1
Kylie Walker was stuck in a dump. But she’d survived worse in her twenty-five years—hello, ego-fragile ex-boyfriend who’d cheated, oh, hi, petty, jealous boss he’d cheated with. Goodbye, dream job. Goodbye, good reputation—and she was tough enough to survive this. Granted, she’d left California over a year ago, hellbent on a destination that was definitely not Coyote Flats, Wyoming. But Coyote Flats was where she’d run out of money after her hasty exit from San Diego with nothing more than her clothes, her favorite battle-tested cast iron skillet, and her determination not to fail. It was also where her current boss, who was not much of an upgrade from her last, just happened to have been looking for someone to tend bar. So Kylie was pouring cheap whiskey and even cheaper beer five nights a week rather than honing her kitchen skills and moving up the ranks to a coveted sous chef position in a restaurant on the rise.
But her brother, Kellan, had started fresh in Remington, North Carolina, after getting out of the Army three years ago. All she needed in the grander scheme of things was enough cash to get across the country so she could do the same.
Which meant what she needed in this moment was to complete this stupid bar inventory so she could finish her shift and cash out.
“Damn it,” Kylie muttered, her breath spilling out on a weary sigh as she registered the empty spot behind the bar where they kept the cocktail napkins. Of course, her boss, Vince, had used the last of the napkins without replacing them. Kylie rummaged through the boxes haphazardly stowed behind the bar, cursing freshly when she turned up straws and stirrers, but no napkins. For a fleeting second, she considered leaving the chore undone. After all, she’d be here tomorrow, and the trip down the rickety basement steps seemed marginally less ugh before her legs were tired from a night’s worth of standing behind the Corner Tavern’s bar. But there was a zero percent chance Vince wouldn’t give her shit for letting it wait, and it needed to be done. She’d get it over with, cash out for her paltry tips, and be one step closer to out of here, both literally and figuratively.
Kylie pushed past the door leading to the bar’s tiny kitchen, her boots shushing over the dark brown tiles, years of grease and grime and God knew what else embedded in the grout. Her shoulders thudded with a dull ache that matched the one forming behind her eyes. She slipped down the dank steps to the basement storage room, giving up the inevitable shiver that went with descending into a place with no windows, no fresh air, and no chance that anyone could hear you scream. Vince’s voice sounded off past the halfway-open door to the office, making her tread even more lightly. Given the time of night, he was probably drunk at best, and the only thing less pleasant than sober Vince was wasted Vince. Better to give him a wide berth.
Reaching the dusty dry storage shelf where they kept the bar’s paper goods—and making a mental note to bring some heavy-duty cleaner with her next time, because gross—Kylie pulled a box of cocktail napkins free, shifting her weight to turn back toward the stairs.
And saw someone fire two bullets into Vince’s head at point-blank range.
Kylie’s chest twisted, smothering her scream. She dropped the box of cocktail napkins in her grasp, her heart going ballistic against every last one of her ribs. Fear cemented her in front of the dry storage shelves outside the door to The Corner Tavern’s basement office, her limbs locking barely ten feet from whoever had just shot her boss as if her joints had been filled with high-powered Epoxy.
Even as her brain screamed at her to run.
Kylie’s legs got the message on a five-second delay, and she spun on her boot heels. But in her desperate attempt to launch herself at the stairs leading back to the kitchen, she kicked the box of spilled napkins with a dull thump, and shit—shitshitshittyshit! She needed to get out of here before the guy with the gun saw her, or worse yet, got ahold of her.
Two seconds later, the rough palm on her shoulder and the cold, unforgiving press of a gun to her ribs told her she was too late.
“Let’s see those hands, little girl. Nice and slow.”
Kylie’s breath turned to dust in her lungs as the man pulled her in from behind with a molar-rattling yank. His free hand slid from her shoulder, knotting hard enough at the base of her ponytail to make her scalp sting and her eyes water, and he pressed the gun against her body with steady, horrific pressure.
“Oh! What… I don’t...” Oh, God. Oh, God. OhGodohGodohGod. Kylie’s words crashed together in her throat, tangling in fear like razor wire. Adrenaline punched through her veins, freezing her boots to the musty concrete floor. But the man poked the gun harder against the flimsy Corner Tavern T-shirt that doubled as her work uniform, and she raised her hands to shoulder level like a puppet on sloppy strings.
“Bartender Kylie. You’re quite a surprise,” the man said, his voice spilling like acid over Kylie’s spine, and—wait, she knew that voice. “I thought that moron Vince had sent your pretty ass home already. Could’ve sworn he and I were conducting business in private.”
And didn’t that just make perfect sense? Her boss had closed the bar twenty minutes ago, and on a Tuesday night? They’d been dead for hours.
So to speak.
Kylie’s gut plummeted, her brain refusing to touch the thought. “I…I’ve been doing inventory behind the bar upstairs,” she managed, her knees beginning to shake beneath her jeans. The surprise was mutual—she’d had no clue anyone was here other than her and Vince, and he always locked the deadbolt right at closing time.
Oh, God. Vince.
“Yeah, well not anymore,” the man bit out, yanking her back to the harsh glare of the here and now, and God, she wished she hadn’t been so frozen in fear that she hadn’t gotten a good look at him before she’d tried to run. “Now start walking toward the office. And unless you’re bulletproof, I’d shut up if I were you.”
Without waiting for her to comply—not that her legs were on board with anything other than going on lockdown—the guy swung Kylie away from the stairs leading back up to the bar and forced her farther into the dingy basement.
Her brain chose that moment to come screaming back online, reminding her of all the statistics about chances of survival once a gunman forces a person to move.
Stop. You have to be tough and make him stop. “I just…I don’t want any trouble,” Kylie blurted, stabbing her feet into the floor beneath her. “I only came down here to get some cocktail napkins out of the storage pantry before I clocked out to go home.”
Of course, she’d had the spectacularly bad timing of hitting up the dry storage at the exact moment the man had been putting two rapid-fire bullets into her boss’s skull. Oh God, this psychopath was going to kill her. She had to stop all of this stupid shaking, get tough, and think.
The man’s grip tightened hard enough to force a cry past Kylie’s lips. “Figures I’d have to deal with the one bitch in all of bum fuck Wyoming who doesn’t know the meaning of the words ‘start walking’ and ‘shut up.’ Maybe you need a lesson.”
Kylie’s heart beat so fast she grew dizzy. Pressing her lips into a hard seal, she shook her head…or at least, she tried to, but his fingers were like titanium claws digging into her hair.
Thank God, the man eased up a fraction at her compliance. “That’s a good girl. Now get in the office so I can figure out what the fuck I’m going to do with you.”
Although every last one of her survival instincts screamed at her not to trade the narrow hallway for the deeper belly of the basement, she knew she didn’t have any choice. The man clearly out-gunned and out-muscled her, and he just as clearly knew she’d seen him shoot Vince. Kylie had known when she’d taken the job that The Corner Tavern was more shady than squeaky clean and that her boss had a lot to do with the place’s reputation, but he’d always been decent enough to her, and she needed the money. Just because he’d told her on day one to keep her eyes on the liquor and her nose out of the office didn’t necessarily make him a bad guy.
Her boots clattered to a stop on the threshold of the office where Vince’s body lay slumped over a growing puddle of blood, and Kylie’s gag reflex kicked her in the windpipe.
