Chapter 1 - The Woman in the Pink Apron
The blond gunman raised his pistol and shouted:
“Get back inside!”
Vincent Costello leaned against the brick wall and noticed the old silver Zippo half-hidden in the baker’s flour-covered apron.
A tiny letter had been scratched beneath the hinge:
“E.”
Vincent stopped looking at the gun.
This wasn’t a rescue.
My name was Nora Bennett, and until that moment, the most dangerous thing I had done that night was burn two trays of sourdough.
I stood at the mouth of the alley with rain running down my face and twelve armed men staring at me as if I had wandered onto the wrong movie set.
Maybe I had.
Vincent Costello was ten yards away.
Everybody in South Chicago knew the name.
Nobody said it loudly.
He was tall, dark-haired, tattooed, and dressed in a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my bakery made in a month. His white shirt had come open at the collar. Rain had plastered his hair against his forehead. One hand pressed against his thigh, where blood soaked through his pants.
But his eyes were steady.
That bothered me almost as much as the guns.
A wounded man should have looked frightened.
Vincent looked annoyed.
The blond man laughed.
“You deaf, sweetheart?”
A few of the others joined him.
I counted automatically.
Twelve.
I didn't know why I counted them. Maybe because counting was what bakers did when they were scared.
Twelve men.
At least eight visible pistols.
One larger weapon.
Two exits.
Except there weren't two exits.
The alley ended behind Vincent.
My bakery door was the only easy way out.
And I was standing in front of it.
“I'm trying to close my bakery,” I said.
Nobody laughed at first.
Then the alley exploded with it.
The blond man actually lowered his pistol.
“You hear that, Vincent?”
Vincent said nothing.
“She wants to close her bakery.”
More laughter.
My cheeks burned.
I had heard that kind of laughter before.
High school hallways.
First dates.
Customers who thought a woman my size couldn't possibly own the place because I looked more like someone who ate pastries than someone who built a business selling them.
People had spent most of my life deciding what I could do before I did it.
Usually I let them.
Tonight, twelve armed idiots were doing it while standing in front of a wounded man.
That felt different.
“Go inside,” Vincent said.
His voice was low.
Controlled.
He wasn't ordering me.
He was warning me.
The blond man glanced at him.
“Oh, that's touching.”
He stepped toward me.
“Chicago's great Vincent Costello protecting the baker.”
“Leave her out of this,” Vincent said.
The laughter stopped.
Something about his voice changed the air.
The blond man smiled.
Then he slapped me.
My head snapped sideways.
I tasted blood.
Vincent moved.
His injured leg collapsed almost immediately.
He caught himself against the wall.
Two guns swung toward him.
“Don't,” I said.
Vincent stared at me.
The blond man grabbed my apron.
“You should listen when men tell you to leave.”
My hands trembled.
He noticed.
His smile widened.
That was his second mistake.
Fear and helplessness weren't the same thing.
My father had taught me that.
I looked down.
Rainwater moved between our shoes.
And beneath the oily reflections from the alley lamps, something shimmered.
Fuel.
A narrow stream ran from behind an overturned motorcycle near one of the dumpsters.
It crossed the pavement.
Passed within three feet of the blond man's boots.
Continued behind several of his men.
My heart began hammering.
I touched my apron pocket.
The Zippo was there.
It had belonged to my father.
I didn't smoke.
Never had.
I carried it because it was one of the few things of his I had kept after he died.
My fingers closed around the cold metal.
Across the alley, Vincent noticed.
Not the lighter.
My eyes.
He followed where I had looked.
Down.
Toward the fuel.
Then back to me.
Something passed between us.
Not trust.
We didn't know each other.
It was simpler than that.
Understanding.
The blond man shoved me backward.
“Inside.”
I stumbled.
My heel splashed through the fuel.
The smell hit me.
Definitely gasoline.
One spark.
That was all it would take.
But fire didn't care who deserved to burn.
My bakery was ten feet away.
Gas lines ran through the building.
If I lit that fuel blindly, I might kill Vincent, myself, and half the block.
So I needed something else.
Time.
I looked at the blond man.
“What did he do?”
He blinked.
“What?”
“Him.”
I pointed at Vincent.
“If you're going to murder somebody behind my bakery, I'd at least like to know why.”
One man chuckled.
The blond leader didn't.
Vincent studied me.
He understood what I was doing.
Keeping them talking.
“None of your business,” the blond man said.
“Technically, you're trespassing.”
That got another laugh.
Good.
Laughing men didn't watch hands carefully.
I slowly stepped sideways.
Closer to the bakery door.
Closer to the red emergency lever mounted beside it.
The lever controlled the old flour-dust extraction system.
My insurance inspector had forced me to install it eighteen months earlier.
Pulling it would activate industrial fans inside the bakery and open two exterior vents.
One vent sat directly above the alley.
Normally harmless.
Except I'd spent the afternoon cleaning the flour collection chamber.
And I hadn't emptied it yet.
An idea formed.
A stupid idea.
Potentially catastrophic.
But so was standing around waiting to get shot.
Vincent's eyes flicked toward the lever.
He couldn't possibly know what it did.
Still, he saw me looking.
The blond man raised his pistol again.
“Enough.”
He turned toward Vincent.
“Where's the ledger?”
Vincent's expression didn't change.
My stomach tightened.
Ledger?
“This is your last chance,” the blond man continued. “Give me the book.”
“I don't have it.”
“Then you die.”
Vincent almost smiled.
“You were going to kill me either way.”
The blond man's jaw tightened.
Vincent had struck something.
“You always did think you were smarter than everyone.”
“No.”
Vincent glanced at the men surrounding him.
“Just you.”
The gun came up.
I grabbed the red lever.
“Hey!”
Everyone turned.
I pulled.
A mechanical roar erupted inside the bakery.
The alley vent snapped open.
A white cloud blasted outward.
Flour.
A ridiculous amount of flour.
It swallowed the nearest men.
They shouted.
Someone fired.
The bullet struck brick.
Vincent dropped.
I dropped too.
“Move!” I screamed.
Chaos exploded.
Men coughed and stumbled through the white cloud.
Their expensive weapons became useless if they couldn't see what they were shooting.
Vincent pushed away from the wall.
He managed two steps before his wounded leg buckled.
I ran toward him.
A hand grabbed my apron.
I spun.
One of the gunmen pulled me backward.
I drove my elbow into his throat.
Not elegantly.
Not heroically.
But hard.
He gagged.
I tore free.
Another man emerged from the flour cloud.
Vincent caught his wrist, twisted, and sent the pistol skidding through a puddle.
Even injured, he moved frighteningly fast.
Then his leg failed again.
I reached him.
“Can you walk?”
“Apparently not.”
“Wonderful.”
I threw his arm around my shoulders.
He stared at me.
“You're serious?”
“Do you want to discuss my lifting technique?”
A bullet struck the dumpster behind us.
“No.”
“Then move.”
We staggered toward the bakery.
Vincent was heavy.
Pain shot through my back.
Behind us, the blond man screamed orders.
The flour cloud began thinning.
We had seconds.
I dragged Vincent through the steel door.
Then slammed it.
Three bullets punched into the metal almost immediately.
I locked the deadbolt.
Vincent collapsed against a prep table.
“Back exit?”
“Front.”
“They'll cover it.”
“Basement?”
“Storage only.”
“Roof?”
“Locked.”
“Then we're trapped.”
“Thank you, Mr. Optimism.”
He looked at me.
For one impossible second, Vincent Costello laughed.
Then he grimaced and grabbed his leg.
Blood was pouring faster now.
I knelt beside him.
“Let me see.”
“You a doctor?”
“Baker.”
“I noticed.”
“I also took first aid.”
“Comforting.”
I tore open his pant leg.
The bullet appeared to have passed through.
Lucky.
Relatively.
I grabbed clean towels and pressed them against the wound.
Vincent hissed.
Outside, men hammered against the steel door.
“We don't have much time,” he said.
“Neither does your leg.”
“Phone?”
I reached for mine.
No signal.
Vincent checked his.
Broken.
“Someone's jamming the block,” he said.
That sentence frightened me more than anything so far.
These weren't random criminals.
This had been planned.
I tightened the bandage.
“What ledger?”
His eyes lifted.
“You heard that.”
“Hard not to.”
“Forget it.”
“I'm currently barricaded inside my own bakery with twelve armed men outside because of your ledger.”
“Eleven.”
“What?”
“You knocked one unconscious.”
I stared at him.
“That makes me feel much better.”
Another impact shook the door.
Vincent reached inside his jacket.
I froze.
He pulled out a small black handgun.
“You know how to use one?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“People who don't know guns shouldn't pretend they do.”
He checked the magazine.
I looked toward the front windows.
Empty street.
No police.
No pedestrians.
Nothing.
Then I noticed something strange.
A black SUV sat across the street.
Engine running.
Headlights off.
“Vincent.”
He followed my gaze.
His face changed.
For the first time all night, genuine alarm appeared.
“You recognize it?”
He didn't answer.
The SUV's rear door opened.
A man stepped out.
Older.
Gray coat.
Umbrella.
He calmly crossed the street while bullets were being fired behind my bakery.
That was terrifying.
“Who is he?” I whispered.
Vincent stood despite his wound.
“Nora.”
It was the first time he'd said my name.
I hadn't told him my name.
I slowly turned.
“How do you know what I'm called?”
His eyes dropped toward my apron.
My embroidered name tag.
Right.
Of course.
Then the older man reached the bakery's front door.
He didn't knock.
He produced a key.
My blood went cold.
Only three people had keys to Bennett's Bakery.
Me.
My manager.
And my father.
My father had been dead for seven years.
The lock turned.
Vincent raised his gun.
I stared at the door.
The older man stepped inside and looked directly at me.
May you like
Then he said the one name I hadn't heard since my father's funeral.
“Eleanor Bennett's daughter.”
