"Where is Rose?" Hank whispered.
"Screw you!" Carl choked, thrashing frantically. "She’s... she’s dead! You hear me?! She’s dead in the dirt back in Tonopah!"
Hank tightened the pressure. Carl’s face turned an ugly, suffocating purple, his heels kicking uselessly against the lower wooden panels of the counter.
"Where is she?" Hank repeated, his voice colder than the desert floor outside.
"The cabin..." Carl wheezed, his windpipe closing. "Old mining cabin... off Mile Marker 42... behind the water tower. She ain't dead yet! She was breathing when I tied the door! Please, man... don't kill me!"
Hank held him pinned for three more heartbeats, letting the terror sink deep into the man’s marrow. Then, with a single, brutal shove, Hank drove Carl’s forehead down into the corner of the heavy wooden register stand, knocking him instantly into limp, snoring unconsciousness.
The diner fell dead quiet, save for the ticking of the wall clock and Brenda’s ragged breathing behind the pie case.
Hank straightened up. He adjusted the leather cut over his chest, picked up Carl’s discarded blade from the floor, and folded it shut, dropping it into his pocket. He turned to Brenda, pulling a crumpled hundred-dollar bill from his wallet and setting it onto the clean edge of the counter.
"Call the county troopers," Hank told her, his voice perfectly steady. "Tell them to send an ambulance to Mile Marker 42 on the old mining road. And tell them Carl Vance is sleeping here waiting for them."
Brenda nodded numbly, clutching the corded landline phone with shaking hands.
Hank walked back to the booth. Lily was curled into a tiny ball against the back cushion, her hands clamped over her ears, tears streaming freely down her bruised face.
Hank dropped to one knee on the linoleum, bringing his scarred face down to her level. He reached out, gently pulling her hands away from her ears.
"Lily," he said softly.
She looked at him, shivering. "Are you going to hurt me?"
"Never," Hank said. "I’m your grandfather, Lily. And we’re going to get your mama."
Outside, the cold hit like a physical blow.
Parked under the leaking gutter of the diner was Hank’s machine: a 1984 Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail, stripped down to raw black steel and brushed aluminum. The saddlebags were heavy cowhide, weather-beaten and stiff from decades of salt spray. The twin-cylinder shovelhead engine was still radiating a faint, metallic heat into the freezing desert air.
Hank reached into the left saddlebag and pulled out his heavy canvas winter riding coat. He wrapped it completely around Lily, bundling her small frame until she looked like a mound of wool and down, then zipped his own leather cut over his heavy thermal flannel. He strapped his spare open-face helmet onto her head, tightening the chinstrap until it sat snug against her tiny, swollen chin.