Four Live Rounds

He walked back through the convenience store, heading toward the restaurant’s entrance.

A clock above the cash register read 11:02.

The hostess looked up, said, “Just one tonight, honey?”

“No, I’m meeting someone.” He strode past her, made a quick scan of the tables and booths, the stools at the counter. Soft drink signs and old license plates adorned the walls. A sign over the grill read KISS A TRUCKER. Breathe, Will. Breathe. The place was packed. Smell of fried things, onions, old coffee, bacon, body odor, eons of accumulated cigarette smoke. Long red hair, bushy beard, weighs over three hundred pounds. Aside from the long red hair, Javier’s description matches a third of the custom—There.

In the last booth, not far from the kitchen doors, an enormous man with braids of red hair and an unkempt beard occupied an entire bench seat. His back was to the wall, and he was staring at Will. You aren’t breathing. Will breathed, then moved carefully across the checkered floor to the booth, the man watching him with uncertainty.

The food on the table could have fed five, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all major fried-food groups represented.

Will slid into the booth.

“Jonathan?”

“Who the f**k are you?”

Breathe. Will’s lower lip ached to tremble. He bit his tongue, glared at the man, summoning all the hate in his arsenal. He had a hand in taking Rachael.

“Once more. You Jonathan?” The man returned the onion ring he’d been holding to the basket and wiped the grease from his hands onto his size XXX T-shirt, which displayed three naked women engaged in some act that was indeterminate due to the stretched, faded quality of the cotton.

When he started to rise, Will pulled the Glock from his waistband, set it on the table, the barrel pointed at Jonathan, his finger on the trigger.

“You crazy?” The man’s eyes cut to every corner of the restaurant, but Will didn’t move. “Where’s Jav?” Jonathan whispered.

“Jav went to be with the Lord.” Will wiped his right hand on his pants under the table, sweat running down his sides. He tapped the Glock on the table. “Should I put this away or—”

“Yes. Nobody told me nothing about this. Who are you?”

It hadn’t occurred to Will that he might be asked to give his name, and he said the first thing that popped into his head: “Never mind what my name is. We discovered that Jav had this little operation going on the side. And you know what the upsetting thing was? He never shared.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I have the product.”

Jonathan picked up an enormous hamburger and bit into it, juice and catsup running down his chin. He wiped his forearm across his mouth and spoke as he chewed.

“You think I’m gonna do business with someone I never met, never seen, never heard of? That how you do business?”

Will exhaled slowly through his nose. “How I conduct my business is not your affair. Just for clarification . . . you are ending your arrangement with us?”

“Us?”

“The Alphas.”

Jonathan’s face blanched. He swallowed. “I suspected,” he said. “But I didn’t know. Sure as shit didn’t ask.”

“Are we doing business tonight, Jonathan? I need to know right now.”

Will set the Glock back on the table.

Jonathan sighed. “Yeah. Course we are. Course we are. And I apologize if I—”

“Just shut the f**k up. I’m tired, and I’d like to get some sleep. Where’s your truck?”

“Space one fifty-one.”

“Be there in five.”

TWENTY-SIX

Will unlocked the Land Rover, climbed into the driver’s seat, and shut the door. Kalyn lay silent and unmoving across the backseat, and when he glanced at her, he couldn’t help seeing Rachael, and it hit him again that she’d been through all this alone, without him.

“He went for it,” Will said.

Kalyn didn’t move. “What now?”

“We’re meeting him at his truck.”

“How do you feel?”

“Like someone jammed an adrenaline shot into my heart.”

“Yeah, it’s a rush, huh?”

“Kalyn, it’s not too late. We can still just drive away, forget this whole thing. You sure you wanna be put in the back of a trailer? God knows where it’s going.”

“Of course I don’t, Will. I’m scared beyond shitless. But in spite of the fear, I want to know what happened to my sister. She went through exactly what I’m getting ready to experience. Nobody tracking her. Nobody watching her back.”

Will cranked the engine, shifted into drive. He pulled around the side of the building that housed the restaurant and convenience store, soon found himself driving through row after row of semis, at least a hundred of them, dark and dormant, their drivers asleep for the night. Will lifted the TrimTrac device from the passenger seat, slipped it in his pocket.

“Kalyn, I’m worried. What do I do when the next transfer is made? What if he just passes you on to another truck?”

“There’s no way of knowing what’ll happen, where I’ll wind up. You just be close and ready to improvise. But listen, don’t get yourself and your daughter killed over this, okay?”

Up ahead, just a hulking shadow in the dark, Jonathan stood waiting, the back of the trailer already open.

“I see him,” Will said. “Get ready.”

He parked the Land Rover behind the truck and killed the engine, then stepped out, slammed the door. He didn’t like his surroundings—dark, quiet, a thousand places for someone to hide.

“Where is she?” Jonathan asked.

“Unconscious in the backseat.”

Impossibly, Jonathan managed to hoist his gigantic frame up into the trailer. In the poor light, Will could just make out large cylindrical containers, wondered briefly what Jonathan’s ostensible cargo was.

Will opened the door, reached under Kalyn’s arms, and pulled her carefully out of the backseat. Then he slung her up so she draped over his shoulder and started toward the truck, her chest heaving against his back. Settle down, Kalyn. Settle down.

“Got a pretty one there?” Jonathan asked.

Will made no reply, just gave Kalyn’s thigh a gentle squeeze.

At the back of the trailer, Jonathan pulled Kalyn off Will’s shoulders and placed her down. He knelt beside her, ran his hands over her legs, arms, between her thighs.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Will said.