“I don’t know yet,” he answered.

“Are all of you crazy?!” Jose shouted.

Cole looked at Jose. “Jose, you need to think about this. There are some strange things happening here. Things that aren’t easily explained.”

“It’s just Frank.”

“Why would Frank go through all of this trouble?” Cole asked Jose. “Like Trevor said before, why didn’t Frank just take all of the money when he went outside in the middle of the night while we were asleep? Or why didn’t he just shoot us?”

“I don’t know,” Jose snapped at Cole. “I don’t know why he’s doing this. Or how. Or who else is helping him. I just know that I’m not giving them my share of the money.”

Jose took a few steps away, and then he turned back to Cole and Trevor. “Somebody has to be making Frank do this. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. Whoever took Frank in the middle of the night sent him back to get the money.” Jose looked at Stella. “Whoever she’s running from followed her here and realized that we were the bank robbers who had stolen the money from the bank. And now they want it all.”

Stella stared at Jose as he walked towards her.

“Who’s following you?” Jose demanded from Stella.

David put his pen inside his notebook and closed it. He clutched onto Stella with his notebook in his lap and stared at Jose with wide, unblinking eyes.

“Jose,” Cole warned.

Jose turned and stared at Cole. “Why do you keep protecting them?”

“We’re not going to go over all of that again, are we?” Cole said. “None of us are involved in this. When are you going to get that through your head?”

“Okay,” Jose said, nodding his head quickly. “If that’s true, then why don’t we do a little test? None of us put our money out there. Call Frank’s bluff, or whoever’s out there with him. Call their bluff.”

The cabin was quiet for a moment.

Cole finally shrugged. “Why not?” Cole looked at Trevor. “What do you think?”

“I don’t want to give my money away,” Trevor answered. “I worked hard for this.”

Needles stood in front of the recliner, his crucifix swinging back and forth slightly from his necklace, his wild hair spiked out in different directions, his eyes bulging. “No, I want my share out there. I’m not messing with the devil.”

“It’s not the devil,” Jose said. “I’m so sick of hearing you say that.”

“I get a vote,” Needles continued. “And I want my share of the money out there on the porch.”

“You get a vote,” Cole agreed. “We all get a vote. But this is going to be a majority rule.”

Needles looked like he was on the verge of panicking. “Why can’t we just split the money up now? We each hold on to our own share. We each do whatever we want with it.”

“You know we don’t split the money up until we’re ready to go our separate ways,” Cole said. It was something they had always agreed on. Until they were in a safe place where they could all leave, they didn’t split the money up. It was too easy and tempting for one person to take his share and leave. With the money all in one place and with all of their eyes on it, it gave the group safety.

“You’re such a pussy,” Jose said to Needles.

“Enough, Jose,” Cole said. “Let’s take a vote. We know what your votes are Jose and Needles.” Cole turned to Trevor. “What about you?”

Trevor thought it over for a moment. He looked at the two cases of money on the fireplace hearth, and then he looked back at Cole. “I think someone out there is after this money. They don’t want to charge in here and take it so they sent Frank back. I say we call their bluff and see what they do. I say we find a way to get to them, a way to get Frank back.”

They were silent for a moment, and then Jose looked at Cole.

“And what about you, Cole?”

Cole sighed. “I agree. We keep the money and find out who’s out there.”

“There’s an easier way of finding out who’s out there doing this,” Jose said as he rushed towards Stella and David. “Who the fuck’s out there?!” Jose screamed at Stella.

Jose pulled his gun out and aimed it at Stella. He stared at her with cold, dark eyes.

Cole crossed the room in a hurry. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Getting some answers from this bitch,” Jose said. “Once and for all.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Stella stared up at Jose as David clung to her; but she didn’t flinch. She was afraid, but she couldn’t show fear of him, she needed to be strong. David inhaled sharply when Jose jabbed his gun at them; he ducked his head underneath Stella’s arm and hid behind her.

Stella knew she needed to be strong for David, but a small voice whispered at her from somewhere in the back of her mind. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, the voice whispered. Just let him shoot, and it would all be over for her. She wouldn’t have to go through this anymore. She wouldn’t have to go through this again.

But she knew what would happen to her body even after she was dead.

She sat very still as she stared at the barrel of Jose’s gun pointed at her. She had seen things far worse than anything Jose could do to her, so she showed no fear of him. Let him shoot you, that small voice whispered again. And then all of this will be over.

But she had to protect David. She still had him to think about; it was the only thing that kept her going.

“I don’t know what’s out there,” Stella answered Jose. “And that’s the truth.”

Cole moved closer to Jose, trying to calm him down, talking to him in a soothing voice. “What are you going to do, kill the only person who might know anything about what’s going on out there?”

“Not unless she tells me what’s going on here,” Jose growled.

It was like this before at the dig site, Stella thought. But those people were scientists; they were reasonable – at least they were reasonable in the beginning before things got too bad. But these men in the cabin were bank robbers. They were criminals. And they had murdered at least one person that she knew about; the old man in the bank that they kept talking about. She couldn’t risk it much longer. She had to tell them something, but she knew she couldn’t tell them everything.

“What do you mean, you don’t know what’s out there?” Jose asked Stella.

“It’s not people out there,” Stella told Jose.

“I told you,” Needles said and jumped to his feet, a strange smile of victory on his face – a lunatic smile. “I told you the devil’s out there.”

Jose glanced quickly at Needles, and then he looked back at Stella.

“Is that what you’re trying to say?” Jose asked her. “The devil’s out there? The devil’s the one that’s following you?”

“I don’t know what it is.”

Jose was about to explode with anger. Stella could see his finger tightening around the trigger.

“I swear, that’s the truth!” Stella yelled at Jose. “Something’s out there, but I don’t know what it is!”

“Let her talk,” Cole said, trying to keep Jose calm. “Let her explain.”

“The dig site where we came from,” Stella continued quickly. “Something like this happened there. People were taken. One by one. I took David and we managed to get to my truck and get away.”

Jose stared at her.

“That’s the truth.”

Stella could see a movement out of the corner of her eye, Trevor sneaking up behind Jose, but she made herself look back at Jose.

Cole stared at Needles who seemed like he was about to alert Jose about Trevor, but after the look from Cole, Needles slumped back down in the recliner and didn’t say anything.

Cole turned and looked at Stella with compassion. He’s trying a different approach, she thought.

“Stella, we need your help,” Cole said. “Whatever you know about what’s going on out there could help us. I wish you would tell us.”

“You need my help?” Stella asked sarcastically and she couldn’t help the bark of a laugh that came out of her. “You run us off the road, carjack us, bring us to the middle of nowhere in a snowstorm, point guns at our faces, threaten to torture and kill us, and then you want my help?”