Chapter 4 - Back Door
The crash sent Eli under the counter.
Jax spun as two men entered through the kitchen, both dressed in dark rain jackets.
One grabbed the cook by the apron and shoved him aside. The other raised a compact black pistol.
“Everybody down!”
Chairs scraped. Glass shattered. Someone swore.
Jax moved sideways, putting a steel prep table between the gunman and Eli.
“Where’s the boy?” the first man shouted.
Vince hurled a ceramic coffee mug.
It struck the gunman’s wrist.
The shot went into the ceiling.
Chaos swallowed the diner.
Jax crossed the kitchen in three steps, slammed the gunman’s arm against the refrigerator, and drove his shoulder into the man’s chest. The weapon clattered beneath a rack.
The second attacker lunged toward the counter.
Darla hit him with a metal tray.
“Wrong diner,” she snapped.
He staggered, and Vince tackled him into a booth.
Jax pinned the first man against the floor.
“Who sent you?”
The man laughed through a split lip. “Your brother says hello.”
Jax’s grip tightened.
“Where’s Hannah?”
“You still think this is about your sister?”
Jax froze.
The man leaned closer.
“It’s about the kid.”
Police sirens sounded in the distance.
The attacker smiled wider. “Too late.”
He bit down hard.
Jax thought poison for one wild second, but the man only cracked something between his teeth.
A tiny glass capsule.
Blue dye spread across his tongue.
Tracking marker? Signal? Jax didn’t know.
The man laughed again. “Now they know exactly where we are.”
Jax stood.
“Vince, take their phones.”
“They’re wiped.”
“Of course they are.”
Darla pulled Eli from behind the counter. The boy was shaking but trying not to show it.
Jax crouched. “You hurt?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
Eli nodded.
Then he reached into his jacket and produced the folded note again.
“There’s writing on the back.”
Jax took it.
The back had looked blank before, but moisture from Eli’s hand had darkened faint pencil marks.
Three numbers appeared.
17 — 4 — 2.
Vince frowned. “Combination?”
Jax stared at them.
“No.”
He knew exactly what they were.
Seventeen miles east.
Fourth drainage tunnel.
Second support beam.
The place where Jax had hidden the ledger twelve years earlier.
And if Hannah had written those numbers, she had found it.
Darla looked toward the approaching police lights.
“We tell the cops?”
Jax shook his head.
“Not until I know which cops are still Cole’s.”
A phone began ringing on the floor.
One of the attackers’ phones.
Vince looked at the supposedly wiped screen.
May you like
Caller ID showed one word.
HANNAH.
