Page 69 of Hellbent

“We’re not gonna find out,” Evan said. “Stay here.”

“You’re going into the plaza?”

“Too many civilians. We’ll let him come to us. He’ll check the bathrooms next.”

Sure enough, the driver emerged from the plaza and started their way. They pulled back from the corner.

Evan moved his hand toward his holster. “Don’t want to use the gun,” he whispered. “No suppressor. But if I have to—”

She completed the thought. “I’ll have the car ready.”

A crunch of footsteps sounded behind them. Was there a second man? Evan put his shoulders to the cinder block, flattening Joey next to him, and switched his focus to the rear of the building.

A Pomeranian bobbed into view, straining a metal-link dog leash. It sniffed the grass, its rhinestone-studded collar winking.

Evan came off the wall.

The little dog pulled at its chain, producing an older woman clad in an aquamarine velour sweatsuit. She frowned down at the dog. “Do your business, Cinnamon!” She looked up and saw Evan. “Oh, thank God. Excuse me. Can you watch Cinnamon for me just for a second? I have to use the ladies’ room.”

Evan could hear the driver’s boots now, tapping the front walkway behind him, growing louder. “I can’t. Not now.”

Creak of hinges. Hiss of hydraulic door opener.

The woman said, “Maybe your daughter, then?”

Evan turned around.

Joey was gone.

He tapped his holster through his shirt.

Empty.

He hissed, “Joey!” and leaned around the front corner.

He caught only a flicker of brown-black hair disappearing through the men’s-room door as the hydraulic opener eased it shut.

The woman was still talking. “Teenagers,” she said.

Evan stood at the corner, torn. If he shouted Joey’s name, he’d give her away. If he barreled in after her, he could alert the driver and get her killed. As it stood, she had Evan’s gun and the element of surprise.

On point, he strained to listen, ready to charge.

The woman misread his agitation, her face settling into an expression of empathy. “I raised three of them,” she went on, holding up three fingers for emphasis. “So believe me, I know. It’s hard to learn to let them go.”

The dog yapped and ran in circles.

“What with the driving and drinking,” the woman said. “Making choices about their bodies.”

Through the cinder-block walls, Evan heard a thud. A grunt. In the window just over the woman’s shoulder, a spatter of blood painted the pane, and then the man’s face mashed against the glass, wisps of beard smudging the blood.

The woman cocked her head. “Do you hear that?”

“I think they’re cleaning the bathroom,” Evan said.

Another pained masculine grunt and the snap of breaking bone.

“Deep cleaning,” Evan said, as he shot around the corner.