Chapter Thirty-Two

Karl peddled with one foot off the runner as he walked the dogs around the back of Tracy’s Antiques—not an easy maneuver because what with the shouting, the gunfire, and the revving of that truck, they really wanted to race. Phase One of The Plan had already been implemented: Sam had rescued Dylan, and Maisa had presumably grabbed the diamonds—Maisa’s getaway skis by the back of the Laughing Loon were missing, so she was gone, anyway. Now it was time for Phase Two: Super-Cool Sledding Action Plus Bonus Badass Molly Shooting.

For some reason Sam had shot down Karl’s suggestions for plan titles.

“Whoa. Whoa!” he hissed at Cookie, who was straining against her harness and pretending she’d gone suddenly deaf. He had the drag pad down—a sort of auxiliary brake—but it was hardly slowing Cookie in her present mood.

“Molly?” If he missed her, it’d spoil Phase Two: SCSAPBBM, and she’d be stuck on the roof of Tracy’s Antique’s, and then who knew what would happen to her? “Molly.”

“Why are you whispering?” she asked in a normal voice from behind him, nearly giving him a heart attack.

Karl stomped on the drag pad, bringing the sled to a halt. “Because of bad guys?”

She rolled her eyes and climbed in the basket, holding her rifle across her knees. “Like they wouldn’t hear the team coming from a mile away.”

Karl kicked off and let Cookie have her head as they skimmed. “Well, okay, sure, but that doesn’t mean we need to be—”

He broke off with a shriek that wasn’t at all unmanly as they rounded the corner to cross Main and came face-to-dog-muzzle with an armed mafiya.

The thug looked nearly as startled as Karl felt.

“Haw!” Karl yelled, trying to get the dogs to turn to the left so they could get the hell out of there. “God damn it, haw!”

But Cookie took one look at the hulking thug, laid her ears flat, and lunged.

There was a rattle of automatic gunfire, growling, a scream from the thug—really girlish—and a thump as the dogs kind of ran over him. The sled ricocheted off the sprawled man and then they were past.

Karl whooped and pumped his fist in the air as they shot across the street. Molly hadn’t made a sound but she was gripping the sides of the basket hard. Cookie was ready to race off into the country and maybe not stop until she got to Canada, but Karl somehow got her under control—well, partly under control—and they turned by Mack’s Speedy, bumped along the snow next to the gas station, and then turned again onto Fourth, which ran behind the buildings on the south side of Main.

The wind blew in Karl’s face, the dogs panted and galloped, and somewhere up ahead shots were still being fired. Electricity zinged in Karl’s veins. This was by far the coolest thing he’d ever done, even including that time he’d made bat wings out of tinfoil and coat hangers and tried to fly off the top of the Red Earth Elementary School, a one-story structure that, as it’d turned out, was just as well. One of the lilacs planted along the foundation of the school still looked kind of stunted after all these years, and Molly always glanced at him a bit suspiciously when she saw it.

Karl smiled with affection at the back of Molly’s head. “Think Doug got to the fuel tank in the municipal parking lot?”

Molly shrugged, not bothering to turn around. “I saw him go back there. Guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

The back of the municipal building came into view—along with the shed at the end of the parking lot that housed the back-up generator. The door to the shed was open. Thank God—Doug must’ve done his job. Time to implement the second half of Phase Two: Badass Molly Shooting.

“Whoa!” Karl called, stomping on the drag pad. “WHOA, God damn it, Cookie!”

For once the dog listened, which was kind of odd, but Karl was just happy he wouldn’t have to do another lap around the town to come back.

Molly heaved herself up and stepped out of the sled.

“What are you doing?” Karl asked nervously. The last thing he wanted was the sled taking off without Molly.

“I can’t hold the rifle steady in the sled,” she said quietly.

He watched as she braced herself, standing tall—well, tall for five foot two—and bent over the rifle sights, aiming at the fuel tank in the municipal parking lot shed. In theory Doug had already been by and taken off the tank cap. With any luck there’d be a build up of fumes in the little building.

Well. If all had gone according to plan.

Molly inhaled quietly, steely calm even though there was still a truck revving somewhere and gunshots now and again. His chest swelled with pride. Molly was the best damn shot in the county.

Crack.

He flinched without meaning to, both hands flying up to shield his face.

Nothing happened.

Molly took a breath and slowly exhaled.

Crack.

Nothing.

The truck engine was coming closer, and for a split second Karl felt admiration for anyone who could drive in this snow. Then a jittery feeling began jumping through his veins.

He glanced behind them. A truck grill rounded the corner down by Mack’s Speedy. Fuck.

“Molly—”

Crack.

He turned back to her, well into full-fledged, lets-get-the-fuck-outa-here panic. “Molly!”

BLAM!

The shed went up in a humongous volcano of orange and black fire, like something straight out of any movie Arnold Schwarzenegger had ever made in his life, and it was so incredibly awesome that Karl would’ve cried.

If it weren’t for the fact that they were about to die.

“Getingetingetin!” he babbled at Molly, not losing his cool at all, and Molly tumbled into the sled and he let the brake go, jumped off the drag pad and screamed, “HIKE!”

Cookie took off like a bullet out of a gun, nearly giving him whiplash, and the sled bumped and swung wildly onto the street.

Karl clung to the bar and risked a glance behind him.

The SUV was roaring up their ass. As he watched, a gunman hung out the window and took aim at them.

Karl turned back around, yelling at the dogs. He wasn’t even forming words anymore, it was more like inarticulate screaming.

The automatic rattled behind them and for a horrible moment Karl was sure he’d been hit. But then he realized there was no blood and he was probably just having a terror-induced heart attack.

They made the end of the street and he got the dogs to head back toward Main, which was a mini-miracle in and of itself.

The SUV growled behind them.

“Shit!” Why the hell hadn’t the truck gotten stuck by now? It shouldn’t be able to even move in the snow. Thank God the snow was at least slowing it—the dogs were fast, but not fast enough to outrun a truck at speed.

“Head to the rez!” Molly hollered, proving that she was as smart as she was pretty.

“Yeah,” Karl panted. They’d lose these assholes there, or preferably on the way there.

They hit the highway going like a zillion miles an hour, just flying over the snow, and for a moment Karl thought they’d lost the SUV. But then the thing roared behind them, much bigger and scarier than any Christine.

“Fuckfuckfuck,” Karl chanted into the wind and then a miracle happened.

Behind them, there was a muffled whump! and then the awesome, wonderful, erection-inducing sound of an engine whining as the SUV’s tires spun uselessly.

“Whoa!” Karl yelled, and Cookie slowed at once.

He turned to look.

There sat the SUV, spun around and half buried in a snow bank, its tires whirring as they made ice in the snow.

“Ha!” Karl yelled, making a superrude gesture he’d learned in the army. “Ha, motherfuckers, ha!”

“Uh, Karl,” Molly said.

“Oh, sorry,” Karl said at once, because it was just wrong for him to be swearing and rude-gesturing in front of Molly, even though she still hadn’t even smiled at him yet today and wouldn’t even let him explain about the arrowheads.

“Hey, Molly,” Karl said, “about those arrowheads—”

“Karl!”

And Karl’s chin jerked in the direction of Molly’s horrified stare in time to see the SUV reverse out of the snow bank and continue reversing toward them, gaining speed as it loomed. Which, really, he should’ve seen coming.

The monster never died in the movies.

“Hike, Cookie! Hike for your life!”

Cookie leaped forward. The sled lurched and swung before catching and then they were racing down the highway, the SUV gaining behind.

Shit! They were going to die, and Molly would think for eternity that Karl was a thief.

“I didn’t steal them!” he shouted into the wind.

“Take the exit,” Molly screamed back.

“What?”

“Take the fucking exit, Karl!”

So he did, shouting orders at the dogs, racing down the exit ramp to the road that ran by Lake Moosewood.

Molly was clinging with both hands to the rails, but she twisted to look at him. “The ice.”

And he had one of those moments that seemed straight out of the romance books he used to sneak out of his mother’s room when he’d been twelve and any mention of a nipple would give him an erection: perfect and complete understanding such as could only be achieved by twin souls bound as one.

Which was just bitchin’.

“Cookie, gee!” And his lead dog, bless her crazy heart, turned to the right, bumped off the street, over a field of snow, and onto Lake Moosehead.

The wind had blown away a lot of the snow here, making the sledding fast and slick, but it was easier on the SUV, too. Karl could hear the truck racing closer, still in reverse. His back felt like one fat target.

“Can you shoot at ’em?” he yelled at Molly.

She snorted. “I can shoot at them, but I won’t hit anything. Not while we’re moving anyway.”

“Shit.” Karl searched the far shore. There was the big ugly oak that twisted to the side, there was that tacky three-story A-frame which, okay, he was kind of jealous of, but not the time… and there was the little dip in the shoreline, totally unnoticeable unless you knew the area like your own hairy balls.

Which he did.

Karl made for that dip in the shore—the spot where Gopher Creek emptied into the lake.

Behind them something popped and the snow beside the dogs exploded.

“Crap! Those assholes are shooting at my dogs!”

Molly was usually pretty quick to speak her mind, but she didn’t reply, and that fact made him even madder than the shooting-at-the-dogs thing. She was scared—he could tell by the hunch of her shoulders—and that just wasn’t right.

Nobody should shut his Molly down.

They were almost to the shore now, almost to that dip, and the SUV seemed to know it. The big truck roared in their wake, suddenly gaining speed, about to crawl up Karl’s ass.

Nearly there. Nearly there. Sweet baby Jesus would they ever get there?

And then they were there.

The dogs and sled turned, riding along the shoreline, fifty feet out. The ice looked just the same here as anywhere else on the lake, but it really wasn’t. The water from Gopher Creek ran beneath, making the ice here thinner.

Dangerously thinner, especially if you were driving a three-ton SUV instead of, say, a sled and a half-dozen dogs.

The truck was right behind them, and for a bowel-loosening moment Karl thought he’d fucked it up. That they’d run down Molly and the dogs and it’d all be his fault.

Then he heard the sweetest sound in the world: a tremendous CRACK!

“Whoa!” He looked over his shoulder as the dogs slowed. The SUV looked like it was bowing to him, the front end tilted down at a forty-five-degree angle.

Someone shouted.

And then the ice just gave way.

The big truck disappeared in a geyser of dark water and ice chunks, splashing out over the top of the frozen lake.

“Oh, my God,” Molly whispered.

“That was…” Karl looked at her, wide-eyed “… the coolest thing ever.”

Her eyes crinkled so beautifully, and her soft, soft pink mouth spread in a smile, and for a moment everything was perfect in Karl’s world.

Then Cookie whimpered.

Cookie never whimpered.

He glanced up. She turned, trying to lick at her butt, and suddenly sat down as if she’d lost her balance. The snow was pink under her feet.

“Karl,” Molly said in a soft, sad voice. “Karl, she’s been shot.”