And least I hadn’t killed anyone who hadn’t been asking for it. Amanda shrugged. “Anyway, those State boys will be here soon and then we can—”

The cinder block shattered the window, flew through glass and the blinds and landed five feet from us. We both dove to the floor, and I saw Amanda pop back up a second later with her gun drawn. I drew mine too just to feel involved, but I stayed under the desk.

A rough voice from the street yelled, “Get your ass out here, Sawyer, and take your medicine.”

The voice sounded like Jason Jordan’s, but it could have been one of his brothers. They all had the same rough redneck bark.

“Who is that?” she asked.

“The Jordan Brothers.”

“All of them?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe.”

“They want you.”

“I’m popular tonight.”

“You seem pretty glib about it.”

“I’m pretty tired. Being afraid has sort of worn off.”

She went up to the window, but stood off to the side in case another cinder block or worse came through. She still had the gun drawn, and I wondered if she was going to lean out and start shooting like in some old western.

“Who’s that out there?” she shouted.

Silence. Maybe they thought I was in here alone.

Amanda tried again. “There’s a world of hurt heading this way, boys. State Police. If I were you, I’d get home and clear the streets.”

I grinned at her. “Why don’t you go out there and arrest them?”

“Go to hell, Sawyer.”

I laughed.

“You here me out there?” she shouted again. “Clear off.”

“We don’t have no quarrel with you, Miss Amanda,” one of the Jordans yelled back. “Just send Sawyer out.”

“You heard him, kid. Get out there.” It was her turn to grin at me.

“They’re trying to divide us up.”

“I know,” Amanda said. “They can’t afford any live witnesses, and they must know the phones are out.”

“They’re probably the ones that done it,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Send him out,” came the shout again. “For what he did to Luke.”

“I didn’t kill your dipshit brother!” I yelled. Why the fuck did everyone think that?

“Shut up, idiot,” Amanda said.

“Well, I didn’t do it.”

“But now they know for sure you’re in here.”

Oops.

Amanda shouted, “God damn it, boys, this is a police station and I’m an officer of the law. You’ve jumped in a lake of shit and you just keep getting deeper and deeper. You get what I’m saying?”

Another pause.

Finally: “This ain’t over, Sawyer. Miss Amanda, you get in the way and whatever happens, happens.”

I heard an engine rev high, then the squeal of tires, and the engine roar faded down the road.

“Shit.” Amanda holstered her pistol and went to the gun cabinet, unlocked it, took out a pump twelve gauge and a box of double-ought. She started thumbing shells into the shotgun. “This time when I say stay and hold the fort I mean it, okay?”

“You can’t be going out there.”

She kept loading the shotgun.

“The State Police are coming. Just hang in here, and we’ll be okay.”

“If it were me,” Amanda said. “I’d pile a few loads of lumber against the front door and the back too. Couple gallons of gas. That would smoke us out pretty quick. You want to wait for that?”

I didn’t think the Jordans were that clever, but then I remembered the chief’s house was probably a pile of ashes by now. Maybe Amanda had a point. Passively sitting and waiting on the defensive had a few drawbacks. And yet I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe it was a good idea running out there looking for trouble.

“And anyway, I’m still the law,” she said. “I can’t let a bunch of rowdies rip up the town. At the very least I have to go keep an eye on them.”

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I didn’t ask your opinion.” She went to the gun locker, came back with another twelve gauge and set it on the desk in front of me. “Hold the fort.”

She opened the front door, paused before stepping out, looking up and down Main Street. She gave me one last look, walked out and closed the door behind her. I went and locked it. A second later I heard her squad car crank and drive away.

“You’re all alone now, cowboy,” came a soft voice from the cell.

“I still have you, hellcat.”

“You know those men will come back,” she said. “And if they can get inside, then they will kill you.”

“Maybe.”

“Fool. Let me out, and we will escape.”

I tried to imagine it. Not seriously, just for something to do. I imagined her in a bikini or maybe topless on some Mexican beach. I sipped on some kind of rum thing with an umbrella poking out the top. There’s a reason they call them fantasies. Because it’s not life. I had to stay in my life and take care of my son. And anyway, how long would something like that last before the money ran out or she stabbed me in the back? But in my fantasies, she looked pretty good naked, the surf splashing up around us.

“What are you thinking, cowboy?”

“Nothing. I’m not thinking a thing.”

I sat at the desk and put shells in the shotgun.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Amanda had left before the coffee was ready. I filled a Styrofoam cup and caffeinated myself in her honor. The coffee didn’t do much for me, but I drank it anyway. I swallowed and winced.

Like battery acid.

At some point I was going to hit the wall. A man can’t go forever on adrenaline and caffeine. I wondered what it would look like. If I’d be walking or in mid-sentence and then suddenly my eyes would roll up and I’d collapse into a snoring heap, slip into some kind of turbo coma. Or if my head would just explode and splatter brains all over the room.

I heard the engines outside so soon after Amanda had gone, it made me wonder if they’d been watching and waiting for her to leave.

The revolver hung heavy and reloaded on my hip. I grabbed the shotgun, flipped off the desk lamp. I stood in the darkness, palms sweating on the twelve gauge, strained to listen. A pale green light flickered from the obsolete computer in the corner. Another sad glow from the radio dial. Just enough light in the room to keep from bumping into the furniture.

“They are coming for you, cowboy.” The hellcat’s whisper was so low, I thought maybe it was a voice in my head.

The engines cut out, and I heard car doors thunk shut. I took a step forward, tried to catch a hint of movement through the wrecked blinds that still hung over the shattered front window. I could not make my breathing quiet down, breaths coming shallow through my mouth, my heart thumping up to speed.

I swallowed hard and waited.

Would they bust in all of a sudden with gun blazing, or would they burn me out like Amanda said? If they had the balls to torch the chief’s house then why not the station? Sure. Or maybe they’d come at me from two directions at once. I glanced over my shoulder at the door to the back room, thought about the other door out to the alley. Had I locked it? I couldn’t remember.

Hell.

I went to the back room, trying to stay quiet. The room smelled like gun oil and bitter coffee. My mouth tasted like acid. I reached for the knob to check the lock.

And froze.

The knob was already turning, so damn slowly so as not to make any noise, I guess, but there was still this slight rattle, and I’d never have heard it if I hadn’t been standing a foot away. And maybe if I’d been thinking clearly instead of feeling my gut flip-flop and my heart beat in my throat, I would have thought to put my shoulder against the door and hit the lock.

But I stood there watching the doorknob turn like some dumbass in a cheap horror movie.

And then someone was pushing it open. Somebody was coming in.

I held my breath and stepped behind the door, pulling the shotgun in close to my chest. The door opened inward until it was an inch from my face. Let him come in. Let him go by. Take him from behind. Sure. It seemed pretty simple when I rehearsed it in my head. So how come my legs felt like noodles? Stay focused, idiot.