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

a small table and four chairs next to a sliding door overlooking the property out back.

The chainsaw parts were spread across the table on top of a few layers of newspaper.

Carol was in the kitchen, just on the other side of a breakfast bar countertop.

“I heard right,” he told her. “It was a car.”

“Oh? Who?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.”

Carol knew that tone and accepted the end of the discussion.

She and Jim weren’t farmers and never had been, unless you counted Jim’s endless harvesting of firewood for their stove. The fields around their home were owned and managed by the Schillers, the next house to the north, and while the Thorensens knew of the Romanians and the sketchiness around them, their lives had never directly crossed.

“Chicken and green beans for dinner,” she said.

Jim grunted and went back to being miserable about his chainsaw and a bunch of college kids playing keepaway with a football.

Razvan led Nora into the house, which smelled like fried food, beer, and wood smoke. She’d taken a tour of a fire station in Minneapolis once, and this place looked and felt like a contaminated version of it.

The living room just inside the door was large and square with wood paneling and a massive television on one wall.

A black wood stove in the far corner glowed with embers, and next to that was a ragged stack of wood piled right on the shabby carpet.

Mismatched couches and chairs all faced the TV, which showed a movie with the volume off.

The kitchen was to the left. Dirty pots and pans covered the stovetop and a commercial-sized trash can overflowed with paper plates, dirty napkins, and food boxes. Another can held empty beer bottles, with more empties stacked in cases and six-pack boxes around it.

Razvan said, “Can I get you anything?”

“No.”

“Do you need to use the bathroom?”

She shuddered at what that room must look and smell like.

“No.”

“Fine. Sit down then, the remote is right there. Find something you like while we wait for your boyfriend to—”

His phone rang and he looked at the screen, then grinned at Nora.

“Let’s find out if he’s behaving so far.”

He switched to Romanian while he spoke into the phone, then listened.

Back and forth, watching Nora the whole time.

Nora didn’t blink, trying to glean anything she could from this end of the conversation.

Was Adam okay?

Was he alive?

Was he really coming?

And where the hell were the other three men?

Razvan hung up and put the phone away.

“Good news. You’ll see him again in a few minutes. He’s being very cooperative. Except for the explosives, but I can’t blame him for it, I suppose.”

“When he gets here and gives you the money,” Nora said, “we leave. Right?”

“Sure,” Razvan said. “After we count the money, of course, to make sure it is all there. I’ll need your help for that part.”

“I’m not counting your money.”

“No, no, of course not. But to count the money, we will need to move the explosives he put in there.”

Nora frowned, still not sure what he was getting at.

Razvan said, “So when the time comes to move them, that will be your job. Pick the bomb up and hold it while we count the money. You can do that, right?”

Connelly had given up on conversation and rode in silence as they took the turn on Pine, angling northwest away from the highway.

Traffic was normal now, no more checkpoints necessary, and he felt slightly miffed about how everyone else in the world just went on with their lives while Nora was out here in the growing darkness with a Romanian thug and his men.

But they didn’t know, or didn’t care, and it didn’t do any good to hold out hope for a posse of townsfolk finally ready to drive the invaders out.

When they approached the tunnel, Connelly saw the tarp on the southern side was still there, pulled up and to the side to let traffic through.

The armored car was gone, but the Lexus’ headlights showed fresh scorch and gouge marks in the battered asphalt.

The driver looked over at Connelly as they bumped along the ruts made from the wrecker dragging the armored car out.

His hands flexed on the steering wheel.

Connelly stared straight ahead, not wanting to antagonize him any more than he already was.

They came out the other side and the man pushed the Lexus to what Connelly felt was an irresponsible speed, given the possibility of ice and wildlife, but he kept his mouth shut and they survived to make the left turn onto the dirt road leading to the compound.

Connelly saw the silos far ahead, lit from below by harsh white security lights.

He glanced over his left shoulder at the following truck, which also made the turn, and used the motion to check the stretch of Pine they’d just covered.

No other vehicles, headlights or not, that he could see.

But they wouldn’t be that obvious about it, would they?

Assuming they were coming…

It was all technically still a coin flip, but he didn’t feel that confident anymore.

Jim and Carol had a compost pile that was really just a mound of stuff for the possums and raccoons to eat, and when he carried the bowl of green bean stems and chicken skin around the back corner of the garage it took him a few seconds to realize something was wrong.

It was almost full dark, but part of the driveway was visible off to his right and there was too much space over that way, too much peripheral view of the road and harvested field beyond.

He turned to frown at the driveway.

The Cherokee was gone.

He stood there with the empty bowl dangling from his hand, sorting it out.

Did Carol pull it into the garage?

No, she couldn’t have, the table saw was set up in there on sawhorses, like it had been for the past four months.

Did she move the saw?

Shaking his head and grumbling, he went over and peered through the garage window.

In the green light from a battery charger, he could see