Page 117 of Floodgates

Chapter 13

I WAS dying of thirst, so I got up, dressed, and went in search of a vending machine to get us both some water. I only found snack machines, though, so I came back, prepared to drink out of the faucet in the bathroom. Hand on the doorknob, I prepared to go back inside.

“Wait.”

Whirling around, heart in my throat, I was surprised to not be facing a mad man with a gun, but instead a very ordinary-looking guy with a ball cap pulled low across his eyes. He had a barn coat on over a hoodie, and what looked like painter pants and heavy work boots. There was nothing even vaguely threatening about him except that he was there.

“Sorry?” I asked, taking a step back toward the door.

It was then he withdrew a gun. “No, you can’t go back in there. He said there’s a cop with you, yeah? I’ll go back to prison for this if I run into a cop.”

I stopped moving and waited.

“All I’m supposed to do here is make sure you don’t go back in.”

“What if I hadn’t come out?”

“Then I was supposed to knock soft until someone answered.”

“And if the cop had answered instead of me?”

“I was supposed to shoot him.”

My stomach clenched tight just thinking about Cord hurt.

“But really,” he said quickly, catching his breath, “I don’t wanna shoot anybody. I will, but I don’t want to.”

I nodded.

“I just gotta give you the phone in my pocket, tell you what number to dial, and then we go for a quick walk.”

I nodded.

“Come away from the door.”

I could have yelled. If I did, Cord would wake up, grab his gun, and fly out the door to save me. The stranger who really didn’t want to fire his weapon would, in fact, shoot the man I was planning a future with. I wasn’t ready to roll the dice on my happily ever after, the one where I got to eat dinner every night with Cord Nolan.

“Tell me what you want me to do.”

“Just follow me.”

“Okay,” I agreed quickly.

We walked together through the open-air corridor between the doors and the parked cars until we reached the dumpster. It was there that he passed me a tiny flip-top phone. He recited a number, and I punched it into the display.

“Do you want me to put it on speaker?” I asked the man.

He shook his head. “No. I know where I’m supposed to take you already.”

The message on the phone said “dialing” as I pressed it to my ear. It only rang once.

“Hello? Tracy?” It was a woman’s voice.

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“Celia.”

“Oh, okay, are you all right?”