Page 76 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
“They’re torching the building. With us inside!”
He’s on his feet in one second.
“We have to go?—”
His hand curls around my arm, pulling me to my feet. But something snags in my mind, keeps me from moving.
“We can’t go—not yet,” I say. “The real paperwork—not what Cole planted on the desk as a decoy, but the actual evidence they took—could take down the entire gambling ring. If the building burns, the evidence burns. And Cole’s as good as dead.”
I should mention here that I should have argued with Cole, but there wasn’t any time. And a part of me thought, yep, that would make for a spectacular redemptive end to a hero in a novel. This is the problem. Novels are not real life. I need to tattoo that on my forehead or something. Novels are not real life, and you can’t lie and expect the world not to implode.
“We need to find Cole,” I tell him.
“What do you suggest?” Beckett says. He slides the backpack from his shoulder, pulls out my notebook, and hands it over. Seems as if he’s reverted to game mode or something. Cold. Resolute. Focused on the goal.
Fine. Me too. But my heart is pinned onto the implicit meaning behind the words everything else waits. Which means this isn’t over. Please.
And yes, I’m aware of how far things have flipped since I walked into this mall hours ago. So sue me—my three selves are finally talking, and someone has suggested that maybe I’ve had a love-hate thing with Beckett for a long, long time.
Not that I’m copping to that. But I’m not so blind that I can’t see that truth (conveniently tacked to the bulletin board of creative ideas in my office).
Our escape-slash-rescue plan takes shape in layers.
“We need to separate them. The group is a wall we can’t breach. But two and one—that’s manageable.”
“The Penalty Box corridor,” Beckett says. He’s reading the floor plan over my shoulder—close enough that I can smell the dust in his hair, far enough that the distance is a statement. “They’ve got the equipment rental on the far end of the shop. It’s a single-entry checkpoint. One way in, one way out, and every surface is covered in gear.”
I look at him. “How much gear?”
Something flickers across his face—the ghost of a reaction that in other circumstances might be amusement. “It’s a hockey complex in Minnesota. There are probably a couple dozen helmets, at least a wall of sticks, and enough skates to outfit an entire roster twice over.”
“What about pucks?”
“Hundreds. Full case of practice pucks in the back. Maybe three hundred.”
“Any chance you know how to rig a trip wire?” I say, a plan already coming together.
“Why?”
“What if we create one? One of us could lure them behind the rental desk—there’s all those shelves, all that equipment. We loosen a few screws, attach a few strings, and when they get close enough, boom! Send a barrage of pucks and gear down on them.”
“Oh.” Beckett is looking at me like I’m an evil genius. “And what about the other guy?”
“I think I saw some bear spray back at base camp.”
“So how are we going to lure them there?”
I don’t want to tell him because, well, he’s still Blue Line Beckett. He’ll say no. So instead…“Trust me.”
He narrows his eyes.
Okay, so I’ll let you in on it. I am fully planning to be bait. Feels right. Heroic, and maybe even redemptive—he can see I’m not the selfish jerk who lied to him.
Okay, okay, I see the flaw in my plan, but it’s better than him being the bait, right? Someone needs to take out the bad guys.
He’s about to argue with me when, right then, guess who shows up? Cole. Sliding under the Blue Line Books gate, rolling in as if he’s an action hero, breathing hard.
“What are you doing here?” Beckett says, grabbing him and pulling him behind a bookcase.
