“We’re doing this because we’re good people,” Daisy said. “We do for others, even if they probably wouldn’t do the same for us.”
“Speak for yourself.” Cordelia wasn’t feeling nearly as generous now that the thrill of the chase had worn off. But that was why Daisy had twice the generosity of those who sat in pews on Sunday mornings and called it good enough.
And while Cordelia wasn’t feeling much love toward Edna, they were too far into this now to turn back. About halfway down the road, they spotted the Mercedes parked alongside the gravel road beside a structure that looked more like an oversize oil drum than a building. Daisy shut off the headlights and rolled the car to a stop beside a thicket of dry brush on the other side of the road. It didn’t do much to conceal the car, but the sun had set, offering them a little more cover.
Daisy opened the car door, swearing as the overhead light came on, and quickly got out, adjusting her tube top. “I knew I should’ve worn the three-inch heels today.”
She still moved fast enough to catch up to yesterday in her six-inchers, but they made a distinct picking sound against the hard-packed gravel as they snuck up on the rounded building. Clouds gathered in a thick, hazy blanket, blocking out the moon and most of the stars overheard, throwing them into near pitch black.
Once Cordelia’s eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she spotted a rusty ladder that clung to the side of the structure, one strong storm away from collapsing. A dim light bulb hanging from a crooked metal hood illuminated the single door at the back. There were no windows, but echoes reverberated against the metal and drifted out of the space between the roof and the wall.
Cordelia pressed her ear against the door. Sean’s thick accent mixed with a lower-pitched Texas drawl, one she didn’trecognize. She could’ve sworn she heard Edna weeping, but that might’ve been the creak of the building settling. They’d never actually seen her in the car.
“There are at least two men in there,” Cordelia whispered.
“Should we bust in there, guns blazing, like they do in the movies?” Daisy asked.
“That’s a terrible idea, seeing as we don’t have any guns.” And they’d likely shoot themselves before they’d hit anything they were aiming at. Cordelia pointed to an outbuilding thirty feet away. “I have an idea.”
She motioned for Daisy to follow her, creeping toward the metal structure that looked small enough to be a garden shed. One window crusted over with spiderwebs and about a century of dust revealed that the inside held a bunch of old farming tools. Cordelia shuddered at the sight of the rusting hooks attached to the wall. The stuff of horror movies.
“There’s a door back here.” Daisy pulled on the latch, and it screeched like a tank hitting a guardrail. The voices in the other building fell silent. Daisy glanced at Cordelia with wide-eyed panic. “What do we do now?”
Cordelia yanked open the door the rest of the way and grabbed two hooks off the wall. She didn’t have time to freak out about tetanus, but the amount of rust coating those old tools hadn’t escaped her notice. She’d bathe in hand sanitizer later.
Raising her arm high over her head, Cordelia tossed the hooks into the scrub. Daisy followed her lead, grabbing more hooks and flinging them into the night. They hit the dirt with a soft thud. If one didn’t know where the sound originated, they almost sounded like footfalls.
The door from the opposite structure burst open, and Sean’s Irish lilt split the air. “I told you someone was following us. Find them.”
Daisy and Cordelia both let loose another series of hooks, and Sean pulled a gun from his waistband and began firing into the night. Daisy squeaked, the noise muffled by the sound of a bullet ricochetting off a rock. A tall man with a stooped build and a wide-brimmed Stetson followed close behind him. Cordelia flung another hook farther than the previous one.
“They’re getting away.” The man dashed ahead of Sean, who followed on his heels, gun still drawn. “I can’t see a damn thing out here.”
“Let’s go,” Cordelia whispered.
They had a five-minute window, if that, to get in and get Edna out. Sean and his partner had left the door of the larger building wide open. Just inside the entrance, Edna was tied to a wooden chair, a dirty cloth stuffed into her mouth. She’d already freed one hand from the rope that bound her and was quickly working on the other. Her forehead crinkled at the sight of Cordelia and Daisy, and she began violently jerking her head from side to side.
Cordelia crouched beside her and began untying her left hand. “We’re going to get you out of here, but if I take that cloth off and you start screaming, you’re on your own.”
Edna nodded, her eyes wide with shock.
Cordelia pulled the cloth free as Daisy went to work on the rope that bound her ankles to the chair. “Who is that man with Sean?”
“Jameson.” Edna spit the taste of dirt and oil from her mouth. “He owns a pawnshop in Three Oaks and fences a lot of stolen property for Sean.”
“We can get to know everyone later,” Cordelia said. “We don’t have much time as is.”
At the sound of the two men approaching, they all froze. They were too late.
“What now?” Daisy whispered.
They had all but one of Edna’s legs untied from the chair and no time to make a run for it. The only thing they could do was fight their way out. In the dark, in an unfamiliar territory, against two grown men with guns. How could this possibly go wrong?
Cordelia instructed Daisy to loop Edna’s arm around her shoulders and half drag her away from the entrance. Cordelia grabbed a rusted rake with an ancient wooden handle that was propped up against the wall and waited in the shadows.
As soon as Sean’s large frame filled the door, Cordelia swung the rake, cracking him across the temple. He went down like a sack of potatoes, his head lolling to the side. A trickle of blood cut a path across the dirt floor, moving slower than snail slime.
“What the hell?” Jameson stopped short at the sight of Sean and didn’t see the rake coming. Cordelia swung wide, and his teeth rattled together like a BB in a boxcar. He went down in a heap of dust next to Sean.
