“Hey,” Brooke protested.
Lights flashed behind my eyelids, and I forced them open, swallowing down nausea. “Zippy?”
He sighed and motioned with the gun. “Get over by them.”
I crawled to where Brooke still crouched with her hand on Henry’s bleeding leg. He had sat up, legs straight, face pale.
I forced myself to stand, sucking in air as I did so. “Zippy?”
Keeping the gun pointed at me, Zippy reached down and hauled Gloria to her feet. “You okay, dove baby?”
Dove baby? I gagged.
Henry pushed to his feet and tried again to get Brooke behind him. Blood streamed down his leg and spattered across his stomach hair. He looked pale but determined. “There’s no need for anybody to get shot,” he said, voice rough. “Why don’t you two just go? We promise we won’t call the police for a couple hours.”
I didn’t think it would be that easy. “You two are partners?”
“Yes.” Gloria leaned into him, blood flowing down from her nose. I hope I’d broken it. “We’ve been planning for quite a while, and it’s finally time.”
I couldn’t breathe. “For what?”
Zippy lifted his chin, his hair a steely, impressive white. “I’ve been working with a group out of California dealing in medicinal mushrooms. The FDA is way behind in regulating them. We have a good thing going here. We’re going to branch out from Gloria’s store to stores all over Idaho, Montana, and the Dakotas. We’re in it for the billions.” He glanced down at Gloria and smiled. “She chose me all those years ago, and now I choose her.”
Brooke pushed to her feet. Blood covered her hands. “You two are nuts.”
I totally agreed. There had to be a way out of this mess. The longer I kept them talking, the more time we had to be saved. Had my phone called anybody? I prayed really quickly. “Why steal Nana’s silver boxes? Just for the money?”
Zippy focused on me. “You’re stupid. I actually want to shoot you.”
A chill raced down my spine.
Gloria spit out blood. “I get to shoot her.” Red coated her teeth.
Henry leaned on Brooke, still trying to protect her with his body. “Not for nothing, but old people ain’t supposed to be evil.”
Gloria leaned back. “I want to shoot him, too.”
I exhaled, my brain hurting. How hard had Zippy hit me? “Why take the silver boxes?”
He looked at me like I was dumber than a box of rocks. “For the map.”
I took a step back. “Seriously? The treasure map?” I shook my head and instantly regretted it. “There’s no treasure.”
Gloria reached for a Kleenex under the counter. “No shit. As part of her grand opening schtick, your grandmother planned to let people take pictures of the map.”
“So?” I gingerly felt the lump on my head. Good. No blood.
Irritation crackled across Zippy’s still handsome face. “We’re also growing mushrooms, and that damn map would’ve led people right to our grow site.”
Oh. Okay. “You know we have leftover maps around, right?” I muttered.
Zippy shrugged. “Sure, but that’s different than a hundred or so more folks going treasure hunting. I bet you haven’t looked at a map in a decade.”
He wasn’t wrong. I stilled. “You shot Sheriff Franco.”
Zippy smiled, looking kind of evil. “Yeah. I guess he was just chasing poachers, but he got too close to my grow. So I shot him. Lucky bastard. Didn’t die.”
My stomach rolled over. “The bear trap I found along with the wire strung between trees. Yours?”
