LITMIR.BIZ

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to the floor. While Nate took cover, the gunman started toward the front door, pulling the woman with him.

      Nate couldn’t return fire. The woman was in the way. “Throw down your gun,” Nate yelled, figuring the gunman probably couldn’t hear him over the screaming drone of the alarm.

      The gunman fired a shot in Nate’s direction. Then he backed toward the door, looking over his shoulder several times, dragging the woman with him. Finally, he reached the threshold. He hesitated, then shoved the woman into the store while he turned and ran outside.

      Nate sprang up and ran after him.

      The sky had gone from dark blue to pitch-black while Nate was inside. Buzzing white security lights shone over the gas pumps, but the fleeing gunman was nowhere in sight. He must have taken off into the wildland.

      Nate jogged across the crumbling asphalt, continuing around the back of the store, just in case the bad guys had gone that way. He came across the high school kids and clerks who’d escaped out the back door. They were clustered in small groups. Some were crying, some were hugging each other. Nearly all were on their cell phones.

      Nate tucked his gun back under his jacket. “Did anybody see where either of those two guys went?”

      The kids glanced at each other and shook their heads.

      “I called 911,” one of the clerks offered. Nate could already hear sirens. A couple of cars rolled by on the highway, red taillights glowing in the night, but there was no way to tell if either car held the escaping thugs.

      Nate went back inside the store with one of the clerks and they disarmed the shrieking alarm. Blue and red flashing lights spilled through the front window as the patrol cars pulled into the parking lot.

      Nate walked all through the store, checking the restrooms, office and storage areas to make sure the man in the hoodie wasn’t hiding anywhere. There was no sign of him. He must have slipped out the back door when everybody else ran.

      Deputies cautiously entered the store. They recognized Nate and he waved them in. “Two guys held everybody in the store hostage and then got away,” Nate told the senior deputy. “I guess it was a robbery. I’m not sure. I got here in the middle of it.” He gave their descriptions. “Wish I could tell you if they’re on foot or driving, but I don’t know.”

      “We’ll get everybody out looking.” The senior deputy, David Cooper, keyed his collar mic to speak to Dispatch. Meanwhile the other deputies fanned out to do their own search of the premises and get started collecting witness information.

      “The gunman at the front counter was hanging on to that lady over there pretty tightly,” Nate said to Cooper after he’d finished talking to Dispatch. He gestured toward the dark-haired woman in the glasses who stood by the main entrance, her arms wrapped across her stomach as she stared at the ground. “I couldn’t tell if they were after her in particular for some reason, but I’d like to find out.”

      Nate strode over to her. “Are you all right?”

      Her head jerked up. She looked at him, wide-eyed, and tried to take a step back. But she was already pressed against the glass at the front of the store and there was nowhere for her to go.

      “The bad guys are gone,” Nate quickly added. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt. The medics are outside. Maybe you should get checked out.”

      “I’m okay,” she finally answered in a low voice. She blew out a shaky breath. “I thought they were going to kill me.”

      “You’re safe now.” Nate had been through some terrifying situations in his life. Dwelling on all the horrific things that could have happened never did him any good. Focusing on what went right, and thanking God, did.

      “How did all this get started?” Nate asked. “Do you know those guys?”

      “I’ve seen them before but I don’t know them.” She reached up to tuck a few stray tendrils of hair behind her ears and recrossed her arms. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They must have thought I was going to turn them in to the police or something.”

      “I’ve got this.” Cooper walked up and gave Nate a look that clearly said “go away.”

      It was standard operating procedure to separate witnesses when gathering statements after an incident like this. Nate knew that, but he wasn’t used to being only a witness. He was used to being a cop and taking control.

      “Go find Gibson and give him your statement,” Cooper added. “And Sheriff Wolfsinger is on his way. He’s going to want to talk to you.”

      “Right.” Nate glanced back at the dark-haired woman, bugged by the thought that he knew her from somewhere. He should have asked her name. He’d find out eventually.

       TWO

      Lily sat down in the driver’s seat of her car, stretched across the passenger seat and stuck her hand down between the seat and the door, digging around for loose change so she could buy some gasoline and get home.

      Deputy Cooper had taken her statement. She’d told him everything, from overhearing bits and pieces of a conversation between strangers to being chased here to the Starlight Mart and held at gunpoint. She’d explained to him that she hadn’t even heard enough to understand what the men were talking about, and she’d given him the name and location of her new employer, though she didn’t have her phone with her and couldn’t remember the phone number. Finally, the deputy handed her his card and told her he’d follow up with her tomorrow morning.

      Now she had her car pulled up to the gas pumps outside the Starlight Mart. She worked three part-time jobs and typically got her lunch at a fast-food drive-thru window. Sometimes she dropped her change on the floor or tossed it onto the passenger seat when she was in a hurry. Maybe there was enough to buy the gasoline she needed to get her home. If not, she’d have to walk back into the Starlight Mart and try to borrow the money from somebody.

      Home. That’s all she wanted to think about right now. The comfortable old house she’d grown up in. The dogs. And most of all, her mom. Mom would help her hold herself together.

      She didn’t want to think about what had just happened to her in the Starlight Mart, or what might have happened if that biker hadn’t shown up. She absolutely didn’t want to dwell on the terrifying possibility that the gunman and his accomplice might track her down tomorrow or the next day. The second time they found her they’d probably drag her out into an isolated expanse of scrub brush and finish the job without witnesses or anyone getting in their way.

      She would let herself process what had happened to her after she got home. Right now she would swallow her fear because that’s what you did with fear. Lily had learned that at a young age. When trouble comes—and it always does—you choke back your fear and you take care of the job at hand. You do your crying later.

      That’s what Lily’s mom, Kate, did all those years ago when Lily’s father died. She’d pulled herself together. And she kept doing that in the years that followed because money was tight and trouble was never very far away.

      Lily only found a couple of dimes in the space beside the seat, so she sat up and opened the glove box. She shoved aside her car registration, a few aged ketchup packets and a collection of plastic forks from fast-food restaurants, and finally found a few more coins. Altogether they totaled less than three dollars. Not nearly enough to get her where she wanted to go.

      One of the terrified sobs Lily had choked back while that gun bit into her skin rose up in her throat and escaped as a cross between a hiccup and a gasp. Tears burned her eyes. Her body began to tremble.

      No, she commanded herself. You will not do this. Not now.

      “Where do you think you’re going?”

      The sound of the biker’s voice startled her and she dropped her coins. They rolled under

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