Chapter 16

Otto cruised down Main Street, watching for any activity in the closed businesses. Monroe generally didn’t have a problem with theft or vandalism during the winter, but he liked to keep an eye out, just in case. The building snowstorm had cleared things out even more than usual. Even the gas station had closed early. The town felt abandoned, and Otto wished that he still had Mort in the squad car with him. Not only had he been a good partner, but the dog had been good company, too.

Lieutenant Blessard was hopeful about getting the funding for a new K9 for Otto in January, but Otto was leaning toward training his own rescue dog. When he first started working with Xena, he was hopeful that she could progress to detection training, but she was still so timid. Confidence was crucial in a K9.

Thanks to their current officer shortage, the lieutenant had to stay late to meet with the FBI agents who were finally picking up the three occupants of the jail: Aaron Blanchett, Logan Jovanovic, and Jeb Hopp. If Otto had had to do it, there wouldn’t have been anyone available to take calls. Besides, he tried to limit how much time he spent with the trio of prisoners. Every time he saw them, Otto was tempted to punch them in their cruel, smug faces for what they’d done to Sarah.

A hazy figure outside the general store waved at him, and Otto turned into the lot. As he drew closer, he recognized Grady, the owner and Sarah’s new boss.

“Hey, Otto,” Grady said as Otto rolled down his window. Small, sharp snowflakes immediately pelted his face. “My truck won’t start. Mind giving me a jump?”

Otto climbed out, heading to the trunk to get the cables. The wind grabbed the edges of his department-issue coat, making it flap. The promised blizzard was finally here, and it was going to be a rough one. Otto hoped Sarah and Grace would make it home safely. He glanced at his watch, noting that they should be in Dresden by now. He decided that, as soon as he’d gotten Grady’s truck started, he’d send Sarah a text suggesting that they stay there overnight. The drive back would be much better tomorrow, after the snow had stopped and the plows had cleared the highway.

As he clamped the cables onto the battery terminals, Grady leaned against his truck and watched. “Your girl is doing a fine job at the store.”

“Good.” A warm sensation spread through Otto at Sarah being referred to as “his girl.” It felt like she was. He wanted her to be. Just the thought of her leaving made him feel like his insides were being ripped out. Otto didn’t want to push too much, though. Her life had been filled with so many people who tried to coerce and bully Sarah. He didn’t want to be one of them.

“Never seen someone so excited about stocking shelves before.” Grady chuckled. “Every time we get a shipment in, she acts like it’s a present for her.”

Otto smiled. “Yeah, she enjoys that part.”

“Customers like her, too.”

The mention of customers reminded Otto of something Sarah had told him. “She mentioned meeting Norman Rounds.”

Grady’s laughter died as suspicion filled his expression. “Could’ve been. I wasn’t there at the time.”

“He come in your store a lot?” Otto asked.

“Wouldn’t say a lot.”

“How about Gordon Schwartz?”

“Don’t really keep tabs on all my customers.” Grady sounded surly now, making Otto pretty sure that he’d hit a nerve. Grady was likely covering for Gordon, the militia leader who was wanted for skipping bail after being arrested for weapons violations.

Without responding, Otto went to fire up his squad car engine. It gave him a moment to think about where he wanted to take his questioning. Grady was pretty close to shutting down completely, and Otto didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to get any information on Gordon. Norman, he wasn’t worried about as much, because he’d proven himself to have some kind of moral code. Gordon, on the other hand, had an impressive cache of explosives and weapons, he very likely bore a grudge against the MPD after his girlfriend had been killed a few months ago, and he was one conspiracy theory away from waging war against the world.

“Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Otto said once he’d returned. “I wouldn’t want to pit you against your customers.”

“Then don’t.” Although Grady’s voice was sharp, he didn’t look as tense as he had a minute earlier. “Just because your girl works for me doesn’t mean I’m your informant.”

“Of course not.” Taking a faux-casual pose, Otto kept his words slow and even. “I just worry about Sarah. She’s too trusting. Rounds is one thing, but Gordon’s skipped bail. He’s being hunted. Desperation makes people do things they normally wouldn’t, and I don’t want Sarah in the middle of that.”

“Understood.” Moving to the driver’s door, Grady reached in and fired up his truck. After cranking slowly a few times, the engine caught. As Grady straightened, he said, “No one’s going to get in a shoot-out—or even a brawl—in my store. They know that I’d kick their asses from here to Dresden if they tried anything. Your girl is safe there.”

“Good to know.” Otto didn’t believe it, though. Trouble could start anywhere, especially when Gordon Schwartz was around. “Think you’re good?”

“Yeah. That should do it.”

Otto detached the cables and put them back in his trunk. He noted that the snow shovel was missing, and he made a mental note to get it back from Hugh’s squad car. Whenever equipment went missing, it was always Hugh behind the “theft.” Even though Hugh had been on medical leave since September, he seemed to be a constant presence at the station. Otto wasn’t sure why Hugh needed his snow shovel, though.

Climbing back in his squad car, Otto raised a hand to Grady and left the lot. As he slowly made his way down the otherwise empty street, he kept an eye on the rearview mirror to make sure that Grady managed to get off okay. He’d told Grady to get a new battery a hundred times, but the guy never listened. He just said it had lasted him twenty years. Why would he change it now?

Otto had given up lecturing Grady. Now, he just gave him a jump, watched him drive off, and then swung by Grady’s house a little later to make sure that he’d made it home okay. Since Sarah had started working at the store, Otto had started feeling more positive about Grady. He was odd and cranky, but he seemed to be a good boss. Otto was happy to give daily battery jumps to someone who was nice to Sarah.

With a snort, he slowed, nearing the end of town. “You’ve got it bad,” he muttered to himself. “You’d do pretty much anything to keep her happy.” It was true. He was completely smitten.

As he braked, preparing to turn onto Case Street, Otto glanced in his rearview mirror again and watched with satisfaction as Grady’s truck taillights got smaller as he drove in the opposite direction. Just as Otto was about to look away, a huge, red fireball lit up the sky.

Otto’s head jerked back in shock. He craned his head around to see it straight on rather than in a reflection. It was real. Yellow and red lights bounced off the rocks, lighting up what should’ve been a dark section of the highway. The boom came a few seconds later, shaking the ground with the force of the explosion. Jolted into action, Otto whipped the squad car around, turning 180 degrees and taking off toward the fire. He couldn’t wrap his head around it, couldn’t believe there had actually been an explosion. Watching it in his rearview mirror had given it a surreal quality, made it seem like he was watching fiction on a small screen. He fumbled for his radio even as the dispatcher said his unit number. Grady had stopped in the middle of the road, and Otto steered around his truck.

Impatiently, Otto held the radio mike, waiting for the dispatcher to tell him about a report of the explosion. When it finally went quiet, he said, “Copy the explosion. I saw it. It looks to be just south of the pass. I’m en route.”

“Copy,” the dispatcher said. “I’ll notify Fire.”

“Fire copies,” a different voice responded. “We’re coming from Borr, so we’re about five miles west. What kind of explosion was this? Any idea of the cause? Do we need to have the hazmat team on standby?”

“Give me two minutes.” Otto pushed a little harder on the gas. The car shot forward, fishtailing slightly in the deepening snow. The rear-wheel-drive squad car was pursuit-rated, which meant it was fast, but it wasn’t great in winter weather. The chief was gradually replacing their cars with SUVs, but money for the department was always an issue. For now, Otto just had to work with what he had. “I’ll get you some answers as soon as I’m on scene—or close to the scene.” If it had been a chemical explosion, Otto knew to stay back until hazmat cleared it.

“Otto.” Theo’s voice was rough with sleep, but sharp. “I’m responding now. I’ll be on scene in fifteen minutes.”

“Same.” Hugh was the next one to speak over the radio.

Just as Otto raised the mic to tell Hugh that he was to keep his ass at home, the lieutenant spoke. “Murdoch. Keep your broken arm and bullet-hole-ridden carcass at home, do you hear me?”

“Breaking…kkkk…up. Can’t…kk…understand. Can you…please…kkk…repeat?”

“Knock it off with the fake broken transmission, Murdoch,” Lieutenant Blessard growled. “Stay. Home. Is that clear enough for you?”

There was a long pause, and Otto could picture the conflict on Hugh’s face. “Copy,” Hugh said finally, sounding defeated. Otto didn’t believe it for a second. Hugh would be there as usual, dodging the lieutenant.

Otto reached for the phone clipped to his belt. Sarah and Grace would’ve been long past the pass by the time the explosion occurred, but he still needed to hear Sarah’s voice, to have her assure him that she was okay. His brain was running through possible causes as he called her—a vehicle explosion? If so, by the size of it, it would have to be a semi. There weren’t any homes on the pass, so that limited the options.

When the call went straight to Sarah’s voicemail, Otto swore under his breath. Ending the call, he put the phone away. The snow was starting to come down hard, and the wind was taking it sideways as well. Visibility was poor, plus the curve of the road and the rocky bluffs hid the explosion site. The only sign was the fire glowing as it burned the surrounding trees. Even that was just a faint orange haze through the veil of snow.

As he passed the last building in town, Otto increased his speed. Even though logic told him that it had been a vehicle explosion, that a truck driver hauling some kind of explosive material had slipped off the side of the pass, his gut was worried. Something was happening, and it wasn’t good.

The dispatcher’s voice said his unit number over the radio. “I’m getting reports of…” She paused, and Otto’s interest picked up. Usually, Cleo was one of the most experienced and professional dispatchers they had. In emergency situations, she was so calm that she seemed almost robotic. Her hesitation was unusual, to say the least. “I’m getting multiple reports of a low-flying helicopter in the area.”

“Who’s reporting it?” Otto slowed as he reached a switchback. There were certain people in town who reported low-flying aircraft of all kinds on a regular basis. Multiple reports of the same aircraft were unusual, though.

“Branson Burr and Nan Villela.”

Nan? Branson was on the fringe of Gordon Schwartz’s militia group, and he tended toward paranoia, but Otto trusted Nan.

“I’ve contacted Flight for Life, DNR, County, State—it’s not with any of them.”

“Copy,” Otto said. He copied, but he was still baffled. Why was there a helicopter buzzing the town? “LT, are you hearing this?”

“Yeah, I copied.” The lieutenant sounded grim. As Blessard started to speak again, Otto rounded the last turn before the top of the pass. Blackened rock, dirt, and trees covered the road in a thirty-foot pile. It looked as though a new cliff had sprouted in the middle of the road.

Otto braked hard. His squad car slid over the slick pavement, the back end skidding to the side. The tires squealed in protest as the antilock brakes shuddered, pushing against the pressure of his right foot. The pile of rocks and debris grew larger, making it feel as if he was going to plow right into the side of a small mountain. The tail of the car swung farther to the side, rotating until the vehicle careened diagonally toward the mound of boulders. His foot pressed harder as he held tight to the wheel. It felt as if he was trying to stop the car with brute strength alone, and his leg vibrated with effort as he stomped on the brake. The car still headed toward the rocks, but it finally started to slow, sliding to a stop just a few feet from an enormous boulder sitting in the middle of the road.

Ignoring the way his hand shook with residual adrenaline, Otto grabbed for the radio mic. “The highway at the top of the pass is completely blocked.” His voice was rough as he tried to get his breathing calmed. Everything was okay. He hadn’t plowed his car into a huge rock. He’d survived. Gradually, his breaths came slower, and the sheer enormity of the damage the explosion had caused began to sink in.

Otto peered through the snow whipping around his squad car. The top and side of the rock wall bordering the highway appeared to have been sheared off and dumped on the pavement. The few trees that remained on the cliff were still burning, like torches glowing in the snowstorm. With the small mountain on the highway, a drop-off on the left, and the rock wall on the right, there was no way to get through. Otto blew out a long breath. This was going to be a huge mess to clear. In the meantime, he and Sarah would have to take another route to get back and forth between home and Monroe. The drive would take three times as long.

Glancing at the radio mic in his hand, Otto realized that no one had responded to his last transmission. “Dispatch, did you copy about the rockslide?”

Silence. When he reached to change the radio channel, he realized that the display was blank. His squad car radio was completely dead. With a grunt of annoyance, he took his portable radio off his belt and turned it on. Once he heard the faint beep indicating that it had power, Otto repeated the information about the rocks and debris blocking the road.

There was no response.

Grabbing his phone, that feeling from earlier—the one telling him that something was very, very wrong—hit him again, a hundred times stronger that time. He called the number for dispatch, but his phone gave a beep and displayed No Service.

“What?” He always got service in Monroe, even this close to the pass. There were a few locations on the way to his place where cell service was sketchy, but he hadn’t discovered a dead spot—until now. Otto wondered if the rockslide had blocked the signal. He turned in his seat, moving his phone around, trying to improve the reception. The no service message didn’t change.

With a huff of irritation, he lowered his phone, but a light to the east caught his eye—a light that seemed to be moving. He squinted through the passenger-side window, trying to make it out. At first, he thought it was headlights, but it was too high in the air. Was this the mystery helicopter Nan and Branson had been talking about?

He peered through the snowstorm, trying to see more than that faint, moving light. As he watched, there was a bright flash. Otto knew what it was even before the crash of sound caught up to the light, so loud that it shook the ground and his car with it. Otto felt as if time was looping around on him, that he was watching that first explosion over again, but then logic returned, and Otto knew that it was on the other side of town. He knew in his gut that the east mountain pass—the only other way out of Monroe besides the blocked west pass Otto had just left—was blown.

If a helicopter was bombing the passes on either side of Monroe, that meant that someone—a “friend” of Sarah’s brother, Aaron Blanchett, came immediately to mind—was knocking out highway access to the town. Had the FBI arrived to pick up Aaron and the other two men yet? Were they trapped in town, or had they gotten clear before the bombs were dropped? It seemed like a huge coincidence that all this was happening around the same time the men were supposed to have been picked up by the FBI. Otto sent a quick glance at the still-blank radio display. What if they were knocking out communications as well? The idea seemed crazy—although not as crazy as the thought that two random, unrelated explosions happened at opposite sides of town within minutes of each other.

Moving the car so his headlights pointed straight at the rockslide, he took some—admittedly blurry—pictures. He tried texting one of them to Blessard, Theo, and Hugh, but it wouldn’t send. Putting his phone away, he did a three-point turn and drove back toward Monroe.

The wind hit the side of his car, and Otto fought to stay in his lane. Snow flew across his windshield, making it seem like his squad car was spinning around in a circle. As he retraced his route, he noted that his tire tracks had already been erased by the vicious wind. Normally, after going around the first curve, he could see the entire town of Monroe stretched out in front of him. Tonight, the snow was obscuring the view. Nothing was visible except for a few of the brighter lights, and a slight lightening of the area compared to when he looked at the darkness to the west.

The snow was getting thicker. He slowed even more as he curved around the side of the mountain, despite his intense need to slam his foot down on the accelerator. He had to find the lieutenant to see what the status of the FBI pickup was. Once again, he was grateful that Sarah and Grace were in Dresden. Whatever was happening, Monroe was not a safe place to be tonight.

As Otto followed the next hairpin turn, his back wheels spun for a second before finding traction. He needed to stop by the station, figure out what was going on with their communications, check in with the lieutenant, and get his four-wheel-drive vehicle. He briefly wondered how Sarah was and whether she and Grace would try to make it back before the danger had passed, but he shoved the question out of his head. That thought led to panic, and he didn’t have time for that.

His mouth set grimly, he concentrated on making his way down the hill and around the last curve. After that, it was a direct shot into town. As he came out of the final turn, Otto straightened the wheel—but the car didn’t straighten. It slid sideways, barreling toward the side of the road and a row of evergreens. Otto fought the car, hauling the wheel to the left as hard as he could, but it skidded toward the trees. He braced for the hit as they neared the edge of the road. The right two wheels slipped off the shoulder and into the drift collected at the edge of the road. The car tilted as the right side sank lower, the spinning wheels sending up a spray of white powder as he tried unsuccessfully to drive out of the snowy ditch. He shifted to reverse and then to drive and back to reverse again, trying to rock the car out of the ditch, but he had no luck. The car was stuck. With a bitten-off curse, Otto shoved back the voice in his head warning him that time was ticking until the next bomb was dropped. Literally spinning his wheels wouldn’t help anyone. Taking a deep, calming breath, Otto got out of his car.

The wind hit him like a punch, the snow painfully hard and sharp. The BB-like pellets stung his face and neck, and he hoped desperately that Sarah was safe inside a Dresden hotel, and not having to fight through this weather. Circling the car, he quieted the panic building inside him and examined the situation, kicking some of the drifted snow clear of the wheels.

It was too deep, though, and the car had become entrenched. If he’d had his shovel, Otto would’ve had a chance of digging it out, but that wasn’t an option. “Damn it, Hugh,” he muttered, frustration and the suffocating feeling of urgency pressing on him.

Reaching into his car, he turned off the engine. He’d slid far enough to the side that the placement shouldn’t be an issue for anyone else traveling on the road, he thought automatically before catching himself. There wouldn’t be anyone else on the road tonight—the explosions had prevented that. What was happening to their town?

Pushed by a building sense of urgency, Otto started jogging toward the station.