LITMIR.BIZ

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make it to Copper Mesa. It was too far. She’d have to head in the opposite direction, toward the crossroads, and hope she had enough fuel to make it to the gas station there.

      A couple of minutes later she was pulling off the highway at the Starlight Mart, throwing gravel in a rooster tail behind her. She skidded to a stop right at the front door, jumped out of the car and ran inside, yelling at the startled clerks to call for help. They’d stared at her like her hair was on fire.

      She’d forced herself to calm down a little, lower the volume of her voice and try to sound reasonable. But then she’d heard the door behind her being shoved open and the sound of quick footsteps. She’d turned just as the man she’d seen in the office grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. That’s when he’d shoved the gun into her neck.

      Her brain knew it had only been a few minutes, but it felt as if that gun had been digging into her skin for hours.

      Lily looked again at the people in the store, her gaze settling on the woman with the young children. Their lives were in danger as long as Lily was here.

      “I’ll go with you,” Lily said to the gunman, her voice a shaky whisper. “No trouble.” When they got outside, she could break away and run to the highway. Someone driving by might see her and stop. That might be enough to make the gunman and Hoodie let her go while they tried to get away.

      The front door of the store opened.

      A man walked in. A big guy with shaggy dark blond hair sporting a few sun-bleached streaks. Scruffy beard. Heavy boots. Worn jeans with torn knees, a red T-shirt and a beat-up black leather jacket. He looked like a biker. He wore mirrored sunglasses even though it was now dark outside. He probably wanted to hide his eyes because he was drunk. Or high. After a slight pause, he headed straight for the coolers, toward the section in the back where they kept the soda and beer.

      Not the kind of person Lily had had in mind when she’d hoped someone would show up. She turned her head slightly to watch him.

      “Don’t even think about saying or doing anything.” The gunman slid his pistol down so it was hidden, but now it was pointed at the base of Lily’s spine. “Make a move and you’ll never walk again.”

      Lily swallowed thickly.

      His accomplice moved closer to the teenagers and lowered his gun out of sight.

      The biker reached the coolers and peered through the glass as if he was trying to decide what he wanted to buy.

      Hurry up! Lily thought. Get something and get out of here! He would obviously be more trouble than help. His sudden appearance had ramped up the tension in the store tenfold. The gunman was now holding Lily’s arm in a death grip, his fingers digging deeply into her flesh. His breathing was speeding up, as if he might be getting ready to make a move. The store clerks were getting fidgety, and Lily was worried they might try to do something that would get them killed.

      Biker man finally opened a cooler door and grabbed a six-pack of cola-filled cans. Heading toward the cash register, he strode up the aisle toward the man in the hoodie and the group of teenagers. He was tall and broad-shouldered and the cluster of teens moved out of his way.

      As he walked past the man in the hoodie, he swung the six-pack and clocked him in the side of the head. In a flash of movement he grabbed the gun from Hoodie’s hand just before Hoodie tumbled into a candy rack and knocked it over. Chocolate bars, mints and packs of gum skittered across the floor as the biker reached beneath his jacket. He pulled out his own pistol and pointed it at the gunman who held Lily. “Drop your weapon!”

      The gunman loosened his hold on Lily as he raised his gun to fire at the biker.

      It was the chance Lily had been hoping for. She jabbed her right elbow straight back, connecting with the gunman’s ribs. At the same time she raised her left foot and stomped on his instep. Any second she expected to feel the gun blast into the base of her spine or the back of her head, but the gunman shoved her aside as he fired at the biker.

      Two cooler doors exploded and glass fell like jagged rain.

      The biker disappeared.

      * * *

      Deputy Nate Bedford crouched on the floor behind an ice-cream cooler. He peered around the edge of the coffin-shaped container and through some wire display racking, watching the gunman at the counter and the woman he’d held by the arm. The man’s unnaturally tight hold on the woman had been the first thing that had caught Nate’s attention when he’d walked into the store. Then he’d noticed the odd way everyone was standing still. And the uneasy quiet.

      The car parked at the front of the store with the driver’s side door hanging open had hinted something might be wrong, too. Or the driver could just be incredibly impatient. Nate had seen it all.

      The reflection in the cooler doors as he’d searched for his favorite cola had given him a quick sense of who was where in the store. Who looked terrified, and who looked dangerous and ready to snap. By the time he’d found the drinks he wanted, it was clear he’d have to do something.

      Nate was on his way home after spending three months working undercover assisting the Phoenix police department’s narcotics unit. The deep undercover assignment had sharpened his observational skills and fine-tuned his ability to read any environment, though the peculiar situation in the Starlight Mart would have been obvious to anybody who was paying attention to their surroundings.

      He was exhausted after surviving three months of restless, uneasy sleep every night and his nerves were stretched to their limit thanks to the constant threat of drug-cartel-related violence. He had stopped at the Starlight Mart to pick up a soda to help keep him awake until he got to the Blue Spruce Ranch.

      Well, he was awake now.

      From his hiding place on the floor, Nate watched the gunman at the counter scanning the store, searching for him. There were large round mirrors in the corners of the ceiling to help detect shoplifters, and reflective glass and steel surfaces everywhere. The gunman was bound to see him any second. Nate shifted his weight and got ready to sprint. Then he heard something. He turned in the direction of the sound.

      The teenagers had hit the deck when the gunman started shooting. Now they were getting to their feet. Where did they think they were going?

      Nate glanced back toward the front of the store. The woman who was apparently being held hostage by the gunman was also starting to move. Freed from his grasp and shoved to the ground, she’d gotten to her hands and knees and was now crawling toward the front door. Not a good idea. Not yet. The guy in the hoodie Nate had whacked still lay on the floor, moaning. The gunman was obviously spooked and itching to shoot again. Nate had experience with edgy, violent people. This was a textbook definition of an explosive situation.

      The woman was still crawling. Her dark hair was tied back, but a few strands had worked loose and fallen around her face. She wore black-framed glasses and looked smart, like a librarian. She looked familiar, too, but Nate couldn’t place her. It could be his mind playing tricks on him. Undercover work always left him edgy and suspicious. It took a little time to transition back into his normal self. Staying up at the Blue Spruce Ranch for a few days would help with that. It always did.

      The woman was gutsy, Nate had to give her that. Maybe too gutsy. Any second now she would get too far. The gunman would be afraid she’d escape. He’d panic and shoot her. Nate had to do something to draw the gunman’s fire away from her.

      He took a deep breath to steady his nerves and slowly rose up.

      The sound of rapid footsteps jerked away his attention. Something screamed, like the sound of a train squealing to a stop, and a whoosh of cooler air swirled through the small store. The clerks were running out the back door, the teenagers right behind them. Someone had pushed open the emergency exit and activated the alarm.

      Nate looked over his shoulder. The guy in the hoodie he’d knocked out earlier was no longer on the floor. Nate couldn’t see him anywhere.

      At the front of the store the gunman grabbed the woman

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