At the Crossroads (Buckhorn, Montana #3)(6)

He recalled that the young waitress had been admiring the baby. The baby’s mother had been sitting in the booth with an older woman with a rigid thin face and lips to match. She was the one who’d been staring daggers at the younger couple sitting on the opposite side of the room. The couple, in their mid-to-late thirties, had been facing each other in a booth, having what had looked like a lovers’ quarrel.

There was the older couple near the door in another booth and what appeared to be a man and his twentysomething either employee or son at the only other booth. Both were wearing blue overalls. Culhane couldn’t make out the logo but guessed it was the local garage and gas station he’d seen at the edge of town.

The younger of the two had a tough look about him and was now smirking as if enjoying this. He’s the one, Culhane decided. He’s the one who will do something stupid and get himself and others killed.

Then he spotted the teenage waitress frantically keying something into the cell phone she’d pulled from her pocket. Calling 9-1-1? Or her boyfriend? Or a parent?

Just as Culhane had feared, Gene saw her, too. The gunman took two quick, long strides, snatched the phone out of her hands and backhanded her. She let out a cry of surprise and pain and covered her face with her hands as he smashed her phone under his boot heel.

“Gather up all of their cell phones!” Gene ordered. Neither Eric nor Bobby moved for a moment. “Now!”

Bobby grabbed a wicker basket from the Christmas window display, dumped out the collection of carolers made out of plastic soda containers and began to fill the basket with phones as he worked his way around the room.

Culhane saw him stop at the table with the two men in garage overalls and felt his stomach knot.

FRED DURHAM SAW the young man coming to collect their phones and pulled out his own with trembling fingers. The man called Bobby didn’t look that much older than his own son, Tyrell. He was silently telling himself that he should have gone with the vanload of residents to the next town for church services like he normally did.

But he’d been having so much trouble with Tyrell lately that he thought maybe a nice Sunday breakfast and a talk was in order.

“Your cell phone,” Bobby demanded, sounding impatient and clearly upset.

Fred looked over at his son, saw the stubborn expression on his face and swore under his breath. “Give the man your phone, Tyrell.”

His son met his gaze and held it a few moments too long before he said, “I forgot it at home.” An obvious lie, since Tyrell had been on his phone at the table earlier. Fred had told him to put it away, and his son had been surly ever since.

The man considered Tyrell for a moment before he ordered, “Stand up!”

For a moment, Fred worried that his son was going to refuse. His heart was hammering. Why did Tyrell always have to cause a problem? He realized that he was past being tired of it. He was going to fire him from the garage. It was time for his son to find another job. He’d carried him long enough. Tyrell needed to find out what it was like out in the world. The young man had a rude awakening ahead of him.

Not that Fred wanted to kick him out of his life. He’d thought the garage would one day be Durham and Son and at some point he could retire and let Tyrell take over the business.

He just hadn’t anticipated the problems. Tyrell often came to work late or didn’t show at all. He didn’t even try to be responsible. He pushed and pushed as if testing Fred, pushing him to his limit and beyond. Fred had come to see that he’d spent his life making excuses for his motherless child, but minutes ago, he’d realized that he was through. He’d decided to tell his son to pack up and leave as soon as breakfast was over. Now this incident with these gunmen had happened.

“I said stand up,” Bobby ordered and touched the gun tucked in the front of his jeans.

“Son, stand up.” Fred thought if Tyrell didn’t get up right now, he’d grab him and throw him out of the booth himself.

Tyrell rose with that insolent way of his, a smirk on his face as the gunman checked his pockets and then shoved him back down.

Satisfaction flashed in Tyrell’s eyes, and Fred held his breath, expecting him to do something that would get him killed. And over what? Nothing really. A stupid phone.

But Bobby moved on, bored with the impudent young man. Had it been the other man, the one he’d heard called Eric, Fred feared it would have gone much differently.

“Are you just trying to get yourself killed?” he whispered hoarsely across the table once Bobby was out of earshot.

Tyrell merely smirked and glanced toward the two armed men as if he thought he was so much smarter than them. Fred saw him reach between the seats and fish out his cell phone. He wanted to scream as his son touched the screen and then surreptitiously pointed it in the direction of the two men who were still busy collecting phones. He realized that Tyrell was recording all of this with that self-satisfied look on his face that Fred had come to hate—and fear.

CULHANE SAW WHAT the punk was doing but quickly turned away. It confirmed what he’d already suspected. The fool was going to get himself killed—and possibly all of the people here with him, including himself and Alexis.

Maybe Tyrell hadn’t noticed, but Culhane had seen Gene watching them all to make sure no one tried to call the cops before the phones were gathered. Gene hadn’t seen what Tyrell was doing. Yet.

As Bobby approached, Culhane saw the blood on Bobby’s sleeve. The shirt was too big for him. In fact they all looked as if they were dressed in someone else’s clothing. Whatever had happened that they had to get rid of their own clothes was something he didn’t want to know.