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HE MEANT IT. I COULD feel it. Despite the theatrics—or, no, because of them. I could tell they were how he got in character. And his character was a killer in real life.
I could still give him what he wanted. It was in easy reach. If I scooped it up and handed it to him—
Then what?
He wouldn’t let me go. He wasn’t smart enough to be reasoned with. He’d kill me anyway or call his boss for further instructions.
But I had to try. “Wait! Wait!”
“No.”
“But—”
“No. You’ll only make it harder. I gotta do it.”
“But...what if I gave you the gun?”
“You said you don’t have it.”
“I lied! I lied! It’s here in the apartment.”
He scowled at me. “You’re lying now.”
“No. You hit me. Now I’m telling the truth.”
He nodded. That made sense to him. “Where?” he asked. He looked around, craning his neck like maybe there was another room hidden somewhere in this tiny box.
But it gave me an idea. If I could distract him for a moment, I could run. Grab the gun, even, and flee the fight just like in a game.
If I could make it to the admin building while the cops were still here, I could salvage everything. I only had to get past this one thug.
Following his gaze, I sighed and said it like a confession. “Fridge.”
“Huh?”
“The fridge. It’s in the fridge. I knew that was the one place you’d never look, so—”
“First place I looked,” he said, bragging and arguing at the same time. “Hauser yelled at me, because he’d already checked.”
“Not...” I said, inventing wildly, “not the freezer.”
“Yep.” He nodded. “Freezer first. Money and vodka go in the freezer. Freezer first. Then the fridge, then drawers, cabinets, and plumbing.”
“Plumbing?”
He made a face instead of answering.
“Well...” I pressed on. “I mean I just now hid it there. Tonight. When I got here. Didn’t Cass tell you it was here?”
“She... yeah.”
“Well, it is. It’s in the fridge.”
He stared at it, hard. His forehead was wrinkled into another little six-pack while he calculated the odds. I tried not to keep glancing at the door, but if he just took two steps away....
He sighed. “Fine. I’ll change the plan. I always regret it, but I’m gonna.”
“Do it,” I said, nodding at the refrigerator. “It’s in the crisper drawer. Way in the back. Just... dig a little.”
He took a step that way, and I felt like Moses watching the sea part for him. I stooped and scooped the gun, one smooth motion, and pushed off the doorframe on my upswing, aiming for the exit like an arrow from the string.
But Derrick had second thoughts.
While I was grabbing the gun, he stopped and turned back around. I had an angle on the door, still, and I was moving too fast to react.
I didn’t have to. He stuck out a hand and stopped me like a brick wall. He caught me at a full sprint like a shortstop fielding a line drive.
I don’t think he saw me grab the brown bag. If he did, he was too busy to care what was in it. He wasn’t even bothered by my attempt to run. His thoughts were fixed on the refrigerator.
“You get it,” he said.
“What?!”
“You get it and give it to me.”
“Why?”
“The fridge might be rigged.”
“Rigged? What are you talking about?”
“It could explode when I open it. It could electrocute me when I touch it. You never know.”
“You know!” I said. “You already searched it. Remember?” He was the wrong kind of stupid, and that was about to get me killed.
He shook his head, glaring at the refrigerator with a haunted expression. “I bet she rigged it. I bet that was her plan.”
“She?” I asked, but I already knew the answer.
“Cass!” His voice cracked on her name. “She’s...she’s crazy.”
I couldn’t help glancing at the exit. The door was an inch ajar. It was so close. And I had the gun he wanted in my hands.
But he didn’t notice any of it. He was fixated on the refrigerator now. I tried to pull away from him, but his open palm knotted into a fist like a reflex at my first motion. It tangled up the front of my shirt, and he curled me around in front of him.
He thrust me into the kitchenette, completely blocking me off from the door and trapping me behind the counters. When I tried to turn back to him, he raised his balled fist again like a loaded weapon.
“Get the gun,” he said. “Give it to me. Now. Or you’re a dead man.”
I opened the refrigerator to buy some time, and I heard him gasp in shock the moment I touched it.
Nothing happened, of course. There was nothing in my fridge but a full bottle of Pepsi and an empty bottle of mustard.
I did have the gun. With my back to him, hidden by the refrigerator door, I could have made a little show of it, then handed him the gun I already held. But that wouldn’t save me now. He’d already decided to kill me, and now he had me boxed in.
I’d tried too hard to make it work. I tried to be a hero, and I wasn’t. It was time to take my loss.
But just then, there came a mighty crashing sound from my bathroom. It came in two distinct phases. The first was a pained crack-squeal like a violent force smacking into a metal housing and tearing it out of the wooden joists it was nailed into. The second was the smack-clatter of a damaged metal housing falling from a significant height and destroying some newly-installed linoleum tile.
And then Cass’s voice came lilting from the bathroom. “Did it work, Dave? Is he dead?”