Blood Ties (17 page)

“That’s a lot of maybes,” DeMarco complained. He was still scanning Main Street, still keeping an eye on the so-far undisturbed and unexploded SUVs parked in front of the sheriff’s department. “And it all hinges on the premise that this rampage is about us, about the SCU. If we’re wrong about that basic supposition, then we could allow others to die while we’re looking in the wrong direction.”

“That’s just as true the other way,” Quentin said. “If we ignore signs pointing to a motive behind this simply because we find the motive hard to swallow, then we’re no closer to stopping the killer—or killers—and the rampage continues.”

“True.”

Diana shook her head and said, “It still all boils down to guesswork, so far, at least. I thought psychic abilities would make this sort of thing easier.”

“Sometimes I think they make it harder,” Quentin told her. “In fact, I think that a lot.”

To Hollis, Diana said, “Not that I’m doubting you, but considering what happened last night in the gray time, do you think this Andrea might have been deceiving you? Lying about there being a bomb?”

“I don’t think so. She was awfully convincing. Awfully upset, now that I think about it. But I’m still relatively new to this stuff, so I can’t be a hundred percent sure about it.”

“So there may not be a bomb?”

“Rationally… yes. There may not be a bomb.”

Quentin said, “But you aren’t sure, and we can’t take the chance there
isn’t
a bomb.”

DeMarco looked at Hollis, his brows rising slightly. “What does your gut tell you? Was Andrea lying? Trying to trick you?”

Slowly, Hollis shook her head. “No. No, I really don’t think she was trying to trick me. I think she wanted—needed—to warn me. Because there’s a bomb in one of those cars.”

“That’s all I need to hear,” DeMarco said, returning his gaze to the quiet, peaceful street. “So now the question becomes, how do we get out of this with as few casualties as possible?”

“G
abe, I’ve got the sheriff getting ready to send the few people he has out to try and clear as much space as possible around the vehicles. Where are you?” Miranda asked.

“About two blocks from the station.” He parked the car as he spoke, getting out with his cell and his keys and without the backpack. “I’m armed. And I think I can find this bastard.” He locked the car and dropped the keys into one of his jacket pockets.

“What does Roxanne think?” The question was curiously literal.

Tell her I think he’s on top of that old theater building half a block down from the station. There’s no fire escape, no outside stairs, so you’ll have to go up from inside the building
.

Gabriel relayed the information, adding, “The building’s for rent, Miranda. Empty. There’s a rear entrance.” When she seemed to hesitate, he added, “Look, I know you wanted to just watch this guy, but if he’s willing to blow up a nice little town, I say the time for watching is over.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “You won’t get an argument about that. But I don’t like you going up there alone, Gabe.”

“I don’t think we have time to argue about it.” He was nearly at the rear of the old theater building, where he’d been heading since he stepped out of the car. He could see that the old door was barred by an equally old padlock. “You guys are blocks away, and for all we know one or both of those SUVs are packed with explosives. Maybe even nails and other kinds of shrapnel. An explosion could destroy a lot more than those vehicles, and we both know it. I can take the bastard out.”

“All right.” Whatever hesitation Miranda might have felt was clearly past. “But don’t kill him unless you have to. We need to be able to talk to him if at all possible.”

“Copy that.”

“Leave the cell on; with a little luck we won’t lose the signal.”

“Copy that,” he repeated. “Talk to you on the other side.” He slid the cell, still on, into the other pocket of his jacket and then drew his weapon from the shoulder holster he wore underneath it. “Rox? The lock?”

Working on it. Tougher than I expected. The lock hasn’t been opened in a while, I’d say
.

“So he used the front entrance to gain access. Wonder whether he had a key or broke in.”

In full view of anybody on Main Street, I’m guessing he had a key. He had to look and act normally enough not to attract any undue attention. Just a minute more…

There was a brief pause, and then Gabriel heard a click, and the old padlock swung free. He got rid of it and used muscle to force the door open, not at all happy when the ancient hinges creaked loudly.

Stairs. Just to your right. There’s no electricity, Gabe
.

“And it’s dark as pitch.” He barely whispered it, pausing for only a moment inside the door to allow his eyes to adjust a bit to the dark.

These stairs go up to the projection room, I think. From there, we’ll have to find the door that leads to the roof
.

“When was it ever easy?” With fumbling fingers, he found a rough old handrail and began to climb the dangerously creaky stairs as swiftly as he dared.

——

“W
ait—” DeMarco gestured toward the street. “A couple of Duncan’s deputies are coming out. Damn, looks like the part-timers. I guess the rest of the first shift is out on patrol.”

Hollis said, “They aren’t very good at acting casual, are they? Their body language is tense as hell. There’s the sheriff. He’s a lot better at seeming nonchalant, I have to say.”

Miranda rejoined the group near the walkway in time to hear that and said, “As expected, the sheriff has no bomb squad, but he has a call in to Knoxville for the nearest one. Only a couple of his part-timers are at the station. He’s sent them out with orders to stay far away from the vehicles and keep the area around them clear. He’s going to try to get to the restaurants and stores in the immediate area, alert them to clear themselves and their customers out—or, at least, get away from windows facing the street. We’re going to give them five minutes to do as much as they can.”

“You’re thinking we have to detonate the bomb?” DeMarco said, after a quick glance at her.

“I’m thinking we need to be ready if we have to,” Miranda replied. “The nearest bomb squad is more than an hour away—and the lunch crowd, such as it is, is about to head to the downtown restaurants. We don’t have the equipment to safely inspect those vehicles, or even to effectively barricade the area, and we don’t have the luxury of time.”

“If he has a remote, one of us will have to approach before he’s likely to trigger it,” DeMarco said.

“I’m hoping we’re the ones with the remote.” She nodded to the keys in his hand. “We can unlock, raise the cargo doors, and start the engines from here. Maybe that’ll set off the bomb. If not…”

“The sort of body armor we have isn’t going to protect us, Miranda. Not from a bomb.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. Still, it’s all we’ve got. Before any of us approach those vehicles, we get the vests on.”

“Copy that.”

But neither DeMarco nor any of the others moved, all their attention fixed on the vehicles a few short blocks away.

Quentin, after gauging the distance between the vehicles and the buildings around them, said, “There is not a whole lot of room down there. And way too many glass windows. I gather you’re also hoping for a small bomb or bombs with a small blast radius.”

“That would be my preference,” Miranda said. “Since explosives have never been part of the M.O. so far, I have to believe whatever he brought with him or got his hands on in the last twelve hours or so isn’t likely to be very large or very complicated.”

“Which,” DeMarco said, “means a remote detonation is a bit more likely. Wiring explosives into a vehicle’s electrical system or using some kind of timer is more difficult and time-consuming, even if he knows what he’s doing. And since those vehicles have been right out in the open since last night, I’m guessing he didn’t want to risk spending any more time than necessary near them.”

Diana shook her head and said, “You’re all so calm about this.” She sounded decidedly tense.

Hollis murmured, “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

DeMarco looked down at her, a very slight frown pulling at his brows. “Hollis, what are you trying to do? I can feel the effort.”

“Yeah, it’s… hard. But electrical energy is electrical energy, right?” The strain in her voice was evident. “And explosives are… inherently unstable. Probably giving off waves of energy just being themselves. I’m trying to see if there’s an aura of some kind around… Huh. What do you know? I see a funny sort of shimmer above the second SUV. A kind of red haze. Nothing above the one in front.”

Miranda said, “Reese, do you still sense him out there?”

“Oh, yeah, he’s watching. I still can’t pinpoint a location, but I think he’s up high. Maybe a rooftop.”

“You think he’s using his scope or binoculars?”

“Binoculars. I don’t feel a gun. Not yet, anyway. But I am having a little more trouble than usual tuning him in.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, handing it to Hollis. “Here.”

“What—” She felt the tickle underneath her nose and pressed the cloth there, adding a muttered, “Damn.”

“I told you I could feel the effort,” DeMarco said.

“It’s just a little nosebleed, that’s all.”

“Yeah, right.”

Miranda checked her cell, frowned, and muttered, “Damn, lost the signal.”

“What signal?” Quentin asked.

As if she hadn’t heard him, Miranda said, “A minute left. Hollis, when this is over, I want you to—”

That was when one of the SUVs exploded.

D
ale McMurry both heard and saw the explosion. In fact, he was damn near knocked out of his chair—though that may have been more of a rather drastic flinch on his part than the force of the actual blast.

Like everybody else, he went running outside and toward the station, so shocked by the very notion of something exploding in this normally very peaceful place that he didn’t think it through.

Or consider possible consequences.

G
abriel had just reached the old theater’s projection room when he heard the explosion. And felt the vibration shudder through the old building.

Shit
,

“Goddammit, Rox, where the hell are the stairs to the roof?” Even though his eyes had adjusted and there was—inexplicably—what appeared to be a dirty skylight far above, he could see no sign of a door or another set of stairs upward.

Wait… Over there, behind those shelves sticking out into the room
.

A couple of rusted and ancient film cans on one of the shelves mutely proclaimed the reason for its existence in the room, but Gabriel didn’t pause to think very much about it. He found the door right where Roxanne had indicated. It was unlocked, opened easily, and gave access to steep stairs leading up.

Climbing them swiftly and silently, he breathed, “Can you give me a sense of where he is?”

I’m still not sure. It feels… weird. Cold. Distant. I should understand what that means, I know I should, but I don’t
.

At the top of the stairs was another door, and it, too, opened easily under his careful hand. No creaking hinges betrayed him, but he was too wary a hunter not to move with exquisite caution. He opened the door just a few inches at first, to give his eyes time to adjust to the late-morning brightness of the rooftop, then eased it farther open.

Be careful, Gabe
.

“Copy that.” The whisper was automatic; all his attention was focused on the roof.

It was, for the most part, a flat, tarred roof, various exhaust vents and other pipes sticking up here and there. The stairs had ended on the roof in a kind of dormer, and in the heartbeats it took him to orient himself, Gabriel realized that the front part of the building was behind him.

And behind the dormer.

There’s nowhere else he can be, assuming he’s still up here. And he has to still be up here. Unless he’s a damn bird
.

Gabriel would have copied that, but he was concentrating on every careful movement as he eased around the dormer to find the sniper’s vantage point. But the caution proved to be unnecessary.

“He’s not a bird,” Gabriel said out loud, relaxing and slowly holstering his weapon.

What the hell?

Yesterday’s sniper—if the very expensive rifle lying beside him was any indication—half-sat with his back against the four-foot parapet wall, where he had apparently crouched to watch the street below. His legs were splayed apart, his hands limp on either side of his hips. He looked rather like a hunter, wearing faded jeans, much-used hiking boots, and a camo jacket, with a backpack nearby.

In one limply open hand was a small black box with a simple toggle switch, apparently the detonator he had used to set off his bomb.

In the other hand was a silenced automatic.

The hole in his right temple hadn’t bled much, probably because of the gaping exit wound on the left side of his skull—which had. Blood and tissue were spattered all over the sand-colored bricks.

He was an ordinary-looking man, clean-shaven, with brown hair, and brown eyes that stared sightlessly into eternity.

Gabe, this doesn’t make sense
.

“You’re telling me.” He kicked the pistol away from that limp hand just to be sure, then hunkered down and reached to check the pulse. As soon as his fingers touched the dead man’s skin, he had to fight not to jerk his hand away in an instinctive reaction.

“Christ.”

Gabe?

“He’s cold, Rox. And I mean really cold. There’s no way he detonated that bomb and then killed himself. This guy’s been dead for hours. Hell, maybe for days.”

But, what
—

That was when they heard the
craa-aack
of a rifle.

From somewhere in the street below.

T
hey didn’t decide to abandon the cover of the B&B’s shaded yard when the SUV blew, they simply ran toward the sheriff’s department, training and instinct guiding them. Because the explosion was bigger than it should have been, blowing out windows on both sides of the street for more than a block and sending hot chunks of metal and melted plastic in all directions.