“Coffee,” he ordered. The brief immunity to the cold had dissolved as he warmed up. His teeth chattered noisily as he slid onto the red pleather barstool. “And some change.”
The server behind the counter, Verne embroidered on his shirt and a Santa hat with grubby white fur worn low back on his head, gave Dylan a once-over as he poured the coffee.
“You want anything to eat?” he asked.
“No,” Dylan said. His empty stomach growled and made him out to be a liar. He wiped his hands on a napkin—it felt like sandpaper as his skin warmed up enough to hurt—and scanned the board up the wall. “Yes. A burger and fries. Is there a phone I can use?”
Verne scratched his chin.
“Most people have mobiles,” he said.
Dylan rubbed his temples. “It’s been a long day,” he said. “I dropped it.”
Verne set the coffee down in front of him and took the money.
“Burger will be about ten minutes,” he said, giving back a handful of coins. Then he pointed at the doors with his chin. “Payphones are outside.”
Of course they were.
Dylan took the coffee with him as he headed back out.
He was halfway through his burger, the limp fries already gone, when the door to the gas station opened. The bells hung over it rattled instead of chiming, making Verne look up with a frown. Dylan shoved a last hasty bite of burger into his mouth and twisted around on the stool.
The door swung shut behind Alice, and she stopped to push back the heavy hood of her parka, the frozen ruff of fur already melting down her back. Dylan didn’t feel good about getting her involved in this, but hers was the only number in Belling he had memorized.
Well, her number and the Chinese restaurant around the block from his apartment.
For a second, even though he and Verne were the only people in the gas station, she didn’t seem to see him. Dylan had to raise his hand to get her attention before her eyes focused on him. Once she did, her face went slack with relief, and she crossed the shop with long, confident strides. Snow dropped off her boots with each step and slowly melted on the tiled floor.
“Dylan Hollie,” she said as she pulled him into a hug and squeezed. “You scared the hell out of me.”
She grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him back again so she could search his face. “What happened?” she said. “Where have you been? Why do you smell so bad?”
Dylan nearly choked on the mouthful of shoe-leather tough burger he’d not gotten through yet. He swallowed and wiped his hand over his mouth.
“It’s…” He hesitated as he thought about what ‘it’ was. What should he lead with? The Wolves or Santa’s biker elves? If he’d been called out to someone who told this story, he’d assume they were on drugs or needed a psych hold.
He’dbeenon calls with Alice where that had happened.
“You wouldn’t believe me,” he said.
Alice squinted at him and then turned to get Verne’s attention. It wasn’t hard. He had been eavesdropping. “Coffee. Black. To go.”
There was a pause as Verne glanced from them to the coffee machine at the other end of the counter. He looked like a man trying to work out if he could still listen in from there. Probably not, though he had to head down that way anyhow.
Alice boosted herself onto a stool. It tried to swivel under her, and she stopped it with a booted foot against the counter.
“Try me,” she said. “I just drove half an hour into the boonies to pick you up, and the last time anyone saw you, that psychopath from last night was trying to kill you. I get a story.”
Maybe.
If all of this was down to a concussion—or a coma—he needed to tell someone with access to good drugs and the number of the psych department at the hospital.
“Was anyone hurt?” he asked. “The woman. Irene?”
Alice narrowed her eyes at him and pursed her lips. After a second, she decided to throw him a bone with the answer.
“I think the wedding is off,” she said dryly. “But she’s OK. A bit battered and bruised, but I think we all know that could have been worse. She said you saved her.”
