Run to Ground(103)

“Hugh’s crazy-pants no-longer-possible-future girlfriend shot Norman and locked me in here!” Although she huffed a laugh, it sounded more than half-hysterical.

He frowned, confused, and felt for the light switch on the wall outside the cooler. “Who?”

“Sherry!”

His hand froze before his finger could push the switch to the “on” position. “What? Sherry? She’s not Hugh’s girlfriend.” Of all the ricocheting thoughts in his head, that wasn’t the one he’d expected to come out. “Did you say she locked you in here?” He turned to inspect the door he’d just opened. “It’s not locked.”

“No, but these handcuffs attached to this shelf sure are.” There was a rattle of metal against metal, and Theo jerked out of his paralysis. Grabbing a nearby bin, he yanked it over, wedging it against the frame so the door wouldn’t close.

“Let me see,” he said, sweeping the beam from his flashlight across the floor in front of him as he crossed to the back of the cooler. As he got closer, he fanned the light across her feet and then her legs, bent in front of her as she sat on the floor. She twisted her face away from the glare of the flashlight.

Theo frowned. Viggy was sitting next to her, as he’d expected, but he wasn’t focused on Jules. Instead, he was facing the opposite shelf, every muscle in his body alert, staring at a cardboard box on the second shelf.

Viggy wasn’t just sitting. He was signaling. There were explosive materials in that box.

“Good boy, Vig!” Theo praised, trying to force his voice to sound pleased, rather than panicked. His fingers were numb as he dragged out the stuffed penguin from his pocket. “Good dog!” After the shortest game of “tug” in the history of domesticated dogs, he tossed the penguin through the cooler door into the main kitchen. Viggy bounded out of the cold space after it.

Theo looked at the top of the box Viggy had been focused on, but the flaps were folded over tightly. “What’s in this box, do you know?”

“Sherry brought the box into the diner with her.” Jules’s voice was thin and high.

“Sherry brought it?” His brain was refusing to make connections, to draw lines between facts and reach conclusions. How could he accept that Sherry, Don’s surviving daughter, had shot a man and then locked Jules—his Jules—in a walk-in cooler with a bomb?

Pulling a pen from his pocket, Theo stepped over to the box that had held Viggy’s interest. He gingerly lifted one of the flaps just enough for him to point the flashlight into the box. As soon as he saw the wires, his last hopes that it was all a misunderstanding dissolved, and he lowered the flap carefully.

Jules shifted, drawing Theo’s attention in time to catch her wince. “These cuffs hurt. Do you think you can get them off?”

“Let me see,” he said, crouching next to Jules so he could shine the flashlight on her bound wrists. He needed to get her out of there, away from the bomb. Anger built in him as he ran his finger along the edge of the cuff where it dug into Jules’s skin. Sherry hadn’t bothered to double-lock the cuffs, so they’d tightened to the point that they were cutting off circulation to Jules’s hands. Moving as fast as he could without scaring Jules, he pulled out his handcuff key and tried to fit it in the lock. “Fuck.”

“What’s wrong?”

“These cuffs are an off-brand.” He resisted the urge to swear again, and maybe throw something. “My key won’t work on them.”

“Oh.” Her voice came out small. “How can I get out of them, then?”

“We’ll get Fire out here with one of their cutting tools and snip that chain. Once we get you outside, they can work on taking off your new bracelets.” He turned on his portable radio. After the initial beep and two seconds of silence, Lieutenant Blessard’s voice echoed through the walk-in cooler. From his tone, which was just short of a yell, Theo had a feeling Blessard had been trying to reach him for a while.

“…your status? Goddammit, Bosco, turn on your fucking radio and tell me if you’re alive or not!”

Theo rattled off his unit number. “Can I get someone from Fire to meet me at the front entrance with some heavy-duty bolt cutters? Something that’ll cut through a cuff chain.”

“Fire Rescue One copies,” a new female voice responded over the radio, a siren echoing in the background. “We’re three minutes out.”

The lieutenant spoke again. “I’ll send them in as soon as they arrive. Where are you in the building?”

“Negative!” Theo snapped, and then repeated more calmly, “Negative. Do not enter the building. I will meet you at the front door to get the cutters.”