Chapter 5 - THE HEAVY COAT
Norah threw her body completely over Leo, shielding him from the barrel of the shotgun.
"Dale, don't!" she screamed, her voice cracking. "It's me! It's Norah!"
Dale didn't lower the weapon. The heavy beam of the flashlight remained fixed on Sebastian's face.
Sebastian sat perfectly still. He didn't reach for his gun. He simply looked at the old cook with a quiet, terrifying recognition.
"Hello, Arthur," Sebastian said softly.
Dale’s jaw tightened. "It's been a long time, Sebastian. I thought you were dead. I hoped you were."
"Arthur?" Norah whispered, peering over the edge of the seat. Her mind was spinning.
"Arthur Vance," Sebastian corrected, his eyes never leaving the barrel of the shotgun. "Mark’s uncle. And the former head accountant for Elias Thorne."
The world shifted on its axis again. Norah stared at the man who had cooked her eggs for three years, the man who had asked about her day, the man who had protected her from drunk customers.
"You knew?" Norah asked Dale, her voice breaking. "You knew who I was this whole time?"
Dale finally lowered the flashlight slightly, though the shotgun remained raised. The hard lines of his face softened into something resembling the old cook she knew, but the exhaustion in his eyes was absolute.
"I tracked you down after Mark was killed," Dale said heavily. "Elias thought I died in a boat fire five years ago. I faked it to get out of the life. When Mark died, I knew Elias would eventually come for the boy to tie up loose ends. I took the job at the diner to keep an eye on you."
He looked at Sebastian with pure venom. "And then this bastard walks into my diner and orders black coffee."
"I wasn't looking for you, Arthur," Sebastian said smoothly. "I was looking for the files. Elias framed my family for Mark’s death to start a war he could win. I need the encryption key to prove it to the Commission, or my entire family dies."
"You think I care about your family?" Dale spat. "You people are a disease!"
"Dale, please," Norah begged, sitting up slowly. "They shot up my house. Elias's men. We have the memory card. But we need the key. What is locker 10-44?"
Dale looked at Norah, seeing the genuine terror in her eyes, seeing the way Leo was trembling in her arms. The fight seemed to drain out of the older man. He lowered the shotgun completely.
"Follow me," Dale ordered, turning his back and walking into the crumbling concrete structure of the weigh station.
Sebastian killed the SUV’s engine. He turned to Norah. "Leave the boy in the car. Lock the doors."
"I am not leaving him," Norah said fiercely.
"Elias's men are sweeping the woods," Sebastian said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "If bullets start flying, metal stops them better than a mother's arms. Lock the doors, Norah."
It went against every instinct she had, but the cold logic of a man who survived gunfights for a living won out. She kissed Leo, locked the heavy armored doors from the outside, and followed Sebastian into the dark building.
Dale had lit a kerosene lantern on a rusted metal desk. He was pulling a heavy wool coat out of a duffel bag he had stashed there.
"Mark came to see me two days before he died," Dale said, throwing the coat onto the desk. "He was terrified. He knew Elias was onto him. He said he was going to download Elias's offshore routing numbers onto a microdot, but he needed a physical location to store the cipher key. A place Elias couldn't hack."
"Where?" Sebastian demanded.
"The downtown bus terminal," Dale said. "Locker 1044. Mark rented it under a fake name. He paid for ten years in cash."
Dale reached into the pocket of the heavy wool coat. He pulled out a small, dull brass key attached to a plastic tag with the number 1044 printed on it.
He held it out.
Sebastian reached for it, but Dale pulled it back.
"You don't get this until you promise me something," Dale said, his eyes burning with fierce determination. "You take the files, you clear your name. But you leave Norah and the boy completely out of it. You give them enough cash to disappear, and you never look for them again."
Sebastian looked at Norah. He saw a woman whose entire life had been a lie, a woman who had worked graveyard shifts just to keep her child fed, completely unaware that she was sitting on a mountain of cartel secrets.
A strange, soft expression crossed Sebastian’s hardened face. "You have my word, Arthur."
Dale handed over the key.
Suddenly, a massive, deafening crack echoed outside.
Wood splintered. Glass shattered.
Norah screamed.
"Leo!"
She spun toward the door, but Sebastian grabbed her arm, throwing her violently to the ground just as a barrage of automatic gunfire tore through the concrete walls of the weigh station.
"They found us," Sebastian shouted over the deafening roar of bullets.
Dale racked the shotgun, stepping in front of Norah. "Get her out the back! I'll hold them off!"
"No! My son is in the car!" Norah fought against Sebastian’s grip, pure adrenaline flooding her system.
"The car is armored!" Sebastian yelled, dragging her toward the rear exit. "If you run out there, they will shoot you to pieces!"
They burst through the back door into the freezing night air. Sebastian fired blindly into the tree line to provide cover.
From the front of the building, Dale’s shotgun roared three times. Then, a sharp, choked cry echoed over the gunfire.
"Dale!" Norah screamed.
Sebastian didn't let her turn back. He hauled her into the dense pine trees, running hard through the darkness. They circled around the building, approaching the front from the tree line.
The SUV was intact, its armored glass spider-webbed but holding.
But the front door of the weigh station was blown open.
Dale lay on the concrete steps, bleeding heavily from his chest.
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And standing over him, holding a smoking assault rifle, was Hal Prescott. The manager of the Blue Pine Diner.
"Well," Hal called out into the dark woods, a cruel, mocking smile on his face. "I guess I finally have a reason to fire you, Bellamy. Come on out, or I put a bullet in the old man's head."
