The Box by Jeremy Brown (ebook reader play store txt) 📕

the driver’s window and shifted the truck into Drive. It rolled forward and off the asphalt into the scrub grass before bumping into the field, which had some freshly turned furrows but those weren’t enough to stop the pickup’s knobby tires and high idle.

Rison scooped his keys off the asphalt and everyone got back into the DOT truck. The windshield was spiderwebbed around the bullet hole but still usable.

“Still Nora’s?” Rison said.

Bruder tapped Connelly.

“You’ve been there. How’s it look for a standoff?”

“Uh, not great.”

Bruder shrugged.

“It’s all we got. Let’s go.”

They drove away, leaving the pickup to trundle away across the field until it came across something to make it stop, or not.

They pulled into Nora’s driveway and everyone saw her pacing on the wraparound porch. She wore a thick maroon and cream sweater jacket and had her arms wrapped across her ribs.

When she saw the strange truck turning in she stopped and stared.

“Ah, man,” Connelly said. “Ah shit.”

“This could be a good thing,” Rison said.

Connelly looked at him, waiting for the revelation.

Rison said, “Well, right now she thinks you’re a former marketing asshole who scrapes up gas money by playing shitty songs in dinky town bars. When she finds out you’re actually a criminal asshole who makes millions of dollars through strong arm robbery…it might be an upgrade.”

“You’re a big help,” Connelly said.

Bruder looked out his window at the road they’d come down.

So far, no other vehicles were in sight.

The other side of the road was a harvested field of something that hadn’t been corn—soybeans, maybe—and he could see a tree line way off in the distance and, beyond that, hints of barns and silos and smaller structures that were probably houses.

The sight lines out here were troublesome.

If he could see those buildings, they could see Nora’s house.

And the white truck pulling in.

He told Rison, “Go around the house, to the metal barns back there.”

“Let me out by the porch,” Connelly said.

“No,” Bruder said.

“I need to talk to her. Smooth this out.”

“Sure. We’ll help.”

Connelly didn’t say anything, but it was clear he didn’t want the assistance.

Rison drove between the house and the old barn with remnants of red.

Nora was at the top of the stairs now, waiting for the truck to stop. When it kept going, she leaned down to peer through the windows and spotted Connelly in the passenger seat.

She unwrapped her arms and held them out to her sides: What the hell?

Connelly waved and Rison held up a finger to let her know they’d be a minute.

As they approached the metal barns Bruder said, “Is there room in there for the truck?”

“No,” Connelly said, with attitude. “They’re jammed with big-ass machines. Combines and hopper trailers and tractors. And everything you need to keep them running. Plus the doors are locked.”

Rison snorted a laugh at that, locked doors being the least of their concerns at the moment.

He took the truck around the corner of the barn and reached for the keys.

“Hold on,” Bruder said.

He got out and looked around.

Nothing but fields and trees off in the distance.

He still didn’t like the wide open view, but at least no one would spot the truck from the road or across it. The metal barns were like a set of medium-sized warehouses.

He told Rison, “Okay.”

They all got out and Bruder pulled his balaclava up over his nose and mouth, hiding everything except a small slit for his eyes.

Kershaw and Rison did the same.

Connelly watched them, then looked at the ARs slung across the chests of Bruder and Kershaw.

Rison still had his pistol out.

Connelly said, “Is all of…this...necessary?”

“She’s already seen our faces once,” Bruder said. “We don’t need her making any connections.”

“Then just stay here with the truck.”

Bruder shook his head.

“We all need to have a chat.”

He turned and walked around the corner to meet Nora.

Nora was halfway across the crushed concrete in front of the barns.

When Bruder walked around the corner she stopped, her eyes wide and moving to the others around him.

Three large men in black masks and heavy boots and thick outdoor work clothes, long guns slung across their chests and pistols sticking out. As a group, they looked like they should have been assaulting a hostage situation or protecting the ambassador to Serbia while he crossed a tarmac.

It was probably an alarming sight.

Then Connelly came around the corner with no mask and no gun and Nora saw him and blinked.

“Hey,” he said.

Nora’s eyes got wider for a moment, then narrowed.

She asked Connelly, “What the hell have you done?”

“I’m pretty sure you can figure it out.”

“Did you…did you take their money?”

“It’s not theirs,” Bruder said. “It’s ours.”

Nora frowned at him.

“Who are you?”

Bruder tilted his head toward Connelly.

“A friend of his.”

“Did you mess with their armored truck? Are you guys the reason we’re all being terrorized right now?”

“To be fair,” Connelly said, “you were all being terrorized before. It was just, you know. Low-grade.”

Nora’s eyes were bright with furious tears.

“Do you know they stuck a gun in Helen’s face? In front of her husband?”

Kershaw looked at Connelly and asked, “Who’s Helen?”

Connelly shrugged, helpless.

“They have the entire town locked down,” Nora said. “And here I was, worried about what they might do to you because you were trying to come see me. To help me.”

“I am trying to help you,” Connelly said.

Nora just shook her head.

“You have no idea what you’ve done. You’ve committed suicide, Adam.”

She looked around at the barns and fields and open sky, coming to conclusions.

“And I think, because you came here…I think you’ve killed me too.”

Bruder waited for Connelly to say something, to calm her down, but he was stuck.

Speechless, for once.

Bruder said, “Let’s go inside and talk this through. You’re cold.”

“I’m fine,” Nora said, “and you’re not stepping foot inside my house. Get back in the truck and leave.”

“That’s not happening.”

Bruder glanced at the massive steel barns with their billboard-sized doors, closed and locked. Then he looked at the older barn near the house.

“We’ll go in there. Out of sight, but