Chapter 9 #2
He’s just staring at me. I shrug. “Okay, here’s the point.
” I flip to the hand-drawn floor plan of the mall.
“Okay, so…we entered the tunnels here.” I point to the food court on the map.
“The service corridors run parallel to most of the main concourse. The old rink”—I tap the big open space at the center of the map—“has offices that connect through a separate corridor behind the Staff Only door. That’s where our tough guys said they were headed.
My guess is they don’t know their way around the tunnels.
They’ll have to head back through the mall.
” I tilt the page, bringing it closer to the sliver of light.
“There’s a service tunnel under the food court connecting the loading docks to the rink-side infrastructure…
looks like it comes out near the old Zamboni bay.
If we head that way, I think we can get to Cole before they do—if he’s even there. ”
Beckett looks at the floor plan. Looks at me. “You drew a floor plan,” he says.
“I drew seven. This is the relevant one.”
“Of the tunnels?”
“For a novel.”
“Are we living said novel?”
“Now that you mention it, the line between fiction and reality has been aggressively blurred this evening.” I stuff the notebook back into my bag, and Beckett clicks the flashlight off again. “We’ve got maybe ten minutes before they circle back.”
I turn toward the door and pause. “One more thing,” I say. “When we find Cole—if we find Cole—he might not come willingly. He locked you in a closet. It doesn’t seem like he’s really thinking clearly right now.” I look at him. “So maybe don’t punch him for the whole closet thing.”
“I make no promise.”
“Beckett.”
“Fine. I won’t punch him.” A beat. “Hard.”
“That’s the spirit.”
I unlock the door. Crack it open. It’s dark. Silent. The footsteps have moved deeper into the building, toward the rink, toward Cole. We tried it on our first sweep and found it locked. Different outcome this time—the deadbolt gives.
We slip out into the dark.
Here goes nothing.
BECKETT
A smart man would hide. Wait for morning.
Let Cole face what Cole earned. The math is simple: stay safe, walk out, keep your head down, renew your contract.
Cole Thompson framed me, locked me in a closet, and has been lying to the team for months.
Letting three hired thugs collect what he owes them is not my problem. It’s barely my business.
Except…I’ve never been the kind of guy to let the puck go by. Or not score when I have the chance. Okay, that sounded wrong—you know what I mean. There’s a reason I’m a high scorer—oh, there we go again.
Never mind.
The service tunnel has that distinctive concrete smell.
Pipes run overhead—fat, sweating, insulated with material that probably predates several safety regulations.
Our flashlight beams cut jittering cones through the dark, bouncing off walls that narrow until the ceiling is close enough to make me hunch.
“This is on the map?” I ask.
“Service Tunnel B. It connects the food court to the rink-side mechanical systems.” She’s navigating by Moleskine, checking her floor plan at every turn. “It should open into the Zamboni bay maintenance area.”
“Should?”
“I didn’t walk the full tunnel this afternoon. It was dark and I heard a rat.”
“You heard a rat and turned around?”
“A large rat—listen, I don’t see your map. Maybe a little less judgment, Benson.”
I let out a chuckle. “Fair point.”
The tunnel angles downward, below the main concourse level. If it was cold in the furniture store, this is subzero. The deep, settled chill of concrete that hasn’t been warm since it saw daylight.
“Left at the junction,” Everly whispers. We’ve both dropped to whispers without discussing it—the tunnel amplifies everything. I can hear our breathing bouncing back from twenty feet ahead.
We turn left into a mechanical room—boilers, electrical panels, skeletal HVAC remains. Possible actual skeletons. On the far wall: a steel door. The sign gleams in my flashlight: Rink Operations—Authorized Personnel Only.
I turn the handle. The door swings open, hinges screaming.
We freeze. Count to twenty. No footsteps.
“Quietly,” I breathe.
“Oh yeah, I’ll make sure to whip out the WD-40 for the next door.”
Everly shoots me a snide look, her nose crinkling, pushing her glasses up.
We turn back to the door. Now this is a corridor I recognize.
The Zamboni bay to our left. To the right, the hallway branches toward the old rink offices—Coach Hart’s old office, storage rooms, and an administrative suite that’s been abandoned since the Blue Ox moved base.
The Staff Only door connects to the main concourse at the far end.
Coach Hart’s old office is the third door on the left, the nameplate still on the wall—Coach D. Hart. Behind me, Everly’s breath catches.
“Should we…?” I leave it up to her.
Everly reaches for the door, turning the handle as quietly as possible.
The office has been lived in. Recently. There’s a sleeping bag unrolled behind the desk. Duffel bag half open, clothes spilling out. Energy bar wrappers—six, maybe eight. A dead burner phone plugged into a wall charger. And on the desk: papers, printouts, spreadsheets—all covered in numbers.
“Someone’s been living here,” I say, my flashlight doing a wide arc over the room.
“For days, at least,” Everly says, already inside, flashlight sweeping, thriller brain no doubt cataloging. “He left in a hurry—duffel open, nothing packed.”
“He probably knew they’d come here.”
“He anticipated it. Relocated.” She looks at me. “So he’s somewhere else in the building.”
A sound echoes from the corridor. Both our flashlights snap off simultaneously.
Footsteps. Multiple sets. Coming from the Staff Only door.
My hand finds Everly’s arm—a directional cue. She retreats deeper into the office, pressing her camera bag against her body to muffle sound. Flashlight beams appear at the far end of the hall. Through the narrow interior window above the desk, I can make out movement. All three of them.
“In here,” I breathe, pulling her toward the only other door in the room—a narrow closet built into the back wall.
Elevators. Broom closets. Now this. Seems like God’s doubling down on whatever it is He’s been trying to tell me. Just once, words might be nice. But…the closet it is.
Small doesn’t cover it. There’s barely enough room for the two of us in the slot between filing cabinets, approximately the square footage of a coffin designed for someone with the physique of Gumby.
“No,” Everly whispers.
“Yes.”
“There’s not enough room.”
“There will be if you want to live. Get in.”
I pull her into the closet, one arm around her as we wedge into the slot. The door shuts behind me, the latch catching with a click so soft I feel it more than hear it.
A moment later, we hear them. Footsteps just outside the office door.
We hold our breaths—which is saying something, because there was hardly space to breathe in the first place.
The two of us are packed so tight, you’d need a crowbar to get us free. Everly faces me, her arms pinned between us, hands on my chest. Her forehead hovers near my lips. Her hair—the copper chaos—brushes my cheek, and the vanilla hits like a drug administered directly through my nostrils.
My right arm has nowhere to go except around her, across the small of her back. My hand lands on her hip. Not by choice. By architecture. My other hand cups her shoulder, steadying us.
The office door opens. Flashlight beams lance through the gap under the closet door.
“He was here.” The leader’s voice. “Sleeping bag. Food. Looks like he’s been camping.”
Sounds of the duffel being unzipped. Papers shuffled. Drawers opened.
Everly is shaking. A fine, continuous tremor—cold, fear, adrenaline. It’s a lethal mix. My arm tightens around her. My thumb brushes her shoulder, willing calm, even breaths. In. Out. In.
It’s okay. We’re okay.
She goes still. The trembling slows—not stops, but recedes. Her body settles against mine. One millimeter. A shift so small, I’d blame it on gravity if it weren’t for her hand splayed across my heart. I know she can feel it racing.
Um, Coach’s daughter there, Beckett.
I don’t care. The thought arrives with quiet, devastating certainty. I care that she’s shaking in the dark. I care that my arm around her made it stop. Mostly.
“Papers on the desk. The whole book—names, bets, amounts, dates. Everything.”
“He just left it?”
“Guess he was in a hurry. Idiot left us the evidence and took himself.”
A pause. Then the third voice—quieter. “What about the two at the entrance? The hockey player and the girl?”
“They saw our faces.” The leader. “If they talk to the police, we’ve got a problem.”
“So?”
“Find Thompson first. Deal with the rest after.”
Deal with the rest after.
Everly’s hand curls into my flannel, holding tight. A death grip. A survival grip.
My hand envelopes hers, holding on just as hard.
Holding on is the only thing I can do—I can’t fight, I can’t run, I can’t put myself between her and the danger on the other side of a door I can’t open.
The play I have is the one where I hold her hand and promise with my grip what I can’t promise with my voice.
One of them walks past our closet. His footsteps vibrate through the door. She stops breathing. I press my mouth to her hair beside her temple.
I exhale the words. “Don’t move.”
He passes. Her breath releases in a controlled, silent stream I feel against my chest.
“He’s not here,” the leader says. “But he’s in this mall somewhere. Let’s move.”
Two sets of footsteps head for the corridor.
One doesn’t.
“I’ll stay. Go through the rest of the files.”
“Fine. Radio if you find something.”
“Radios are spotty. Too much concrete.”
“Then yell.”
The office door stays open. Two sets of footsteps recede. The third man stays—desk chair creaking, papers rustling. Settling in to search with patient thoroughness.
He’s between us and the door. Between us and the corridor. Between us and every exit and every route Everly mapped.
Stuck. Again.
I feel her arriving at the same conclusion. Her body adjusts—not pulling away but settling in. Her forehead drops to my chest, leaning into me. Relying on me. I can feel her heart racing, keeping pace with mine.
I’m hyperaware of every breath between us. The intimacy of it—trapped, hunted, pressed together with a man three feet away who would hurt us—is the most intense thing I’ve ever felt. More intense than any hit on the ice. More intense than the pressure to win. More intense than the elevator.
She tilts her head back a fraction, her lips near my jaw, her breath against my skin short-circuiting every rational thought.
“How long?” she mouths. No sound. Just the shape of words in the darkness of the closet.
How long can we stand here—pressed together, barely breathing—before something gives? Probably it’s too late, if we’re talking about things other than the guy outside the door.
But she’s not, so I mouth back, “As long as it takes.”
Her fingers tighten. Once. The same squeeze from the maintenance room—I’m with you.
The thug opens another drawer. Pages turn.
We stand in the dark. My arm around her ribs. Her hand in mine. The cold pressing in from every surface that isn’t her, and the warmth from every surface that is.
My mouth against her hair and her other hand against my heart. And my stupid heart is betraying me in the steady, terrified drumbeat of a man fighting feelings for the worst possible person in the worst possible circumstances at the worst possible time.
Coach’s daughter, I think.
I don’t care, I think.
You need to care, I think.
I know. And I don’t.
The thug turns another page. The building groans against the wind and cold, voicing protest against the mountains of snow piling up outside.
And we wait.