Page 56 of Big Daddy Firemen

Daisy had a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t identify what was off. Perhaps it was as simple as not being dressed for the cold. It had started to snow. Big, white, fluffy flakes blew around in the frigid wind. It wasn’t a blizzard. Yet. But the intensity seemed to be picking up with each passing second.

“Sorry about this,” Selena said. “I didn’t realize it was snowing. The door is just over here.”

They were in a narrow breezeway between two buildings, and it didn’t look like the entrance to an arcade, but Daisy figured maybe this was just a shortcut that would take them in the back way or something.

She heard a slight shuffling to her right a second before movement registered. She spun around to look at a small alcove in the wall where she saw Jason Bennett.

She didn’t know the man well, but he’d become a fairly prominent citizen in Big Cedar, being involved in quite a few community activities.

That uneasiness she’d been feeling intensified. And it careened off the charts when her eyes fell to the black gun tucked in the waistband of the man’s jeans.

“Hey, Mr. Bennett!” Alyssa greeted him cheerfully. She hadn’t noticed the gun, obviously.

“Ladies,” Daisy said, her voice serious. “Run! Now!”

Alyssa and Grace must have recognized the urgency in her voice or saw the gun for themselves, because they took off, too, the three running together and constantly looking at each other to ensure no one fell behind.

“Shit!” Bennett called out. “Why couldn’t you have made this easy?”

His heavy footfalls clacked loudly against the pavement, letting Daisy know he was chasing after them as they hurried back the way they’d come. Soon, they’d be near the parking lot. Surely they could flag down someone. She’d noticed security vehicles constantly patrolling. The resort was crawling with people. Finding help shouldn’t be too hard.

As their luck would have it, though, they didn’t see a single soul as they rounded the corner and continued to skirt the side of the building. They still had quite a distance to go before they reached one of the casino’s many entrances, too.

Something caught Daisy’s attention, though. Ahead, a black iron fence jutted out from the building with a partially open gate.

“In there!” she said between frantic breaths. She didn’t know where it led, but maybe they could slide in and shut that gate to have a barrier between them and the pursuing Jason Bennett.

Actually, based upon the sounds behind her, Daisy figured it wasn’t just Jason chasing them now. She heard other footsteps and assumed Selena had joined in, too.

She didn’t know what this was all about. Were the couple some kind of predators? Did they want to abuse Daisy and her friends? Those questions would have to wait for later. Right now, she had to concentrate on not letting it—whatever it was—happen.

She reached the gate, pushed it open further, and let her friends go in first. Once they were all inside, she slammed the black iron bars shut, but they didn’t lock.

“Damnit!” she yelled.

“Ma’am,” a voice behind her called. “This area is off limits. Pool is closed.”

She turned around to see a man of about sixty years, wearing a blue maintenance uniform, holding a bucket and some sort of tool. He was standing in the doorway of a small, detached building that had a sign indicating it stored chemicals.

“Help us! There’s someone after us!” Daisy threw a nervous glance over her shoulder after uttering the plea.

The guy dropped the bucket and tool, grabbed the radio clipped on his belt, and held it up to his lips. “This is Ken. I’m at the water park. I need?—”

Before he could finish, a shrill squeak rang out, and Daisy realized it was the gate being yanked open.

“Go!” the man said.

The women stayed put.

“We can’t leave you,” Daisy told him.

Ken weighed well over two hundred pounds and had strength born about by physical labor. Even though he wasn’t a young man, he was still imposing. And that tool—that looked to be some kind of wrench—added to the tough demeanor.

“Go!” he said more sternly.

He finished calling into the radio just as Jason stepped through the gate. Selena was right behind him and Daisy and the others didn’t stick around to see what they wanted. They bolted deeper into the complex, with Daisy sending up a silent prayer that the maintenance worker wouldn’t be harmed.

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