Thump. Thump.

Cole sat up quickly, his fingers already wrapped around his gun, a black H&K nine millimeter with hollow-point bullets. He looked right at the front door – the source of the noise. The door was opening and closing slightly, the door thumping shut, then creaking open a little from the freezing wind outside.

Creak. Thump.

Cole had slept on the floor, blankets spread out around him. He was still fully dressed except for his boots and heavy coat, gloves, and hat. He twisted around and looked at the couch. Stella and David stared back at him in the early morning light, their eyes dinner plates of fear that glistened in the semi-darkness. They stared at Cole, and then they looked at the front door as it creaked open again and then thumped shut.

Cole turned towards Trevor who was already sitting up on his blue sleeping bag. Jose sat near him. Both of them looked like they had just woken up, both still a little groggy, but they both had their pistols in their hands. Cole’s eyes darted to the blankets spread out all over the floor – Frank’s blankets. But Frank wasn’t there.

Everything seemed to be moving in a syrupy slow-motion for Cole; he was tired, he was sure of that, but this was a degree of grogginess he’d never felt before, like he imagined it would feel to be coming awake from anesthesia after a surgery. He forced his sluggish mind to think. He looked back at Jose and Trevor. “Where’s Frank?” he whispered.

“That’s what we want to know,” Jose whispered back.

Cole sighed, his mind finally chugging back into action, not quite at full steam yet, but getting there. “Who took the next watch?” he asked. “After Frank.”

“Not me,” Jose answered.

“Me either,” Trevor said.

Needles, Cole wondered as he got up and stared at the front door that had just thumped closed again. No, Cole thought. Frank wouldn’t have woken Needles up for a watch, not in the mental condition Needles was in these days.

“Who opened the door?” Cole asked.

“It was like that when we woke up,” Jose answered.

Cole walked to the front door in his thick socks, his gun still clenched in his hand. A knot of fear wormed its way around his insides. Something was wrong here.

He stood in front of the solid wood door and watched it for a moment. Then he brought his pistol up, ready to aim it at whatever might be outside. He could hear Jose and Trevor getting to their feet. Cole pulled the door all the way open. He stared out at the front porch which was empty – nobody there. Cole relaxed a little, lowering his weapon.

“Is he out there?” Jose asked from behind Cole.

“I don’t see him,” Cole said. He stepped through the doorway and looked out past the front porch to the front field which was hidden under a blanket of pristine white snow. The line of dark trees stood in the distance like a wall. The snowstorm had stopped sometime during the night and everything was quiet and calm. The scene outside could be the front of a post card, Cole thought. The freezing wind bit at the skin of his face and hands almost immediately, and his feet were turning into ice blocks. “Frank!” Cole called out. “You out here?!”

No answer.

“Frank!” Cole took a tentative step onto the floorboards of the porch. Something in the snow caught his eye, something just beyond the four steps that led down from the porch into the snow. He stared for a long moment.

Cole hurried back inside. He shut and locked the door. He saw that Trevor and Jose were still standing on their blankets and sleeping bags, their guns ready, but they weren’t making a move towards the front door. Needles struggled to come fully awake on the recliner; he knuckled sleep from his eyes.

“Maybe Frank’s in the bathroom,” Cole said as he stood in front of the door, almost like he was blocking it.

“I don’t think so,” Trevor said. “But I’ll check.” Trevor took off for the bathroom. They could hear him stomping around in the hall, and then in the bathroom.

Cole’s mind was still a little sluggish. He had slept like a rock even though he didn’t think he was going to be able to sleep at all, especially with the corpse of the former homeowner stuffed down inside the kitchen freezer. Yet he had slept deeply and without any dreams that he could remember.

Trevor came back into the living room, shaking his head. “He’s not back there anywhere. Back door’s still locked.”

“Where the hell would he go?” Cole asked as he hurried over to Frank’s blankets. He rummaged through the blankets and sheets. He found Frank’s coat balled up in the blankets. “His coat’s still here,” Cole said, holding it up. “His gloves. His hat. He wouldn’t have gone outside without his coat and hat.”

“What about his gun?” Jose asked.

Cole moved the blankets and sheets around; he tossed the pillow across the room. “I don’t see it anywhere.”

Jose let out a frustrated sigh.

“Oh shit!” Trevor yelled, startling all of them. Trevor sprang into action; he rushed across the room to the fireplace hearth. He grabbed one of the metal cases, laid it on its side, popped the latch, looked down inside and breathed out a sigh of relief. “Looks like it’s all still here.”

“You thought Frank ran off with the money?” Jose asked in a disgusted voice.

“Yeah, it crossed my mind.”

“Frank would never do that,” Jose growled.

“Well, I wanted to rule it out. Is that all right with you?”

“Okay, guys,” Cole interrupted. “Let’s stay calm and think about this.”

Needles, fully awake now, looked around at them. He had stripped down to only his thermal underwear at some point in the night, the small crucifix hung outside of his shirt. The sleeves of his thermal shirt were pulled up to his elbows, revealing even more tattoos covering his thin, sinewy arms. “What happened?” he asked.

“We just woke up,” Trevor told Needles. “Frank’s not here.”

“What do you mean, Frank’s not here? Where is he?”

“We don’t know.”

Cole grabbed his boots and walked to the dining room table. He pulled a chair out, the chair’s legs scraped at the floor. He plopped down and put his boots on, lacing them up. He had seen something when he’d opened the front door all the way. At first he wasn’t sure if he’d really seen it, but he was pretty sure he had.

“Where are you going?” Trevor asked Cole.

“Outside to look for Frank.” He looked at the others. “Alone,” he said.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Cole stood at the edge of the porch, at the edge of the steps that disappeared down into the snow. And there they were, just what he’d thought he’d seen when he’d opened the door earlier.

Footprints.

There was a set of footprints in the snow that led from the front porch steps out towards the line of dark trees in the distance. Cole stared down at the footprints, trying to understand why Frank would walk out of the cabin in the middle of the night to the woods. Did he see something out here? Hear something?

Cole pulled his nine millimeter out of his coat pocket. He always wore thin leather gloves on bank jobs, they allowed him to grip his pistol better; they were almost like a second skin covering his own hands. His hands were cold now, but he sacrificed the cold for the increased sensitivity and mobility in his hands. His index finger caressed the trigger lightly as he stared out at the line of trees. There was a ribbon of deep blue sky right above the trees where the sky was beginning to lighten up with the sunrise. But there was also a mass of dark clouds building up in the sky in the other direction, the next storm in this series of snowstorms; right now they were in the calm of the storm, like an eye of a hurricane, a moment of peace and calm.

His boots crunched in the snow as he stepped down into it. He stood in the snow for a moment, which came up to his mid-calf. He stared down at the set of footprints. A man’s footprints. Regular gait. Not like this man was running. Like he was walking; a leisurely midnight stroll through the freezing snow to the dark woods.