No Exit by Taylor Adams 2

and now he’d been asked to slink up behind him and bash his
skull in.
It should be me, she realized.
I’m a coward for being Person A.
Maybe. But Ashley was, without a doubt, physically
stronger than her. So her being the bait and Ashley being the
trap made plenty of logical sense. It just didn’t feel right.
“Hey.” Lars cleared his throat. “Ah … excuse me?”
Darby turned to face him, centipedes coiling in her
stomach, her Swiss Army knife tucked up her sleeve.
So did Ashley.
“Does …” The child abductor was still by the door,
squinting into another tourism brochure: “Does anyone know
what this word means?”
Sandi lowered her paperback. “Pronounce it.”
“Res-plend-ent.”
“Resplendent. It means beautiful.”
“Beautiful.” Lars nodded once, mechanically. “Okay.
Thank you, Sandi.” His gaze returned to his brochure — but
on the way down, it met Darby’s from across the room, and for
a half-second, she was trapped in the beady stupidity of his
eyes.
He mouthed: Beautiful.
She looked away.
It’d been over sixty seconds now. Ashley was still
standing beside her, his feet rooted to the floor, and now she
was beginning to worry. She couldn’t just tug him back into
the restroom for another pep talk — the first one had already
drawn too much of the room’s attention. She was stuck waiting
on his signal.
Come on, Ashley.