"Marcus, what about you?" Sarah whispered, her eyes wide with fear.
"I'm going to make sure these bastard couriers don't leave this parking lot," I said, reaching under the diner counter and pulling out a heavy steel tire iron I kept beside the register. "Go. Now."
Sarah grabbed Maya's hand and hurried down the narrow hallway toward the office.
A second later, the brass door handle on the front glass door rattled violently. Then came three heavy, demanding thuds against the glass.
"Open the door!" a rough voice shouted from the rain outside. "We know the kid is in there! Hand over the package and nobody gets hurt!"
Chapter 2: The Manifest in the Backpack
I stood in the center aisle of the diner, six feet back from the locked entrance, the heavy iron tire iron resting against my leg.
"Diner's closed!" I shouted back, my voice steady and hard as granite. "And the sheriff's department is already on their way!"
Outside, the man with the flashlight swore loudly. I heard the distinct metallic clatter of someone kicking the bottom aluminum frame of the door.
"Don't play hero, old man!" the voice barked back through the rain. "That cargo belongs to Kraven! If we don't bring that package back to the yard in twenty minutes, Boss K will make sure the kid's mother never leaves Reno!"
Kraven. The name clicked instantly.
Karl Kraven was the owner of Kraven Freight Salvage, a sprawling forty-acre junkyard and semi-truck repair depot ten miles south down Highway 95. Everyone in the county knew Kraven was involved in gray-market auto parts, but nobody had ever proven his connection to interstate smuggling. Now I had his name spoken by his own enforcer, and eight million dollars in raw stones sitting on a desk in the back room.
"You want the package?" I called out, taking two deliberate steps closer to the glass. "Come try the door again and see what happens to your skull."
Through the dark shade, I watched the two men exchange a hurried, angry whisper. They realized the diner was locked, the lights were cut, and they had lost the element of surprise. The man in the jacket pulled a burner phone from his pocket, made a quick ten-second call, and then both men turned and sprinted back toward the black SUV.
The engine roared to life, tires spitting gravel as the vehicle reversed out of the lot and sped south toward the highway.