Chapter 11
Eleven
Everly
I should be terrified. I am terrified—of three men in this building who want us, and I’m sort of quoting here, “dealt with.” I write the books. I know what that means.
But somewhere between the stockroom and the concourse, and after his lips met mine, something fundamental shifted. Gone is the woman shaking in the storage room. In her place is a woman with a carbon composite hockey stick and a plan.
This woman is furious.
Furious at the men who broke into a locked mall to hurt someone and thought they could add me to the list. Deal with the rest. I have spent five years putting those words in the mouths of villains. Not once did I consider what it feels like to be the rest. To be the thing that gets dealt with.
I don’t like the way it feels—but if they think the rest is going to go quietly, they have fundamentally miscalculated.
Holy furious protagonist, Batman.
We move through the concourse with flashlights off, navigating by the pulse of emergency lights getting weaker by the hour, the generator bleeding out somewhere in the building’s guts.
The mall in near-darkness is a different creature.
The mannequins in Nordic Threads are frozen behind metal shutters, their faceless heads tilted at angles that were chic twelve hours ago but are now deeply unsettling.
Every corridor branches into shadow, and every shadow has depth.
Beckett moves ahead—two steps, maybe three. Confident. Always glancing back to see if I’m behind him. Of course I am.
Stop watching him move. This is a thriller, not a romance.
Feels a little like a romance though, doesn’t it? Just asking for a friend.
We pass Blake’s Café. Untouched since we left it. We keep walking, nearing the fountain where this all started, and soon after, the dead-end hall leading to the electronics store comes into view.
Then, from the east corridor, a crash.
We freeze. Beckett’s hand comes up. Stop. The hockey stick is in my hands, and my hands are steady. I am the act-three protagonist, and the act-three protagonist does not panic, she acts. She is the night. She is the danger. She is…
Okay, a little scared. Because the crash sounded like metal on glass. Almost like…it might be accidental. Too sloppy. These guys feel professional, methodical.
“That wasn’t them,” I say on a whisp of breath.
Beckett’s jaw pulses. “Let’s find out.”
We move toward the sound. Through the dead zone. Twelve steps of absolute blackness. Beckett’s hand finds my elbow, guiding me through, warm and certain and gone the moment we emerge into the wan light.
Sutton Sweets comes into sight. The gate is half down. And from inside, the barely audible sound of…chewing?
Someone is in there. Eating.
And then I spot him. Behind the display counter, where rows of truffles and chocolates sit tucked in for the night, the outline of a shape.
And for one irrational, sleep-deprived, adrenaline-soaked second, my brain says Velociraptor.
No, don’t be crazy!—human. Male. Large. Hunched on the floor with a half-eaten caramel apple and the expression of a man who has hit his literal rock bottom.
Cole Thompson.
His eyes go animal wide. The caramel apple freezes halfway to his mouth, which hangs open a moment before his gaze finds Beckett.
“You gotta be kidding me,” he says. He scrambles to his feet, legitimate fear surging in his eyes as Beckett rounds the counter. “I locked you in the—you were supposed to stay—”
“In the closet you shoved me into? Nope, I crawled through the ceiling. Surprise.”
Cole’s hands fly up in defense, his feet working backward, away from Beckett. “I was trying to protect you—”
“By trapping me in here with your loan sharks?”
Cole’s face goes gray. “They’re here?”
“Yeah, all three of them.” Beckett has stopped in front of Cole, and I’m remembering his promise. Was it a promise? I can’t remember. “Three hundred thousand dollars, Cole?”
“What do you want me to say, Beckett?” His voice breaks. “I’m in over my head. I didn’t know what to do.”
“I’ve got a few ideas of what you could have done.
” Beckett cocks his head, his words coming out hard.
“What you could have done is not frame me. You could have reached out—to me, to anyone on the team, to Coach—instead of gambling away three hundred thousand dollars. You could have accepted my help today instead of, say, locking me in a closet—”
“I know!” Cole is standing now. Even in the dark, I can see what the past six months have done to him. He looks gaunt. Hollowed. “I know I messed up. I know I screwed up your life. I know.”
“How long have you been camping out at the rink?” Beckett asks.
Cole slumps slightly against the counter, deflated.
“A few days. Just…I didn’t think they’d find me here.
They’ve been staked out at my apartment.
When I realized they knew I’d be here today, that’s when I started compiling the evidence.
I have copies hidden in a manila file folder, inside the filing cabinet in Coach Hart’s old office.
” He gulps. “The ones on the desk are just a decoy.”
Something catches my peripheral vision.
Through the half-raised gate, across the corridor, a flashlight beam sweeps the concourse. And a second beam appears from the opposite direction. Two beams. Two directions. Converging on us.
“Save it,” I hiss.
Both men turn to me, their argument momentarily forgotten.
“Save. It.” I point. “They’re here.”
Beckett’s face shifts, his anger—however justified—draining. He glances at Cole and back toward the hall. And then that look—determination, cold and calculated, the one I’ve seen a hundred times on the ice. Remind me never to get on his bad side.
“Back room,” I breathe. “Where is it?”
Cole stares blankly.
“For the love, Cole. You’ve been hiding here for hours. Where is the back room?”
Something clicks behind Cole’s eyes, finally catching up. He points to the back of the store. “Behind the—the shelving unit. There’s a door.”
Beckett beats me there, pulling the shelving aside to reveal a door.
He yanks it open, and inside is a narrow room.
It’s small—a stainless-steel counter, a sink.
Two baking-sheet racks. The sweet, cloying smell of sugar and professional-grade vanilla extract.
And about three feet of standing room in the middle.
No second door. One way in. One way out.
“In. Now.”
Beckett goes. Cole stumbles. I follow and pull the door shut. Beckett lifts the shelving unit against the door, carrying its weight so the legs don’t scream against tile.
Less than a minute passes, darkness pressing in on every side. We hold our breaths. And then footsteps—measured. Inside the store. The click of a flashlight.
I find Beckett’s arm in the dark and hold on. Pray that whoever’s out there doesn’t go behind the counter, doesn’t find the half-eaten caramel apple.
Beckett’s hand covers mine. Warm and steady. His breath brushes my ear as he pulls me into his protective embrace.
Cole’s breathing is too loud. Ragged. In the silence, it’s a siren.
“Cole,” Beckett whispers. “You gotta calm your breathing. Slow it down. Four counts in. Four counts out. You’re okay.”
It’s the gentlest thing I’ve heard him say to the man who nearly ruined his career. The kindness of it—in this room, after the closet and the framing and six months of lies—does something to my chest that will require significant processing at a later date.
Cole’s breathing slows. Not normal—still too fast—but quiet enough.
The footsteps pause. A flashlight beam sweeps under the door gap—a thin line of white that catches the toe of Beckett’s shoe and the edge of a baking sheet—then travels on and doesn’t stop.
The beam passes. The footsteps resume. We can hear them—the scrape of display cases being checked, something heavy dragged across the counter.
I hold my breath. Beckett holds his. Cole tries—a small, choked sound escapes his nose, and Beckett’s hand moves from mine to Cole’s shoulder. The same squeeze. The same silent promise—I’ve got you. I’m with you.
The footsteps move away. The flashlight beam retreats, the thin line under the door shrinking, dimming, vanishing. Something rattles near the entrance. And then nothing.
Only silence.
I exhale, every ounce of sugar-scented air rushing from my lungs in a breath of relief.
“How many were there?” Beckett whispers.
“We saw two flashlight beams in the hallway. Plus whoever just swept this store.” I close my eyes. Open them—meaningless in this dark, but it helps me think. “I think it’s safe to say they’re out of the Zamboni Bay.”
“The what?” Cole says.
“We can’t stay here,” I whisper. “They’ll be back.”
“We have to get the laptop,” Beckett says. “And then get out of here.”
“We need the portable battery first.”
Time is running out. And the next time they come looking, they might just find us.
“So we split up.” My words slip out before the thought is even fully formed. “You and Cole get the battery. I get the laptop at Hearthstone. We meet back up—”
“At Basecamp Outfitters,” Beckett cuts in. “It’s big. It’s got lots of places to hide, and I think it’s got a skylight—should be enough ambient light to move around. If there’s any store you could find signal in, it’s that one.”
My heart is racing again, dreading the idea of going anywhere without Beckett. But we’re in the third act now—there’s no room for fear.
“I’ll go with Everly,” Cole says quickly. Ah, self-preservation. Hearthstone is close. The guys looking for us have already searched this area. I get it.
I can almost feel Beckett’s entire frame tensing up. “So you can throw her under the bus to save yourself? I don’t think so. You’re with me.”
There’s a long pause. A brutal and lethal argument runs its course through the silence. Finally, Cole says, “Okay.”
Beckett finds my arm again, his hands running over my shoulders, pulling me close. “I’ll see you soon.”
My hand squeezes his. “Same bat-time?”
“Same bat-channel,” he says.