The sound of the screen door giving way hurt more than she expected. Martin had made that door with his own hands after the original warped beyond repair. Sarah could see him in the workshop, squinting through his glasses at the frame, explaining why a hinge should move freely even when the building around it settled. Watching strangers destroy it felt like watching somebody tear a page out of a family album.
Wyatt saw her expression. "I'll pay for everything."
"You didn't break it," she said.
"My brother did."
"Then your brother pays."
The difference mattered to her. She had learned it from years of dealing with customers who tried to assign blame for failures they did not understand. Wyatt was responsible for choices he had made, and Graham was responsible for choices Graham was making now. Her diner was not an account either man could settle by handing her a stack of cash.
A short burst of gunfire cut across the yard. Everybody in the bunker ducked instinctively. A few seconds later something struck a pile of metal below, sending a dull, metallic crash echoing against the hillside. Wyatt drew a sharp breath and moved closer to the entrance, then stopped when Sarah gripped his arm.
"Don't go," she said.
"They're shooting at the bunker."
"I heard. We have cover here. We need help, not another person firing back."
He looked down at her hand. Sarah realized she was gripping the sleeve of a man people described as terrifying, and that he was allowing her to hold him in place. She let go without embarrassment.
The men below began calling to one another in irritated voices. One sounded frightened, another angry. Sarah could hear how badly the situation was unraveling for them; they had expected an empty diner, one or two people hiding, perhaps somebody who could be scared into silence. Instead they had a dangerous device in evidence, investigators already involved, and witnesses who had contacted law enforcement before the first shot.
Graham called again. "Cross, you hear me? If you're man enough to face me, come down here."
"He wants you alone," Sarah whispered.
Wyatt gave a small, humorless smile. "That's what he always wanted."
He told her about the day their father had sent Graham outside to deal with a neighbor who came to complain about a broken window. Wyatt had been nine; Graham had been fifteen. Graham took the blame for something Wyatt had done, then made Wyatt promise that he would always remember who protected him. The debt had been collected in different forms ever since.
"You don't owe him that forever," Sarah said.
"I know that now. Knowing it is different from feeling it."
Down below, Graham's men were arguing about which direction the sound of Sarah's last telephone call had come from. The argument was useless; Sarah had already given their location to the dispatcher. She kept the phone connected and tried to conserve its battery, watching the signal bars rise and fall as the evening air cooled.
Noel noticed a small green indicator near the bunker's power cabinet. "Backup generator's ready," he said. "Your dad installed that when he kept losing everything in the freezer."