Page 136 of South of Nowhere

Tolifson asked, “That soon after getting shot? Maybe they want to make sure they have hospital beds if…” A nod toward the levee.

Shaw might have told him that a full jacketed round—not hollow point—piercing only muscle tissue was not a very big deal, if it missed the important highways of blood vessels.

He glanced around, and realized his mother was not present. “Did Mary Dove step away?”

“Last I heard she finally got a call back from Mrs. Petaluma. She’d talked her into packing a bag and leaving. I was on a call to Sacramento and when I hung up I noticed she was gone.”

Shaw glanced toward Mrs. Petaluma’s house down in the valley. “Look.”

“No!” Dorion whispered.

Their mother’s gray pickup truck was speeding through downtown toward Mrs. Petaluma’s home.

Shaw grabbed his phone and hit speed dial.

He saw Mary Dove’s head turn sideways momentarily but she ignored the call as she skidded to a stop, climbed out and strode to the woman’s doorway. Even in a hurry, she maintained her upright posture and elegance.

Brother and sister regarded each other, both understanding that there was nothing to be done. Mary Dove was aware of the risk. She too had learned the art of survival from her husband and analyzed dangers in the same way Ashton had. She had probably calculated the odds were low that the levee would collapse in the twenty minutes it would take her to collect the woman and get her to safety.

The flaw, however, was that calculations were only as good as the objective facts you fed into the computer. And no one, not even an experienced engineer like Dorion, had those facts and figures at hand.

The levee’s fate was closer to the spells and magic of Fiona Lavelle’s hero.

Dorion offered, “Well, she’s not going to stop and have tea. They’ll get away as fast as they can.”

“Come on,” Shaw whispered to her. “Come on.”

Fiona Lavelle distracted Shaw from those thoughts with a scoff. “Gladhe’snot there.”

Shaw glanced her way to see the young woman looking at Olsen and the corporals, standing beside one of the SUVs across the valley.

“Who’s that?” Shaw asked.

“This gross dude. When I made it off the levee yesterday morning and stopped? The driver in one of those SUVs didn’t even ask if I was okay. He looked me over and was sort of licking his lips. Reminded me of John.”

Shaw nodded sympathetically. But only for an instant. The understanding hit Shaw like a blow. He cut his gaze to Lavelle. “That SUV was therewhilethe levee was coming down?”

“Yeah. Another one too, a black one just like it. They were parked on the shoulder. That’s why I wasn’t worried about calling nine-one-one. I knew they would report it, so I could escape down the trail.”

Colter asked Tolifson and Starr abruptly, “The army engineers? Did you callthem?”

The two regarded each other. “No,” Tolifson said. “Marissa Fell? In the office? She said they’d called and said they were on their way.”

Starr understood. “Damn. They’re fake! We let a fox into the henhouse.”

Tolifson blinked. “What’s all this?”

Starr said, “They were herebeforethe bomb. Which means they’re the ones who set it. Who the heck are they?”

Colter asked, “Describe the guy you just mentioned.”

“I just saw his head and shoulders. Big, round face, red hair and beard.”

Colter leaned into the computer, typing fast, to load the screen grabs of Bear. He swung the screen toward her.

She squinted. “Yeah, that’s him.”

“Stolen SUVs and fake government plates. Which they could have made in ten minutes.”

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