Chapter 16 - The Night They Tried to Burn Him Twice
The night before the final, Walter refused to leave Reed’s Diner.
Daniel argued for twenty minutes.
“New York is tomorrow. You need sleep.”
“I need the chicken dry-brined.”
“You can dry-brine chicken in New York.”
“Not this chicken.”
Daniel stared at him. “It is a chicken, Walt. It does not have a passport.”
Walter opened the walk-in cooler and pointed to three birds from Joe Winters’s farm.
“Different feed. Different fat. Smaller breast. Better legs. I know how these cook.”
Claire leaned against the office door. “Translation: he’s nervous.”
Walter frowned. “I’m preparing.”
“You’ve reorganized the spice shelf four times.”
“It was wrong four times.”
Emma sat at a booth doing homework while two uniformed officers drank coffee near the entrance. Since the threats escalated, Lena had arranged a rotating patrol. It was not protection worthy of a billionaire’s enemy, but it was what a small town could provide.
Logan arrived at nine with his fingers still taped.
“I brought the test batch.”
He set down a container of fermented carrot tops and stems they had started days earlier in a light brine.
Walter tasted one.
“Too sour.”
“You said four days.”
“I said taste every day after two.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“I liked yesterday better.”
Walter stared at him.
Logan sighed. “I know. I should’ve refrigerated it yesterday.”
“Good.”
“That’s it?”
“You made the mistake already. I don’t need to cook it twice.”
Logan smiled faintly.
Around ten thirty, the officers were called away to a reported collision three blocks north.
Lena later discovered the call had been fake.
At ten forty-two, Daniel smelled gasoline.
He was carrying trash through the rear hall when the odor hit him.
“Walt.”
Walter looked up from the prep table.
Daniel did not shout. Something in his face made shouting unnecessary.
“Everybody out.”
Walter smelled it next.
Gasoline, not natural gas.
Sharper. Dirtier.
The back doorknob rattled.
Then glass broke in the storage room.
A bottle hit the floor.
Flame climbed the wall in one sudden orange sheet.
“OUT!” Daniel screamed.
Emma froze.
Claire grabbed her backpack strap and pulled her toward the front door.
Logan reached for a fire extinguisher.
Walter caught his shoulder.
“Only if the exit stays behind you.”
Smoke rolled across the ceiling.
Daniel hit the suppression alarm. Nothing happened.
“They cut it!”
Walter’s face changed.
Someone had not merely thrown fire.
They had prepared the building.
A second bottle crashed through the front window.
Flame spread over a booth.
Customers were gone for the night, but the fire now separated the front door from the kitchen.
Claire shouted, “Back!”
They ran toward the alley exit.
The door would not open.
Daniel slammed into it.
“Blocked!”
Walter saw the old steel prep table.
“Move it.”
“What?”
“Now!”
They shoved the table beneath the small kitchen window.
Logan climbed first despite his shoulder, punched remaining glass from the frame with a wrapped towel, and dropped into the alley.
Claire lifted Emma.
“Go.”
Emma crawled through.
A shadow moved outside.
Then Logan shouted.
Walter heard a blow.
“Logan!”
Daniel climbed through next.
Walter followed and saw two men in masks beside the dumpster.
One had Logan on his knees.
The other swung a metal flashlight into Daniel’s ribs as he landed.
Daniel collapsed against the wall.
Walter hit the ground harder than his knees could absorb.
The masked man turned.
“You never learn.”
Walter recognized the voice from the first alley attack.
The big one.
The man advanced.
Walter had no illusions about winning a fistfight at sixty-eight.
He grabbed the first useful object his hand found: a long wooden pizza peel leaning beside the delivery door.
When the attacker lunged, Walter drove the broad end into his chest.
The man staggered.
Walter swung again, not at the head, but at the forearm reaching for him.
The flashlight dropped.
The second attacker released Logan and tackled Walter into the brick wall.
Pain flashed through the ribs that had barely healed.
A fist struck Walter’s cheek.
Then another.
He stayed upright only because the man’s grip held him there.
“You should’ve stayed under the bridge, old man.”
Walter coughed. “Train station.”
The attacker slammed him against the wall again.
Claire came out the window holding the fire extinguisher.
She discharged it directly across the attackers’ faces.
White chemical powder exploded through the alley.
Both men recoiled, coughing and blinded.
Daniel, still bent over in pain, grabbed the dropped flashlight and swept one attacker’s legs from under him.
Logan tackled the other.
The fight became ugly and close. Elbows. Boots scraping pavement. Bodies hitting metal dumpsters. One attacker struck Logan’s injured shoulder, making him cry out, then drove a knee into Daniel before trying to run.
Walter caught the back of his jacket with the pizza peel handle and pulled just enough to destroy his balance.
The man fell.
Sirens approached.
The second attacker fled over a fence.
The first tried to crawl after him.
Claire planted the extinguisher beside his hand.
“Move again,” she said, breathing hard, “and I spray you until the cops get bored.”
He stopped.
Firefighters arrived as flames pushed through the diner roof vent.
They contained the fire before the entire building went up, but the storage room and half the dining area were destroyed.
Water soaked everything.
Smoke blackened the ceiling.
The old red vinyl booths curled from heat.
Emma stood across the street wrapped in a firefighter’s blanket, crying silently.
Walter sat beside her on the curb, his cheek swelling.
“This is because of me,” he said.
Emma shook her head.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Emma—”
She turned on him fiercely. “You said when pressure is dangerous, you release it. So stop holding everything by yourself.”
Walter stared at her.
She wiped her nose on the blanket.
“I listen when you teach.”
He laughed once, then winced.
Officer Lena approached.
“The man we caught has a name. Travis Kline. Works for Blackridge Security.”
“Vale contractor?” Daniel asked.
“Former contractor. Terminated eight months ago.”
Walter looked at her.
“Who pays him now?”
“We’re finding out.”
Travis began bargaining before sunrise.
By four in the morning, Lena had a preliminary answer.
He had been paid through a shell company controlled by Wren Capital.
Nathaniel Wren.
Not Victor.
Not Adrian.
Nathaniel.
Claire wanted Walter to cancel the final.
Walter stood across the street watching firefighters roll hoses over broken glass.
Reed’s Diner looked wounded but standing.
He said, “No.”
Daniel stared at the blackened windows.
“What are you going to cook with? Half your prep burned.”
Walter looked at the cooler firefighters had managed to protect.
The chickens were safe.
So were the onions.
So were the apples.
May you like
He smiled without humor.
“Enough.”
