Chapter 15

“Seriously, who uses a fax machine anymore?” Grace fumed.

“The scholarship committee that wants you to fax their forms back before they’ll give those students a bunch of free money, apparently.” Sarah dipped her head, pretending to focus on the boxes of ammunition that she was stacking in the case. Grace’s annoyance was justified, but her wide gestures and pained expression were so dramatic that Sarah had to hide a smile.

Grace gave a drawn-out groan, and a small laugh escaped Sarah before she got it back under control. “But why? It’s like using a mimeograph machine. We’re beyond faxes as a civilization.”

“Why not just scan it in and use a faxing app?” Sarah asked, topping off the stack with the last, surprisingly heavy box. Standing up, she stretched out the kinks from crouching next to the ammunition case for so long.

“I tried,” Grace said gloomily, leaning against the wall. “It’s not going through. Satellite internet is just a tiny bit better than dial-up.”

“Where’s the nearest fax machine?”

“Dresden, probably.” As she spoke, Grace’s eyes widened. “Oh, this could be good!”

“It could?” Sarah blinked, startled by Grace’s dramatic change in mood. She was starting to look almost giddy.

Grace grinned, as excited as she’d been frustrated just a minute earlier. “Yes! Do you know what Dresden has?”

“Ski slopes?”

“Yes. What else?”

“Rich people?”

“Yes, and what do rich people like to do?”

“Uh…” A number of possibilities ran through Sarah’s mind—things that her father and Aaron had liked to do—but they were all slightly psychopathic. She tried to think of things that normal rich people liked to do. “Buy things?”

“Exactly!” Grace gave an excited bounce. “Dresden has shopping that doesn’t involve buying clothes at the general store.” Her gaze moved to a point behind Sarah. “No offense, Grady.”

“None taken, but you, missy, need to leave so that Sarah here can get her work done.” Grady spoke right behind her, making Sarah jump. She sent an apologetic look toward her friend, but Grace didn’t look at all abashed by the mild scolding.

“I’m leaving,” she said. “I’ll be back at… What time are you done here?”

“Four.”

“I’ll be back at four, and then we’ll go shopping in Dresden. We’ll celebrate your brother and his minions getting picked up by the FBI today. By the time we get home, Monroe will be blessedly Blanchett- and Jovanovic-free.” Blowing Sarah a kiss, Grace left the store, leaving Sarah feeling a little dazed, as if she’d been swept up in a tornado. It would be nice to shop somewhere besides Grady’s, though. She thought about getting some pretty lingerie that would make Otto go all caveman on her again, and she flushed, giving Grady a guilty look, as if the man could read her wicked thoughts.

“Back to work, missy” was all he said.

* * *

To her disappointment, the shopping trip in Dresden was a bust. They’d barely gotten halfway there when the check-engine light had come on in Grace’s car. Both of them agreed to turn around, since the sky was an ominous gunmetal gray and neither wanted to be stranded somewhere in the wilderness between Monroe and Dresden. They’d returned to town empty-handed.

One positive was that Grady admitted that he had an ancient—but functional—fax machine in his office that he grudgingly let them use. While muttering about obsolete technology, Grace had sent her fax. She’d wanted to wait until the scholarship committee signed the forms and faxed them back to her, so she had stayed in the office while Sarah headed home.

As Sarah drove, small hard pellets of snow smacked against the windshield. An inch had already fallen and was sweeping across the road in white, frozen eddies. It had gotten worse now that she was on the other side of the pass and had turned onto the twisting, uphill road to Otto’s place. Everyone had been warned about the coming blizzard for so many days that it was almost a relief to finally have the snow arrive, except that she worried about Otto. It would make his job so much more difficult—and dangerous.

She glanced at the dashboard clock: it was just after six. Otto would be at work. She was tempted to call him, just to hear his voice and ask him to be careful, but she didn’t want to bother him. Besides, he was a grown man and a cop; he already knew he needed to be careful in snow.

The wind whipped up, pressing on the side of the car and sending a flurry of snow pellets smacking against the windows. Sarah usually enjoyed driving the twisting, scenic road leading to Otto’s, but tonight it felt as if she was going to get swept right off the side of the cliff.

The snow wasn’t thick enough to block visibility, but the wind was brutal. It howled and groaned, pushing against the side of her car so hard it felt like a giant was trying to shove her off the road. She realized she was hunched forward, her hands clutching the wheel so hard her fingers ached, and she forced herself to sit back, taking one hand at a time off the steering wheel so she could stretch them out. The car’s too heavy to be blown sideways, she reassured herself.

The wind screamed, a gust smacking against the car, and Sarah jerked forward, her hands squeezing the wheel again. The final curve before the turnoff onto Otto’s driveway was approaching, and she blew out a breath in relief, although her hands remained clamped on the wheel. Almost home.

Boom! A crash drowned out the screaming wind, and the earth shook.

With a yelp, Sarah instinctively jerked the wheel and slammed on the brake, sending the car toward the edge of the road. She immediately corrected, turning toward the center, but the pellets of ice sent her sliding. The car plowed toward the sadly inadequate guardrail, and a long-ago driving lesson with Chester popped into her head.

Acceleration gives you control, Alice, he’d said in his gentle, patient way. Yanking her foot off the brake, she pressed the gas pedal. The tires caught, sending her back toward the center, and she straightened the car with jerky motions as she audibly gasped for breath.

Her fingers shook, and she tightened them around the wheel, as if she could stop the tremors if she just held on tightly enough. What had happened? An earthquake? An avalanche? A rockslide? She crawled through the final hairpin turn, desperate to get home safely so she could figure out what had happened and who might be hurt. As she crested the last hill, the view improved, and the side of the mountain stretched out to her left.

The road was on fire.

Her foot hit the brake pedal, so suddenly that the car went into another small slide before jerking to a stop. Sarah slammed the car into Park and fumbled for the door handle with shaking fingers. When she finally got the door open, she almost fell into the road. Her legs were trembling so much that standing was hard, but she managed to stay upright as she ran to the edge of the road.

The wind ripped at her, buffeting her first from one direction and then the next, and she gripped the top of the guardrail fence as she stared over the cliff. The fire glowed red, bright enough to illuminate a stretch of highway in front of and behind the flames. Black smoke billowed, backlit by the fire. Sarah wasn’t sure how long she watched it, mesmerized by the horror of it and the terribly beautiful flames. She craned to see it more clearly, struggling between her need to know what had happened and the fear she’d be blown over the cliff. Was it a car or a truck that had just exploded? From the earlier sound, Sarah was pretty sure it had been an explosion and not just a fire. The conversation she’d had with Otto the day before about the militia guy and his friend—Norman Rounds, the man suspected of blowing up Jules’s barn—resurfaced in her mind.

“He was cleared,” she muttered to herself, even as she fumbled for her phone. “You don’t know what that was. It was probably an accident.”

Another, fainter boom echoed through the night, bouncing off the cliff faces until it sounded like a hundred small explosions. Her body jerked back, and the guardrail slipped form her fingers. The wind caught her, and she fought to keep her balance and her grip on her phone. She peered through the darkness in the direction of the latest explosion, but it was too far away. She couldn’t see anything except the tiny, hard pellets of snow that drilled into any exposed skin.

She turned back to the original fire and saw that the red glow had shrunk. She still couldn’t see anything except the short, lit ribbon of highway and the flames. Tearing her gaze off the burning spot on the road, Sarah stared at her phone. She stumbled back toward the car, wanting to call Otto, needing to know if he was okay. There had been two explosions, some distance apart. That was not an accident.

Her thumbs shook as she found Otto’s cell number, but she finally managed to call. Immediately, there was a double beep, and the screen read “No Service.” It took all of Sarah’s willpower not to throw the phone across the road. She would need it later.

After a final glance at the still-burning explosion site, she climbed back in the car and put it into Drive. She slammed down on the accelerator. The car juddered sideways, and Sarah realized that quite a bit of snow had piled up on the road. The car drifted closer to the far side of the road, but then the tires finally caught.

Her gasp of relief was more of a sob. She almost missed Otto’s driveway, since the snow already blanketed the area, hiding the gravel path. Wrenching the wheel, she made the turn, the car sliding diagonally toward a large aspen tree. She corrected the skid, straightening the car and concentrating on the faint dent that showed where the sides of the driveway were. She pulled into the garage automatically, feeling a huge sense of relief when the overhead door closed, shutting her safely inside.

Quickly, though, she remembered that it was just an illusion. Sarah didn’t know who was safe—was Otto? Or Theo? Or Jules and her family, or Grace, or Hugh? She didn’t know what the explosions had been or why they’d been set off, but she knew, deep in her gut, that Aaron Blanchett was behind it. He always got what he wanted, and, right now, he wanted his sister back, even if he had to destroy a town to get her.

At the thought, her stomach tried to turn itself inside out. Hurrying to climb out of the car, she swallowed down bile as she ran for the door. This was no time to be fussing over how she felt. She needed information. To get information, she needed a way to communicate.

Mort and Xena came to greet her as Sarah rushed inside the house, smacking the hall light on as she entered. With a quick apology to the dogs, she dodged around them, running for the house phone. It was a satellite phone, rather than a landline, but it would have to do. She grabbed it, and, with her cell phone in one hand and the satellite phone in the other, she entered Otto’s mobile number into the home phone.

Nothing happened. Sarah looked at the screen, hitting the Call button again and again, but the satellite phone stayed silent. With a frustrated shriek, she pressed her hands—still holding the phones—against her head and tried to think. How could she reach Otto? Phones were out, so what was next? To reach someone, she could call, text, email… Email!

Pivoting around, she dropped the satellite phone, shoved her cell phone in her pocket, and ran for Otto’s office. The dogs and Bob followed close behind.

Otto’s computer was on the desk of his study. He’d given her the satellite internet password on the first day she’d moved in. Sitting in front of the computer, she pushed the power button and waited impatiently for it to boot up. Unable to just wait there, she got up and paced.

As she’d entered the office, Sarah had flicked on the overhead light. Her reflection looked back at her from the large window, and she had a sudden, paranoid feeling that someone was out there…watching her. She hurried over to the light switch and turned it off, standing still until her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

Moving over to the window, she peered through the thick sheet of snow. The flakes were coming down so hard that she could barely make out the dark shape of the barn. Sarah tried to take heart in the fact that anyone trying to watch her would have visibility as bad as she had, but that thought didn’t really help. It still felt like they could see her, and she couldn’t see anything except snow.

Xena whined, breaking the thick silence.

“It’s okay, sweet pea,” Sarah said. Even though she spoke quietly, it still sounded much too loud. She stroked Xena’s blocky, silky-soft head as the dog pressed her muzzle against the side of her thigh. Mort was silent, but he was alert, standing in the middle of the room, dividing his attention between the doorway and the window. With the dimness hiding his gray hairs, he looked like a poster for an on-duty K9, readiness vibrating through every muscle. It was slightly reassuring knowing that she had a trained cop on her side. Bob hid under the desk.

There was another sound, faint and mostly lost under the howls of the wind. Tipping her head closer to the window, Sarah listened, trying to decide if she was just imagining it. The wind quieted for a moment, and the sound became clear—a faint, rapid whump-whump-whump. Mort started to bark.

Sarah wasn’t about to ignore the trained law enforcement officer in the room. Leaving the computer still booting up, she ran for the door. Mort bounded out first, and Xena followed right behind Sarah. In the doorway, Sarah paused and started to turn around, intending to grab Bob. He beat her to the punch, though, streaking by her and flying down the hall after Mort.

Taking off after the animals, she ran for the closet in the living room, frantically turning off lights as she went. The whump-whump was getting loud, obvious now, even over the screaming wind. Mort and Bob waited for her in front of the closet, and Xena stayed glued to the back of her legs. She was grateful that the animals seemed to have a strong sense of self-preservation.

Shoving to the back of the closet, Sarah fumbled as she tried to work the hidden latch free, and she remembered having the same problem several nights ago. Her nerves had been so pointless then, just silly late-night jitters. As the door finally swung open, Sarah swore that she’d never be scared without reason ever again.

Mort and Bob took the lead again, darting down the stairs into the bunker. Securing the door behind her, Sarah, with Xena close behind her, turned on the light and followed the animals, taking the steps three at a time. Just as she reached the bottom, there was a thunderous boom. Everything shook, and Sarah was knocked off her feet, falling painfully onto her hip and her arm.

She pushed herself to sitting, feeling too vulnerable sprawled on the bunker floor, as the walls and ceiling and the ground itself trembled around her. Xena climbed onto Sarah’s lap, eighty-plus pounds of knobby joints and poky feet, and Sarah didn’t have the heart to push her away. Instead, she wrapped her arms around the quivering dog, hugging her tightly until the room around them went still.

When it finally did, when everything was eerily silent, Sarah didn’t want to move. Moving required making decisions, and she was a little too freaked out for that. That sound, those tremors, were becoming uncomfortably familiar. Something above them had just blown up. By the force that had radiated all the way down into the secure bunker, it had to have been big. Sarah wondered with a sick twist of fear whether Otto’s entire house was gone.

Grief hit her at the thought. What if that elegant, well-preserved house that had withstood everything the Rockies had thrown at it for over a century was now destroyed, all by her stupid, sociopathic brother?

The thought of Aaron brought anger, and that sent a surge of determination through her. He wasn’t going to win. He might have the helicopters and the bombs and a whole mercenary army he could direct from a jail cell, but she had…

She looked around, taking a tally. She had a terrified pit bull mix and an elderly K9, plus a chubby cat currently wedged under a cot. A spark of fear hit her at the thought of being responsible for these animals—for any lives, including her own—but she shoved it away. She dug for confidence, picturing Otto’s face as he told her to fake it until she made it. The thought of him both gave her courage and added another surge of terror. There’d been at least two explosions in town. What if he’d been hit by one of them?

Her anxiety swelled, blocking out everything else as she imagined all sorts of nightmare scenarios. The room blurred around her, and Xena whined as she pressed against Sarah’s legs. Swaying, Sarah dropped a hand onto Xena’s back. The feel of warm, hard muscle under the dog’s slick fur steadied her.

Forcing away any and all thoughts of Otto being injured—or worse—Sarah tried to come up with a plan.

“Okay,” she said, and then jumped at the sound of her voice. Feeling sheepish that she’d scared herself, she spoke again, just to prove she wasn’t afraid. “What do we need?”

First, they needed to get to safety. The bunker felt secure, but it wouldn’t be if one of Aaron’s people discovered the door in the back of the closet. She glanced at the entrance to the tunnels.

“Okay, guys. Let’s make an escape, then.”

Sarah looked around. Her brain was still racing at a hundred miles an hour, and worry about Otto and the others was still nibbling holes in her control, despite her determination to stay focused. The memory of that first tour of the bunker echoed in her mind. In his calm, deep voice, Otto had explained what was there and why it was important to have certain things in an emergency. She started digging through the storage containers, pulling out a camping backpack and filling it with water bottles, food—Otto even had dog- and cat-food stores—a lighter, a folding knife, a flashlight, and some rope. She thought about taking the tent and sleeping bag, but decided against it. It was less than ten miles into town. They should make it there in about three hours, even moving slowly. There shouldn’t be any need to camp, and the extra weight would just slow her down.

She turned to the container holding clothes next. Stripping off her shoes, coat, long-sleeved T-shirt, and khakis that she’d worn to work, she pulled on some long underwear. It was meant for someone much bigger than her. Next, she pulled on her khakis and T-shirt, followed by some snow pants, a fleece top, two pairs of socks, and her coat. The snow pants were much too big, but she was able to tuck all the extra into her boots, and the waist had a drawstring. The crotch hung down around her thighs, which made walking awkward, but she figured she’d get used to it. Staying dry and warm was what was important now. Pulling on her hat and grabbing mittens—and then throwing extra hats, mittens, and socks into her pack—Sarah called it good.

A sense of urgency pushed her to move, to leave before Aaron’s goons found her. If they’d blown up Otto’s house, not caring that she might have died—or maybe hoping for exactly that—then Aaron wasn’t worried about getting her back alive anymore. Now, it was all about revenge and damage control.

Her mind went to Grace, and she wondered if the Jovanovics were involved in the attack. Aaron had resources, but that was a lot of money to spend just to kill an uncooperative sister.

After wrestling her mind back under control, she took one last look around. There were a lot of things that looked useful—camp stoves and a huge first-aid kit and a wicked-looking ax and sledgehammer combo—but Sarah decided to just leave with what she had in her pack. After all, Bob was going to have to fit in there, too.

As she approached the cot, the cat gave a tiny, pitiful meow.

“I know,” Sarah crooned. “That’s how I feel, too. Once we get to town, though, you can hang out with Dee’s cat. You’ll get along great. If you don’t, then that’s okay. Their house is huge. There very possibly could be mice, too, so that’s a bonus.” As she kept up her soothing commentary, she moved closer and closer, not wanting to spook Bob into darting for another, less-accessible hiding place.

Except for another nearly soundless meow, however, the cat was docile, allowing her to scoop him up and carry him over to the backpack. Sarah tucked him in the large front pocket, which had mesh sides.

“It’s a little like one of those purse pet carriers,” she said, as Bob growled, a steady, continuous rumble that made the whole pack shake. “This’ll be over soon.” Sarah zipped the cat in and looked at the two dogs crowded around her legs.

I hope.

Hoisting the pack onto her back while trying not to jostle Bob too much, Sarah looked around one last time, wondering if she should try to hunt down leashes—or make some out of rope, if necessary. She glanced at the ceiling. There was no telling if anyone was up there, or if the helicopter had just dropped the bomb and then flown away.

The thought made her antsy, and she started for the tunnel entrance. She had rope and could leash the dogs later, if necessary. So far, they had stuck closely to her. If something did happen to her, she wanted the dogs to be able to run away. She quickly shook off that morbid thought before it could make her start trembling again, and opened the door to the tunnels.

Tunnels was the wrong word for it, Sarah thought as she turned on the light. It was more of a series of hallways than the cave-like hole that the word tunnel brought to mind. As she came to the spot where one passageway branched off from the main one, she stopped so abruptly that Xena’s head bumped the back of her knees.

Bean and Hortense. How could she have forgotten the horse and goat? Bile rose in her throat as she thought about the way the ground shook after the blast. Had it taken out the barn, too? Her stomach twisted, and she retched.

She couldn’t leave without seeing if they were okay. As much as she wanted to run through the tunnel and down the mountain, not stopping until she reached town and Otto, she had to find out if Bean and Hortense were still alive. If they were, she had to get them out…somehow.

Hurrying down the hallway hopefully leading to the barn, she eyed the ceiling worriedly. It was fairly low, but was it too low for Bean to walk through? The ground started to slope upward. Feeling like she was getting close, Sarah started to jog, even as she worried about what she’d find in the barn…if there was a barn anymore.

The tunnel ended at a set of double doors, and Sarah unlocked them with shaking hands. Mort made a sound deep in his chest—not quite a growl but more than a whine—and Sarah sucked in a quick breath, bracing for what she might see.

Although she wanted to fling the doors open, to move as quickly as she could to save the animals, Sarah turned off the tunnel light and made herself hold her hand close to the door, checking for heat. It was cool, almost cold, so she slowly cracked one door. The light was strange, red and orange and flickering, and her lungs seized. Was the barn on fire? Her eyes adjusted to the eerie, uneven glow, and she saw the interior of the barn. Everything was still in place and unburned. The breath she’d taken escaped in a silent rush. The barn was still standing.

Peering into the structure, Sarah didn’t see anyone, and she pushed the door open a little more. Mort tried to wiggle his way in front of her, but she used her legs to block him.

“Sit,” she said in an almost inaudible voice. Mort must’ve heard, since he settled onto his haunches behind her. She slipped out, debating whether to leave the dogs in the tunnel. She was worried that they’d bark and howl, though, so she let them exit with her and closed the tunnel entrance behind her. The main barn door was closed, so Mort couldn’t go running out into danger.

Sarah moved toward Bean’s stall, but she couldn’t help but peek out of one of the dusty windows. Her breath caught. The flickering red and orange light that filled the barn was coming from a huge fire—a fire that was destroying the blackened and flattened skeleton of Otto’s house. The wind whipped the flames to higher and higher peaks, both painfully loud.

Her throat tightened, but she turned her head away from the charred remains and rushed to the oversized stall that Bean shared with Hortense. For a moment, Sarah was grateful for the bad weather, since it meant that Otto had put the animals in the barn for the night. If she’d had to chase Bean down in the pasture, this would’ve been almost impossible.

The wind slowed for a few moments, and the roar of the fire softened with it. In the sudden slight hush, Sarah heard a shout. She froze as the wind whipped to life again, burying any follow-up. Had she really heard a male voice, or had it just been her imagination? Her stomach jumping anxiously, she grabbed a halter and lead rope off the hook and slid open the stall door.

Hortense was right there, looking for treats. Nudging the goat to the side, Sarah slid into the stall. Xena followed her in, and Sarah watched Bean, hoping that he wasn’t scared of dogs. The horse’s coat was dark with nervous sweat in patches on his neck and barrel, and his head was high, the whites of his eyes reflecting the red light in an eerie way. He didn’t seem to even notice the dog, though, too concerned with the fire outside to worry about who—and what—was in the stall with him.

As if testing the theory, Mort pushed his way inside. Sarah moved toward Bean, trying to look as calm and unthreatening as possible. The horse’s muscles twitched with tension as he stood slightly splay-legged. Although he flicked an ear toward her, Bean didn’t look at her. His attention was fixed on the entrance. Sarah followed the horse’s gaze to the closed main doors, and her muscles tightened in warning.

Mort growled, startling Sarah. Ripping her attention away from the barn doors, she looked down at the dog. Mort’s ears were just as focused as Bean’s—on the main doors. Staring at the entrance again, Sarah tried to swallow, her mouth suddenly dry. All of her instincts were screaming that something bad was coming. Mort had saved their lives earlier. Sarah knew better than to ignore the dog’s warning.

Choking back creeping panic, she moved toward the stall door. She and the dogs needed to get to the tunnel. In there, they’d be safe until whatever—whoever—was on the other side of the doors left. Then, they could come back for Hortense and Bean. Sarah took a step, her gaze locked on the entrance.

The door swung open.

Sarah quickly ducked down. Grabbing both dogs by the collars, she hauled them to the front of the stall, pushing them into a sitting position right under Bean’s hay feeder. Slipping out of the backpack straps, Sarah pressed her back against the wood and pulled her backpack in next to her. If someone didn’t get too close, Sarah, both dogs, and the cat would be hidden.

It was a long shot, though. If Aaron’s thugs were searching the barn, they wouldn’t just glance inside the stall and then wander away. At the very least, they’d open the door and look. Sarah thought about covering them in the wood shavings that blanketed the stall floor, but then she heard the howl of the wind cut off as the door was pulled shut with a thud.

Too late.