandana that covered his mouth and nose. He assumed the manager was the same guy who’d fired Win a couple of weeks ago.

“Don’t talk to me like that.” Win’s voice turned icy. “I knew him. You didn’t.”

Carl tried to ignore the kid’s belligerence, but the itch along his spine wouldn’t let him. Truth was, Win wanted to kill somebody. His personal beef with the liquor store manager was just a bonus. Win had the worst case of crazy-motherfucker-itis Carl had seen in a long time. The buggy eyes didn’t help. A hat and scarf concealed spiked bleached hair and skin the color of skim milk. The kid looked like the corpse of Billy Idol, circa 1982.

On the bright side, the kid had waited for the manager to open the safe before he capped him. Carl leaned down and scooped money out of the safe into his bag. He straightened, testing the weight of the duffel. Nice haul.

With the attention span of a squirrel on crack, Win shifted gears, prodding the manager’s beer belly with the blunt toe of a skateboard shoe. The body twitched, and Win laughed. Unease crashed through Carl’s confidence like a perfect strike through ten pins. He did not need this nut job pissing all over his early retirement plan.

Carl tried another approach. “Your uncle’s waiting.”

Win’s uncle Dennis, Carl’s longtime partner, was waiting outside.

Carl nudged the clerk with the gun barrel. “Get a move on, honey. We ain’t got all night.”

Jet-black hair swung over her face as she emptied all three cash registers into the backpack he’d passed her. Carl glanced up at the security cameras. The green light was blinking away. Win was still playing with the manager’s dead body.

“How about taking out the cameras like we planned?” he asked Win.

The kid went at the task like it was an arcade game, adding his own ridiculous sound effects to the gunshots ranging through the small store. The din wasn’t exactly what Carl had in mind, even though the other stores on this strip of Maine suburbia were closed. He felt like he was babysitting a psychopathic—and armed—toddler. He reached across the counter and yanked the bag out of the girl’s hands. A glance inside told him the payoff was decent. Maybe putting up with Win had been worth the effort after all,
if
they didn’t all end up back in prison.

“What’s going on?”

A voice startled Carl. He whirled, gun leveled.

“Whoa. It’s just me.” Lincoln Street, their fourth man, came from the rear of the store, where he’d been sweeping the back rooms for wayward employees and trashing the security tapes. He jerked a thumb at Win. “What part of ‘quiet’ does that psycho not get?”

Carl rubbed his forehead and shook his head.

In the narrow slit between the scarf that concealed his features and the knit cap over his bald head, Lincoln’s eyes went tight with fury. “You said Dennis could control him.”

“That’s what I thought,” Carl said. “But the kid is the one who knew the security details on the store.” Details he’d refused to share unless he was in on the job.

“Not worth it.” Lincoln headed for the door. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. The cops’ll be here any second.”

Win blasted the third and last camera. He loped back to the registers and grabbed the clerk by the arm. “Let’s go. You’re coming with us.”

“That’s not part of the plan, Win—” Carl started to protest. The girl would undoubtedly be another unwanted complication.

The killer glare in Win’s eyes stopped him cold. “I think she’ll be an asset.”

“OK.” Carl would leave Win-management up to Dennis. How much trouble could one girl be? It wasn’t like the rest of their “plan” was going off without a hitch.

Vacant-eyed, the clerk shuffled out from behind the register. Carl barely registered a tight black sweater and skinny jeans, but Win was licking his lips like she was a cheeseburger in boots. The vein in Lincoln’s temple bulged as if it could blow at any second.

They hustled out the glass doors. Sweating, Carl yanked the suffocating bandana off his face. His skin welcomed the cold February night.

He and Dennis had planned this simple holdup with no complications. Thanks to Win, who’d worked in the store for all of three weeks, they knew when the store would be holding the maximum cash load. They should have been in and out with minimum fuss and enough money to head south toward the next target, but Nut Job’s gleeful killing had changed everything.

The plan was fucked, and so was Carl.

He scanned the asphalt rectangle. As Win had said, the single security camera pointed at the entrance to the building. Two cars sat at the rear of the parking lot. The interiors were dark, overhead lights reflecting mirrorlike off the windshields, but Carl’s neck itched as if somebody were watching him. The vehicles probably belonged to the clerk and the store manager. Two employees, two cars. He was being paranoid. Win’s volatility was making him edgy.

At the curb, Dennis idled the stolen Buick. Win opened the rear door and put the girl in the back between him and Lincoln. She got in without a word, hunching over and hugging herself against the cold.

Carl jumped into the passenger seat and pointed toward the windshield with an urgent finger. “Go.”

Dennis made a calm exit from the lot, turned onto the highway, and headed north. Carl rubbed the center of his chest, where it felt like a sedan was parked. Once they switched to their own anonymous vehicle, Carl would be able to breathe.

Dennis jerked a thumb over the seat. “What’s she doing here?”

“Change of plans.” Carl stashed the sawed-off shotgun under his legs. “She’s coming with us.”

Dennis turned off the highway. “Why?”

“Win wanted her to come along.” Carl bit back his temper and the urge to point the shotgun over the seat and blow Win through the rear window. The kid had served his purpose. Carl had had enough of his erratic behavior.

“He also shot the store manager,” Lincoln added from the back.

Dennis sighed and adjusted the rearview mirror to look at his nephew. “Win, we talked about this. It’s important to follow the plan.” Disappointment weighted his voice. “We don’t need complications. We need cash.”

Win crossed his arms and sulked. “The manager was going for the panic button.”

Dennis glanced at Carl. He shook his head, and Dennis sighed. “Well, what do we do now? We can forget the next job.” They’d planned a series of small holdups, spread out in time and distance, nothing ambitious enough to attract interstate law enforcement attention. “Should we head for the border? We could be in Canada in a couple of hours.”

The Canadian border went three-quarters of the way around the state of Maine. Six hundred miles of opportunity knocked. Carl considered. “No. The state troopers will assume we’ll head for Canada or go south. We need to go in the least likely direction.”

“OK. West it is then.” Dennis slowed and turned off the highway onto a narrow, unplowed road. Packed snow crunched under the tires. “Nothing west of here but mountains, snow, and trees.”

Carl wanted to put a couple of state lines between them and the murder. Crossing jurisdictions was always prudent when evading the law.

Dennis parked behind a stand of evergreens, next to the plain gray minivan that would blend anywhere. The van had compartments built into the floorboards. Intended for soccer balls and juice boxes, the concealed storage was excellent for hiding weapons.

They changed vehicles with a minimum of fuss. They all knew the drill. Dennis, Lincoln, and Carl had all done time and didn’t want to repeat the experience. Dennis was still on parole. Win had spent his teenage years as a guest of the state and had been set loose upon the world when he’d reached adulthood. They’d all worn gloves from the time they’d stolen the Buick until now. None of their fingerprints had ever graced its interior.

They assumed their positions in the minivan. Carl glanced into the back. Next to Win, the girl shivered. The chattering of her teeth was the only sound she’d made. No complaining. Still, once they were safe, the girl would have to go. In fact, when Carl did make his getaway, he sure as hell wasn’t taking Dennis’s crazy-ass nephew with him, which meant that Dennis would have to be left behind. Lincoln was more stable, but his company wasn’t necessary either. Carl would have better luck on his own. Besides, the authorities would be looking for four men. Might be easier to disappear if they split up.

“If we drive all night, we can be in New York State by morning.” Dennis took the ramp onto the interstate. He turned on the stereo and found a local news station. “We’ll lie low for a couple of weeks. It’ll be all right.”

Carl scrubbed a hand down his face. “We took out the cameras and didn’t leave prints.”

No one spoke for the next quarter of an hour. Carl listened to the news with one ear and fished a roll of antacids from the glove compartment.

“Using mug shots, a customer in the parking lot of the store identified two of the armed men who robbed River Liquors, murdered the night manager, and took the female clerk hostage as Carl Snyder and Winner Young.” Carl’s ulcer burned as the reporter supplied the listening public with accurate descriptions of both men. Obviously, one of those cars in the parking lot hadn’t been empty.

Carl and Dennis exchanged looks. Yeah. Now they were really screwed. Where could they hide? There was an eyewitness to their armed robbery and murder.

“Now what?” Carl asked. “Our mug shots are probably all over the fucking TV and Internet. Every motel clerk in the Northeast will be looking for us.”

“I think you overestimate the staff at the type of establishment we tend to frequent.” In the orange neon glow of the dashboard light, Dennis’s face split in a creepy smile. “I have an idea. Focus on the plan. No more deviations. Everything’ll be all right.”

Unease rumbled in Carl’s gut. That’s exactly what he’d said about the robbery.