Chapter Forty-Five

“Fuck!” Sam bent, arms braced on his thighs as he gasped for breath.

He straightened. May was no longer in sight. “God damn it. Fuck!”

“She gone?”

He turned, looking back at the cabin. Karl stood in the doorway. Otter was struggling to leap from footprint to footprint in Sam’s wake. He started back, his feet burning. He’d run barefoot into the snow.

Otter stood, hesitating in one of the footprint hollows, unsure which way they were headed.

Sam scooped him up as he passed, holding the terrier under his arm like a football. Otter hung there, panting happily. He had no idea of the disaster that’d just happened.

“She’s got the snowmobile,” Sam told Karl as he made the porch.

Karl stepped back, letting him inside. “I saw. You think she’s headed to Beridze?”

“I know she’s headed to Beridze,” Sam said.

Becky came around the corner of the kitchen island, caught sight of Sam’s feet, and made a horrified sound. She turned back to the kitchen.

Sam let Otter down.

“Does she have the diamonds?” Karl asked, running his hand through his hair. “Dude. We’re screwed if she does.”

The microwave beeped in the kitchen and Becky took out a towel.

“That’s just it,” Sam said, frustrated, angry, and worried as hell about May. When he got his hands on her… “She doesn’t have them.”

“What?” Karl asked as at the same time, Becky barked, “Sam, sit down.”

He sat because Becky was looking kind of militant. She immediately began wrapping his feet in warm towels.

His feet tingled as they warmed.

“What do you mean May doesn’t have the diamonds?” Karl demanded. His hair was sticking straight on end. “I thought you said she got them from the café.”

“She did.” Otter came over and put his wet front paws on Sam’s knee. He ruffled the dog’s wiry fur. “She had them in her pocket the entire time yesterday, but last night I took them out of her coat pocket. She must’ve been so damned concerned with getting away from me that she didn’t even check her own pocket.”

She was walking into a meet with a psychotic mafiya boss with no assets, and it was all Sam’s fault. He should’ve told her he’d taken the diamonds, should’ve confessed that he didn’t completely trust her when it came to her uncle. But he hadn’t wanted to start an argument, to start fighting again over how to handle Beridze and get Old George back. They’d been so close for once, he thought it all could wait for just one night.

Shit. He’d chosen his cock over May’s safety.

He gripped his head in his hand, trying to think. May had the snowmobile. They had two dog sleds and a truck with a plow blade—none of them anywhere as fast as a snowmobile. And even if he could catch up with May, what was he going to do? Hand over the diamonds and hope Beridze would suddenly grow some morality and give back both May and her uncle?

Fuck. He was just fucked.

“Breathe, Sam,” Becky murmured, kneeling at his feet. She’d brought over another batch of warm towels.

“Sam?”

He looked up at the croak. Doc was in the doorway to the spare room, leaning hard on Dylan. “Jesus, Doc, you need to be lying down.”

Doc looked pale as death, but a corner of his mouth twitched up. “Kind of hard to sleep with all the commotion out here. What’s your plan?”

Sam stared at him, his mind blank.

But Doc simply nodded his head, no trace of worry in his face. “You can do it. You’ll make a plan, save Maisa and George. Town’s counting on you, son. I am, too.”

And with that Doc turned and limped back into the spare room with Dylan.

Sam inhaled and glanced around. They were all looking at him, Karl, Molly, and Haley Anne. Stu, Walkingtall, and Jim were on the other side of the kitchen island, Ilya was still huddled in his chair, and even Doug was propped in the doorway to the spare bedroom. They all expected him to know the answers, to save them from catastrophe, to get them out of the hopeless situation.

You play afraid and you’ll never win, Doc had said so long ago at Ed’s.

Sam stood. “Okay. We’re going to toss these assholes out of our town once and for all.”

Relief swept Becky’s face, but Walkingtall merely grunted. “How?”

Sam stared him in the eye a beat and then looked one, by one, at everyone else. He needed them all behind him for this. “We need to find a way to surprise Beridze. Something he won’t expect.”

Jim cleared his throat. “Would explosives help?”

Everyone turned to stare at him.

Sam blinked. “Yeah, Jim, I’d say explosives would be very helpful.”