Free Snowbound by Blake Crouch

it, and climbed into the back. “Javier,” she said, “just so we’re clear, you have a Glock pointed at your spine through the seat. Drive, Will. Don’t speed, don’t run stop signs, and for God’s sake don’t get us into a wreck.”
    • • •
    It was the weirdest silence Will had been a party to—no radio or talking, just three strangers in a car, driving through Scottsdale, Arizona. Javier stared straight ahead. Will watched him out of the corner of his eye at the stoplights, the man at ease, collected.
    As they neared the interstate, Kalyn said, “Take Highway Sixty east.”
    Javier spoke for the first time since getting into the car, “Ah, the Superstitions. Am I right?” No one answered. “I’ve done business out there. That was an excellent takedown, by the way. Creative. Outside of the box. And the accent. Beautiful. You realize my mistake. I very nearly averted this entire situation. I keep a forty-five Smith & Wesson under my seat, and I actually started to reach for it before getting out of the car. Out of habit, you see. But I didn’t. Had I”—he caught Kalyn’s eyes in the rearview mirror—”you would be dead.” He looked at Will. “And so would you.”
    They sped east, the sun sinking fast into the horizon, molten in the mirrors, on the glass and chrome of passing cars, the mountains in the distance getting bigger, vivid and deeply textured in the fading light.
    “I have a question for you,” Kalyn said. “Did that situation back there ring any bells?”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Well, I almost brought along a bat, or a crowbar … something to bust out your driver’s side window. Maybe, if I’d done that, you would have realized what was happening.”
    Javier shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t see your point.”
    “No worries. You will.”
    • • •
    The sun was just a flaming sliver in the west as Will drove past the ranger station into Lost Dutchman State Park.
    Kalyn told him to park at the first picnic area.
    It was late. Only two other cars. Both empty. No hikers in sight. Beyond lay miles of darkening desert and, farther back, the Superstitions, the summits catching light, the bases cloaked in mist.
    Will turned off the engine.
    Total silence, save for the wind. The car rocked imperceptibly.
    “So,” Kalyn said, “have you figured it out yet?”
    Javier smiled. “Do not flatter yourself to think you are the only ones who would like to be in this position with me. I have plenty of enemies. But friends also. And it is my friends, my brothers, the threat of them, that make my enemies wise to keep a respectful distance. In short, I am not fucked with. This is unheard of. You are not law enforcement,” Javier said, “though perhaps once you were. Will here is shitting himself. You’re trying, so far, to be impersonal, but I sense the rage in you. At me. I don’t know why. You will tell me?”
    Kalyn reached into the front seat and dropped four photos in Javier’s lap.
    “Line them up, Will, so he can see.”
    Will arranged the photographs, two on each leg. Suzanne Tyrpak. Jill Dillon. Rachael Innis. Lucy Dahl. Javier looked down at them. Looked up. Shrugged. Kalyn pulled out her cell, flipped it open. Will saw her pressing buttons. She handed the cell to him, said, “Show him.” On the miniature screen was a digital picture of Misty and Raphael in the back of the Buick. Will hesitated. “Show him.” He held the cell to Javier’s face. Javier registered the image, then looked out the side window toward a distant forest of saguaros.
    “You two,” Javier said, his voice low, deliberately measured, “may be the bravest people I have ever met.”
    “Why don’t you look at the photos in your lap again,” Kalyn said.
    “My family, they’re alive? Unharmed?”
    “For now.”
    Javier nodded. “I would like to speak to them.”
    “Not possible.”
    “Then I don’t think we have anything to talk about.”
    Kalyn moved into the middle seat so she