Run to Ground(98)

“Hands behind your back.”

As she grudgingly complied, Jules made a last-ditch effort at talking Sherry out of whatever she was about to do. “I don’t understand what locking me in the cooler has to do with your revenge on Theo.”

“I told you.” Sherry sounded impatient as cold metal circled Jules’s wrist. Handcuffs, she thought, her mind flooding with panic at the idea of being cuffed. Every muscle in her body tensed. “It’s too easy just to die. He needs to live and suffer. Killing Hugh would’ve done that, but that didn’t go as planned. Your death will be even better, though, because it’ll be his fault.”

Metal touched, cold and smooth, against her other wrist, and a realization hit Jules—Sherry was using both hands to put the handcuffs on her. That meant she couldn’t be holding the gun. A thrill of possible escape ran through her. Without thinking, she threw her head back, cracking Sherry in the face with her skull.

It hurt. In the movies, head-butts looked effortless, but the reality sent shock waves of pain through her head. Sherry yelled, a nasally sound of pain, and her grip on the handcuffs loosened. Whirling around, Jules ripped free of her grip and confronted a bloody-faced Sherry. Without hesitating, Jules charged forward, hands locked behind her back, toward the cooler door and freedom. Her shoulder bumped hard against Sherry’s side, sending them both off balance. Jules collided painfully with the edge of a shelf before scrambling forward, desperately hoping to escape before Sherry recovered.

Don’t fall, don’t fall! She repeated the mantra in her head, knowing it would be next to impossible to get up quickly with her hands secured. Using her sore shoulder—the one she’d just used to take Sherry out like a linebacker—she pushed the cooler door open and half ran, half stumbled out of the tiny, cold room.

She heard Sherry swearing until the door closed behind her, cutting off the other woman’s tirade. Jules took a precious few seconds and forced her brain to think, to come up with the best plan. There was no lock on the cooler door, and no way to keep it closed without holding it shut like Vicki had. Nothing except lightweight carts were close by, so she couldn’t even block the door. With the cuffs restraining her hands, it would be time-consuming at best and impossible at worst to dial either the diner landline or her own cell. Norman Rounds’s possibly dead body was sprawled by the front door, blocking it, so that was out.

After a moment of sheer, I’m-not-going-to-make-it panic, she remembered the back kitchen door and headed as fast as she could to the rear exit. It had a simple, emergency-exit bar that she could push open with her body. Once she was outside, she could run the half mile to the gas station down the street.

Dodging around counters and workstations, she worked her way through the kitchen, her gaze fixed on her goal—the door. Her elbow clipped a speed rack, sending it rolling sideways and forcing her off-balance. She scrambled several sideways steps, the hard, tiled floor looming in her peripheral, reminding her that, if she fell, she was done.

As soon as she managed to get her feet under control again, she darted for the door. It got closer and closer, blocked only by a large, wheeled garbage bin. With her side, she shoved the bin, but its grocery-cart-style wheels didn’t want to move sideways, grudgingly rotating a quarter circle instead. Jules twisted to fit between the bin and the wall, and she was there, the wide emergency-release bar hard and cold against her arm as she pushed.

“This was not part of my plan.”

Sherry’s voice came from right behind her, and Jules automatically snapped her head around to stare. A dark blur swung at her face. She tried to duck, but it was too late.

Everything went dark.

* * *

“You never listen to me.” Hugh scowled, shifting uncomfortably on his kitchen chair. Although Hugh would never admit it, Theo could tell his partner’s leg was killing him. “No one ever listens to me. Then bad things happen, because you didn’t listen, and do I say ‘I told you so’? No. I let you cry on my shoulder, and then you feel better and go back to never listening to me.”

Otto glanced up from the eggs he was scrambling. “Why are you sounding more like our grandma than usual?”

From his spot leaning against Hugh’s kitchen counter—where he’d been since he’d given up trying to find something edible to go with the eggs Otto had brought—Theo laughed.

“And why is Theo laughing?” Otto asked.

Hugh’s frown deepened exponentially. “Exactly.”

“No,” Otto said, pouring the eggs into a pan. “I’m really asking. Why is Theo laughing?”