Before I Wake (41 page)

Will stepped aboard after his last officers. “That’s thirty-eight less Isaac Keif. Back it out of here.”

Gunshots erupted inside the plant. Rae threw the bus in reverse and drove without caring about what she hit on the way back out.

* * *

“Right there, Rae. Good. Pull the keys.” Bruce swung himself off the bus as it came to a stop. Nathan forced himself up to his feet, determined to join him. Will grabbed his good side. “This isn’t a good idea.”

“None of this is.”

Will grimly smiled at that terse reply but half carried him down the steps of the bus.

Adam ran to join them. “We’re running headcounts via shouts between houses and cell-phone calls. I can put my hands on all my men except Isaac Keif. Management is down to searching for four names besides the guys on the bus.”

Nathan got his good hand on his radio and fought to focus.
Five minutes, Jesus, that’s all I need. Five minutes of focus; please. My guys need me.
He sucked in a breath and depressed the button. “Chet? What are you finding?”

“Our rifleman is rapidly losing places to hide. Flush the one inside; we’ll corner this one.”

“Sillman?”

“Good to hear your voice. We’ve exchanged gunfire with this guy twice; he’s getting pushed toward the back side of the plant. Five shots at us didn’t hit anyone, but I don’t think we got lucky enough to hit him either. ”

The county bomb squad van rolled past them, one of their officers with the driver directing him. It would be enough armor protection for the cops searching the plant to get safely back out if necessary.

“Don’t take chances. There’s more help moving up to join you, and safe transportation out of there is coming in now.” Nathan watched the van enter the plant grounds and stop by the same door they had used.

“I hear you,” Sillman agreed. “We’ll get this guy.”

Nathan nodded and looked at his deputy chief. “Will, we need to get the people on this bus to the courthouse, where we can keep them together under the safety of security and get the interviews of what happened in the plant. But I need this bus staying here to help us shield folks. Find us other transportation?”

Will nodded and called in to the dispatcher.

Nathan struggled to sort out next steps after pinning the shooters. Isaac Keif, that was one of the missing. He looked to the union chief. “Adam, you said four were unaccounted for on the management side. Do you have those names?”

A piercing alarm from the plant shattered the afternoon. The circling sound vibrated the bus windows as it passed over.

“Fire! We’ve got fire in the plant.”

Nathan managed three steps toward the front of the bus, leaning his good hand against it for balance, to see for himself. White smoke circled up into the air above the south side of the plant. Even as he watched, it thickened and began to puff up in small mushroom bursts. The warehouse area was burning.

“Whatever evidence is in there, it’s going up in smoke,” Will said quietly beside him. “Which is exactly what they wanted with all this shooting. Time to destroy the evidence.”

Nathan watched the rising smoke and felt personally numb. “We were close, Will. We were ever so close to having the proof.”

“One inside the plant and one outside. Two names, and we still have them. Destroying evidence doesn’t end this.”

The fire chief scrambled forward, running low along the line of cars to reach them.

“If we can get those shooters stopped, can you contain the fire?” Nathan asked urgently.

“Automatic building fire suppression is going to dump and smother in the next minute; that’s the warning alarm sounding now. If it doesn’t do the job—there are too many chemical vats in there for us to stop the explosions once they start. Ten minutes, Nathan. We’ll know if we’re going to lose the entire plant or not in about ten minutes.”

Sillman appeared near the bomb squad van, not bothering to try and be heard on the radio over this piercing alarm. He signaled hands down. They didn’t have the shooter. He started slapping shoulders, counting men, as he pulled his guys out.

“Hurry, buddy,” Nathan whispered, watching them.

He looked at Will. “Assume the worst and we’re going to lose it; how many blocks have to evacuate with a fire?”

“Two upwind, four downwind on this side. The high school can receive.”

“Put every officer on it except for those Chet has working to pin down the rifleman. Nothing else is higher priority. Get this place evacuated.”

Nathan swayed and Will grabbed his good shoulder. “I’ll handle the pullout. You’re going down for medical attention right now.”

The ground was beginning to turn on him. Nathan knew he didn’t have a choice in the matter. “Sorry, Will. I’m leaving you a mess.”

“Good thing I’m prepared to clean it up then.”

Nathan could see paramedics and one of the emergency-room doctors rushing up the street to join them. He’d be poked and prodded and stuck before long. He favored living with the pain a few more minutes. He staggered without a choice and Bruce moved him to sit down on the snowy ground. Nathan sat and looked at the blood dripping off his hand.

His arm was a mess.

When the paramedics took scissors to the sleeve two minutes later he saw just how bad a mess. He tried to joke about it with the lead paramedic but didn’t even rate a smile from the guy at the humor. Nathan looked away from their work.

Rae was sitting on the bus steps, watching him be an idiot.

He tried his smile out on her, but she just rested her chin on her hands and watched the paramedics work. She didn’t have a coat on anymore. She had to be cold.

“Where’s your coat?”

“Don’t know.”

She didn’t sound like she cared.

“How did you and Bruce get into the tile plant to reach the bus?”

“Picked the lock.”

“Picked the lock, while under fire.”

She just nodded. “Sometimes I’m an idiot too.”

He laughed. He tried to find a reply to that and realized there wasn’t a good enough one available.

He watched the doctor try to deal with a dislocated elbow and a bullet hole and thought about what it would be like to have the sheriff pass out on the town street during treatment. He could mentally feel himself losing focus, rather fascinated by the sensation, as he realized he was heading toward passing out.

“We need to get you to the hospital to deal with this.”

“No. You can have me all you want tomorrow to fix it, but today I stay put. So just do what you can.”

“It’s a clean dislocation, and I can deal with it here. But I strongly advise against this. It’s going to
really
hurt,” the doctor warned.

Nathan just closed his eyes and nodded.

The doctor put his elbow back in place.

Nathan threw up.

He thought it was the pain exploding at first, the noise that reverberated through his head as he retched; then he heard the second blast. The tile plant began to shower pieces of metal down on the street.

42

Nathan shifted soda cans around on the ground to find one still unopened. The number of dropped cans in the snow as people darted for cover had left him with several very cold ones to choose from. He selected an orange one and opened it with one hand. His head felt clearer and he was finally beginning to feel like he was getting his bearings back, even if he’d never been out of the loop for more than twenty minutes since this crisis began.

“We’ve got the second shooter’s perch,” Chet radioed in. “He was on the rise firing down into the street. We’ve got casings.”

“Any witnesses? Anyone see the guy come or go?”

“Not so far. We’re still canvassing.”

“It’s still a great find. Get dogs up there; let’s use anything we can to track where he went.”

“Gladly.”

The wind changed and thick dark smoke puffed down to street level again. Nathan used his temporary sling to breathe through the fabric until the wind shifted again and clean, cold air reappeared.

What was still standing of the tile plant was a smoldering mess. They still had no idea who their inside shooter was, or if he had gotten out of the building in time. The shootings had stopped rather than been stopped.

He pushed through the pain in his arm, bandaged enough to get him through to probable surgery later tomorrow, and he kept up his walk along the road, stopping to talk with people he passed. He joined the fire chief at the back of the smaller of the town’s three engines. “What are you thinking as a plan for the night?”

“We’ll maintain a perimeter to make sure we stay on top of any embers flowing out in this wind and kicking up secondary fires. I’ve got crews sorting out assignments and areas now. But we basically wait it out.”

“Do you think Isaac is dead in there?”

“I’m hoping you’ll be able to tell me that before the search begins tomorrow. It will be morning before I want investigators walking those grounds. But we already know what they are going to find. Arson. The fire started in the warehouse area by a guy who knew what to light up to get a fast blaze.

“I don’t think whoever set it realized what that siren meant. I wouldn’t have wanted to be near that place when the suppression foam tried to grab the fire and choke it out. For what it’s worth, I didn’t hear any reports saying there was someone spotted going out the back of the plant.”

Nathan didn’t know what to think about that observation. He hoped the fact Isaac’s car was missing from the lot said he had indeed left the plant earlier in the day as word spread about the closing. Too many officers had been too busy to sort that out yet. He nodded his thanks to the fire chief and moved on to the police staging area.

“Thanks for the help, Luke.” Brentwood’s chief of police had joined them, along with a second group of his officers, just about the time Nathan was losing what there was left of his breakfast into the snow.

“I’ll be glad to have my guys stay on another day.”

Nathan considered it and smiled. “I’ll appreciate the highway help, but the rest I think we’re actually getting back in hand. The plant is gone; the union folks have very little left to fight to save. And my drug problem and unsolved deaths appear to have turned into a manhunt.”

“What do you know for certain at this point?” Luke asked.

“I’ve got a drug lab, with one kid dead out there. I’ve got cans from this tile plant in that lab. I’ve got a shooter outside the plant, and another one inside who also likely set the plant fire. I know I’m looking for at least two people and maybe a third who was working at the cabin with the kid. It’s a busted-up group now and those guys are running. I doubt they remain in Justice, waiting to be found.”

“Whoever has unexpectedly disappeared in the last twenty-four hours is a pretty good place to start the search.”

“I’ve already got one possible name on that list. I’ll find the others.”

“For what it’s worth—I can’t remember the last time a town got shot up like this in broad daylight, or when a business closing reverberated so seriously, and I have never even seen a four-alarm fire with explosions going off like clockwork every few minutes. Put all that together in a period of one day—property damage and the one significant injury being the sheriff—that speaks of both a lot of providence and great training among your men.”

“It was their finest hour,” Nathan agreed, pleased at his friend’s observation.

Nathan gestured to the mostly empty street. “It’s going to take some time to debrief my guys and figure out everything that happened, but if you wouldn’t mind sitting through the summaries, I’d like you and Philip to walk it back through with me and help me figure out what I can learn for next time.”

Luke smiled. “‘Don’t get shot’ should sit high on the list.” He nodded. “I’ll be glad to help however I can. But I can give you my initial assessment right here. Your department handled this extraordinarily well. Justice is a peaceful town. Let’s get it back that way for you.”

“I think the way you’re thinking.” Nathan held out his good hand and shook on it.

* * *

“Hey, Rae.” Nathan sat down on the porch steps beside her. She’d found her coat sometime in the last couple hours. Or Bruce had found it for her. Her earmuffs were back on and gloves. She looked exhausted. Given she’d been out of the hospital all of a day, it was a wonder she wasn’t needing to be readmitted.

She smiled at him rather than answer.

Adam had set up base in this house, one of his men offering his home for a gathering place, and among the union men was no longer an unwelcoming place for cops to mingle. Shots being fired had changed that equation fast.

Nathan nodded toward the front door. “Bruce inside?”

“Making calls.”

“You should go home.”

“I’m not interested in a hotel room and watching this on television. The television reporters are all from out of town; they basically don’t even know what they are talking about.”

He smiled. “I doubt they get many street names right; but importing media does fit the amount of excitement around here today. The town will be talking about today for as many years as it has left in its history.”

“The town will survive the plant closing. It has to.”

“I hope so.”

She looked at his arm. “Do you understand God? Why He allowed this to happen?”

Surprised by the question, Nathan studied her, then eased his good hand around hers and gently squeezed. “Don’t worry so much about it. Sometimes life is just awful, and that’s the way it is. It doesn’t have to reflect so much on God, as just be noted as this is what man is willing to do to his fellow man. It doesn’t mean God is like this too.”

Rae thought about that and nodded but still looked at him with a question haunting her eyes. “I still don’t understand why God lets evil like this exist. It hurts. How can God let us get so hurt if He loves us?”

Nathan felt sick that he didn’t have a good answer for her. He was so rarely asked this depth of question and he heard this one and knew it was deeply important to her. “I tell my boys in Sunday school that asking why is like a line that never ends; there is never a point you will have all the answers you need. But if you ask instead who, it gives you a tight circle. A lot of the picture still isn’t clear, but it is complete.