Casey set the alarm on Terry’s phone for a half hour and lay down to take a nap. She wanted to be sharp at the midnight meeting with Westing and whomever else he brought along. She awoke semi-refreshed, turned off the phone, and stood up to do some stretches.
“It’s not even dark yet,” Death said, strumming a guitar.
“I want plenty of time to get set up.”
Death played a few more chords. “Set up for what?”
“You don’t really think I’m going to just waltz in there expecting Randy to be alone and congenial?”
“Well, no.”
“Good. You’re not as dumb as you look.”
Death made a hurt face. “But I try so hard.”
“To be dumb or look smart?”
Death shrugged. “Either one.”
Casey snorted and made her way through the cornstalks to the road.
“So what’s the plan?” Death stayed one row in, while Casey walked on the pavement. The corn didn’t even rustle. “What are we going to do?”
“I am going to check out my options.”
“Are you going to beat them all up?” Death sounded hopeful.
“I don’t plan on beating anyone up.”
“Too bad.”
Casey took a detour and found the grove of trees where she and Death had rested after running from Davey’s. The field around it had been harvested, so there should be no one coming anywhere near. She moved a largish rock, dug out a hollow underneath it, and laid the bag with Evan’s papers on the ground. When she put the rock back and ran a stick over the dirt there was no sign that it had ever been moved.
Satisfied, Casey looked for traffic and headed toward town. The grocery store was easy to find, sitting all alone on the edge of a residential neighborhood. Casey watched from behind a Dumpster as customers walked in and out the front doors, lugging bags or having their bags lugged by store employees.
“Nice little store,” Death said. “Very hometown-y.”
“It’s probably owned by a local family. Definitely not a chain.” The lights in the parking lot had come on, triggered by the fading evening light. “I don’t see any of Randy and Owen’s guys. Either they’re not here yet or they’re in hiding.”
“They’re not that good.”
“I agree. If they were here, I’d see them.”
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Speak like I’m not here. You said you’d see them. Not that we’d see them.”
“Am I hurting your feelings?”
“Yes.”
Casey smiled. “Good.”
Death turned away. Casey took the opportunity to slip across the parking lot toward the back of the store. It would be darker back there. Instead of lights on poles there were security floods on the sides of the buildings. They weren’t yet on, so Casey figured they were either motion sensors, or were turned on and off from a switch. A bread truck sat at the loading dock and two men worked at unloading the pallets. Besides that, there were nine cars—probably belonging to employees—and one semi trailer, sitting without a cab. Casey waited until the bread truck was empty, one man had signed a form, and the other had gotten into the truck and driven off. When the store employee went back inside and the lot was still, Casey snuck over to the back of the trailer. It was open.
“Empty,” Death said. “Wonder what was in it?”
“Nothing for quite a while.” She swiped her finger on the trailer’s bed and it came away dirty. “This lot’s just a convenient place to leave something this big.” She eyed it. “And I think it will be perfect.”
“For what?”
In response, Casey walked to the front of the trailer and jumped up onto the hitch. Using the metals pieces meant for holding cables, she climbed up and perched on the roof.
“You’re going to jump on them?” Death asked.
“Shh.”
An employee came out the back door and leaned against the building, pulling out a cigarette.
“You know she can’t hear me,” Death said.
Casey hoped not.
Death wandered toward the woman, who had placed the cigarette between her lips and pulled out her lighter. She flicked on a flame and held it to the cigarette.
Death blew it out.
The woman flicked it once more, and once more Death extinguished it, giggling.
Again and again the woman tried, until she finally threw the lighter onto the parking lot and stormed into the building.
“You’re cruel,” Casey said.
“I would’ve thought you’d be glad of my intervention. Because of me she will live a few minutes longer, having not had that cigarette.”
The door slapped open and the woman came back out, this time with a pack of matches. She struck the match. Death grinned, and blew out the flame.
The woman practically screamed with frustration, and lit one match after another, turning this way and that to avoid whatever draft she thought she was catching, until there was only one match left. With trembling fingers, she lit the match and held it up. Death leaned forward, lips pursed. The woman waited, then sucked in on her cigarette until the tip glowed orange. She crowed with triumph and exhaled happily.
Death put an arm around her shoulders. “Perhaps I’ll be seeing you soon, sweetheart.”
The woman shivered, looking around almost frantically.
Death blew on the cigarette, making the glowing end flare.
The woman dropped the cigarette and stared at it before crushing it under her heel and fleeing back into the building.
“Well,” Casey said, “you’ve just ruined that woman’s break time.”
“Yeah. But it was fun.”
Darkness was coming quickly now, and Casey took stock of the scene. The loading dock was bare except for two empty pallets, lying stacked one on the other. Another Dumpster sat along the far wall, and a picnic table was situated close to the back door on a patch of browning grass. On the one side of the property Casey could see homes, lights creating shadows on curtains, and on the other stood a line of trees. Directly behind the store was an open field of harvested soybeans. It would be dark where Casey sat on top of the trailer, the security lights not reaching her, and she could see every inch of the lot, except for the opposite side of the Dumpster. But she would know if anyone hid behind it, and no one would do that for at least another hour, until the daytime employees were gone.
Casey lay on her back, watching as the stars came out. It was a clear night, and the moon shone brightly, illuminating the parking lot without help from the security lights. The trailer was cold and hard against her back, and Casey longed for a soft, warm bed. She remembered the bed she’d slept on the week before, at Rose and Lillian’s B and B, and she wondered what was going on in that little town. Eric’s face swam before her, and images from that last night… Her shoulder throbbed, and she gritted her teeth.
“Not a good time to be thinking about that.” Death lay beside her, also looking up at the sky. “Time instead to be clearing your mind for what lies ahead.”
The sound of the back door reached her, and Casey quietly rolled over and peered over the edge of the trailer. Employees were filing out, aprons discarded, calling goodnight. Each went to a car and got in, the cigarette woman lighting up as soon as her door was shut. She peeled out of the parking lot first, and the others followed. Before they were all gone, two cars pulled in.
“Maintenance and stocking crew,” Death said.
Soon all that were left were the two new cars and one of the original nine. A manager, probably, getting ready to close.
“I wonder what time it is,” Casey said. She considered turning on Terry’s phone to check, but decided it didn’t really matter. The guys would be coming soon, to get ready for her.
Eventually the manager came out and drove away, leaving only the two cars. Randy and his men should be arriving momentarily.
They came more quietly than she expected, without a car. Owen Dixon, his blond hair shimmering in the moonlight, walked around the corner, scanning the area. Apparently satisfied, he waved, and several men followed, one of them Craig Mifflin, whom Casey had knocked out at Davey’s scrapyard.
“Wow, they expect quite a battle from you,” Death said. “Five of them. And Westing’s not even here.”
They weren’t going to give her a fighting chance.
Owen pointed here and there, setting the men up where they wouldn’t be seen. One behind the Dumpster, two between the cars, and one crouched behind the loading dock. Dixon walked toward the trailer and Casey held her breath. If he came up there, it would be all over. She pulled her head back to make it invisible from below and listened as hard as she could. A rock popped under Dixon’s foot as he rounded the trailer, and Casey felt a slight shift as he stepped into the empty back. Casey put her hands flat on the roof, ready to jump up and fight if need be.
But Dixon didn’t go any further. He’d just wanted to get up into the trailer so his feet wouldn’t be visible from the ground. At least, that’s what Casey would’ve done, if she had been him.
All six of them, seven if you counted Death, waited together for whatever would happen next.