Page 51 of Deputies Under Fire
Maybe some kind of incendiary IED? If so, no one had stepped on it. And no one had been near it since they’d arrived on scene. So it could have been on some kind of timer.
And if there was one, there could be more.
Eden quickly got confirmation of that theory when two more fires ignited. One of the other side of the road and one in the ditch right next to the responder vehicles. Smoke was coming at them from multiple sides now, and she could even feel the heat from the flames licking through the air.
“I called the fire department,” Judson shouted. “They’re on the way. I told them to approach with caution.”
Good. Eden hadn’t seen any IEDs on the road itself, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any.
A fourth fire burst to life in the ditch practically right next to Rory and her. That gave her another jolt of adrenaline and sent her already accelerated heartbeat racing even more. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see.
But she could hear.
And she heard something she definitely didn’t want to hear.
Gunshots.
Rory took hold of her arm and pulled her down on the road, trying to keep her out of the line of fire. She prayed the others were doing the same thing.
On her belly now, Eden drew her gun and lifted her head just enough so she could continue to look around. Beside her, Rory was doing the same, and like her, he was obviously trying to pick through the smoke to see their attacker so they could return fire and stop this.
But nothing.
More shots came. All at once. Dozens of them.
And they seemed to be coming from multiple directions. Sweet heaven. How many shooters were there? Had the killer sent a small army after them? If so, she wasn’t sure how they were going to escape. Every one of them could be killed right here.
The image of Tyler flashed through her mind, and she added more prayers. That her precious little boy was safe, that this wasn’t some two-pronged attack, where gunmen were at the ranch to go after him.
Eden dug out her phone from her pocket, and since she wasn’t even sure she’d be able to hear Grace, she sent her a text.Under attack here at the latest murder scene. Is everything okay there?
Everything’s fine here, Grace quickly texted back.Update me about the attack as soon as you can.
Eden would do just that. If they made it out of this alive.
“Do you see the shooters?” Garrison called out. It was hard to hear him with the barrage of shots slamming through the air and all around them.
Garrison was somewhere to her left, which meant he was closer to the ditch. Maybe another of those fire devices wouldn’t be going off there.
A bullet smacked into the road just a couple of inches from her, sending up some small pieces of asphalt. The projectiles flew through the air, one of them slicing across the sleeve of her shirt.
It’d come close.
Too close.
But she couldn’t say the same for most of the other shots. They seemed to be landing everywhere. So either the shooters had lousy aim, or…
Eden didn’t get to finish that train of thought because Rory finished it for her.
“I don’t think it’s gunmen,” Rory said, shouting to be heard about the deafening racket. “I think bullets have been planted in the fires.”
Yes, Eden realized that was exactly what was happening. The term was “cooking off” when ammunition was heated up enough in a fire to cause them to discharge. It didn’t make the situation less deadly, but it could mean there wasn’t actually a shooter nearby.
Could.
It was possible there was indeed a sniper, waiting to finish the job if the heated bullets didn’t kill them.
“Everyone stay down,” Rory shouted, and Eden saw him glancing in the direction of the cruiser.
