Chapter 11: Marcy

The helicopter lifted off the lawn with its lights off, and the lodge dropped away under us.

I had pulled on my coat and boots in the dark, and I had not said a word to Marcello since the knock.

He sat across from me in the cabin with a radio in one hand and his jaw set.

His driver sat beside the pilot with a rifle between his knees.

"There," the pilot said.

Two black cars crawled down the new-plowed mountain road, with a third behind, throwing up white spray.

"Which one has her?" I said.

"The middle car," Marcello said. "He always puts his hostages in the middle."

"His hostages?"

"Yes. That's what they are, June."

I looked at the road.

Snow lay in banks as high as the cars on both sides.

Ahead, the road curved in a hairpin under a concrete arch painted with red and white stripes.

It was the avalanche gate, standing open for the plows.

"My man's at the gate with a county truck," Marcello said into the radio. "Close it."

"Closing, boss."

The big steel arm swung down across the road, with a crash I felt in my teeth.

The three cars stopped.

We set down in the snow two hundred feet behind them, in a storm of our own making.

Marcello climbed out first and gave me his hand.

I took it.

I did not say thank you, and he did not expect it.

A door opened in the lead car.

Gwen's father stepped out into the road in his gray coat, alone, with his hands open at his sides.

He looked entirely at ease, stroll-paced and unhurried.

"Mr. Bellandi," he called. "I believe we can settle this like gentlemen."

"Give me the girl."

"Which girl? I have two."

"The one who doesn't work for you."

"Ah." He smiled. "My guest, Miss Doyle. A charming young woman. She came because she was frightened. I merely drove."

Keep reading free with an account. Start They Voted to Replace Me at My Own Wedding from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.