Storm Warning

by Allison Brennan

  A large, burly black cop came out and waved to Nate. Nate smiled and waved back. “Riley there was a Marine for six years. We’re in good hands,” Nate said.

  “Why do I think you hand-picked him?”

  “I would have, but he was the only one not out dealing with an emergency.”

  Riley jumped into a patrol truck, and a minute later Lucy heard his deep baritone over the radio. “Ready to roll, Agent Dunning?”

  “Yes, sir,” Nate said.

  Riley laughed. “Call me Riley, all my friends do.”

  “I’m Nate, my partner is Lucy.”

  “I expect no real trouble, but there’re a few creeks that will roll on over the road, should be passable, but we’ll need to keep our heads on. I’ll update you regularly.”

  “Appreciate it, Riley.”

  Nate started out, letting Riley take lead. He radioed into FBI headquarters.

  “Dunning and Kincaid leaving Brady at fourteen hundred hours. Brady PD escort through to Fredericksburg . . .”—he checked the GPS navigation—“ . . . one hour, forty minutes. Over.”

  “Roger that, Agent Dunning. Monitoring GPS for the duration, check in every fifteen.”

  “Thanks, Zach,” Nate said, and signed off.

  “Zach’s monitoring the radio?”

  “Yeah—all hands today. There are multiple teams out assisting SAPD and the sheriff’s department. We’re all wearing a different hat, I suppose. Kenzie may be called up if the storm gets worse.” Kenzie was in the National Guard and trained monthly with her unit. She’d been deployed to Houston immediately after Hurricane Harvey for two weeks to assist in rescues and prevent looting.

  “Did the chief get confirmation on John Carr’s ID?” Lucy asked.

  “They sent in his prints, system’s overloaded right now. He’ll let us know if there’s anything we need to know. You read Trembly’s file?”

  “I read the FBI file this morning and the arrest file. He came in without putting up much of a fight. First tried to say they had the wrong guy, but when they got his ID, he just rolled over. Hiding out here for a month, it seems.”

  “Probably could have hid out here for longer if not for the storm.”

  “The police didn’t search his place—there could be evidence.”

  “Well, shit,” Nate muttered. “You sure they didn’t search?”

  “If they did, they didn’t indicate in the report.” She flipped through the file again. “Says they put a police lock on the door, but if the trailer floods, that’s not going to help us.”

  “We’ll talk to the lead agent and let him deal with it—this isn’t even our case. They’d need a warrant anyway, and Crutcher probably wants to send an FBI team in to do the search.”

  “How did we get called for the transport? Neither of us is even on the task force.”

  “Office protocol demands that a SWAT-trained agent is attached to any transport, and apparently I was the only one available. White Collar doesn’t have any SWAT agents. And you were on call this weekend.”

  “Lucky me.”

  “Lucky me. I could have gotten stuck with Lopez.”

  “Jason isn’t that bad.”

  “Don’t trust him, don’t like him.”

  Jason Lopez had started out on the wrong foot with Lucy as well, but she’d made a point of getting to know him better, and he wasn’t a bad agent. He tended to be a people pleaser, but he was diligent and personable. It did sometimes disturb Lucy that he was so close to their boss—and Nate’s point about trust was well taken. It was known in the squad that anything Jason learned their boss Rachel Vaughn would soon know.

  Riley called in on the radio. “We’re making good time to Mason,” he said. “Twenty more minutes or so. Talked ahead to a buddy of mine who has a cattle ranch down there—he says the Llano River, which is eight, nine miles south of town, is right up to the road—it hasn’t gone over yet, but if it rises another foot we’re going to have a serious problem. We should be past it by then, but stay sharp. I’ll give you fair warning before we reach the bridge. There’s a couple places where the road is partly flooded once we get past the Llano, but nothing impassable at this point.”

  “Thanks for the update,” Lucy told Riley.

  Nate firmly gripped the wheel to keep the van on the road as the wind hit them hard. Lucy was grateful Nate was doing the driving—she didn’t particularly like driving, even in fair weather.

  She looked at the two men in the back. They were jostled with the movement of the vehicle but otherwise looked resigned to their situation, their heads hanging low. Good—they shouldn’t give them too much trouble.

  Nate asked, “How’s everything going with Jess? He adjusting okay after all the bullshit with his grandfather?”

  Jesse was Sean’s thirteen-year-old son. Until last year, Sean didn’t even know he had a child. Jesse’s grandfather, wealthy businessman Ronald McAllister, had threatened to fight for custody after his mother died two months ago, but Sean and Jesse went to California to work out an arrangement that McAllister reluctantly agreed to. Lucy didn’t know all the details—and Sean was still upset about everything that happened—but Sean had full custody of Jesse and McAllister wasn’t contesting his paternity.

  “I think he’s okay,” Lucy said. “Started school last Monday. Already found a soccer team that took him on. Jesse seems to be adapting well—stood up to his grandfather about wanting to live with us. I’m glad that’s over. None of us wanted a court fight over custody.”

  “Sean is . . . well, he’s not really himself these days.”

  “You noticed?” Sean tried to keep a positive attitude, but after Jesse’s mother was killed, he’d had a hard time wrestling with guilt and anger.

  “It’s been nearly two months. I’m sure that Jesse is having a hard time—the kid lost his mom—but none of what happened was Sean’s fault. It seems like he’s putting all the blame on his shoulders.”

  “He is,” Lucy said. “I talk to him, and sometimes he listens . . . I think he needs to know that Jesse is really going to be okay before he can let it all go.”

  “Is something wrong with Jess?”

  “I don’t know that anything is,” she said cautiously, “but he hasn’t really talked about his mother at all. A little here and there. I know grief is different for everyone, but he’s a thirteen-year-old kid. I guess—I expected something else.”

  “Maybe it hasn’t soaked in yet.”

  “It has. I think—Well, damn. It’s just a mess.”

  “You don’t have to talk about it,” Nate said. “Seriously, I’m not pushing, I just feel for Sean and the kid.”

  “I know you do, and that’s not it. After Madison died, Jesse learned that she was privy to many of Carson Spade’s illegal activities.”

  “That’s fucked,” Nate said. “Poor kid.”

  “Sean wanted to protect Jesse, but he knew it would be worse if Jesse found out through someone else. So when Jesse asked, Sean gave him a sanitized version. But Jesse isn’t an idiot. He read between the lines. Battling love and anger is hard for anyone, especially a teenager. And then the battle with Madison’s father—that took its toll on Sean. So they are both dealing with some heavy emotional baggage, I think. And being Rogans—they don’t share very well.”

  “But Sean has custody.”

  “Yes. Honestly, I think if Jesse wasn’t one hundred percent behind Sean, there would have been a battle. Sean was willing to fight all the way, but McAllister has money and friends in high places.”

  “So does Sean, but I’m glad it didn’t come to that.”

  Nate was right about that—Sean had dug up a lot of dirt on McAllister, and Lucy didn’t know if he’d had to use it.

  “I’m just glad they’re home,” she said.

  Ahead of them, Riley was slowing down and Nate followed suit. The road wasn’t flooded, but there was a lot of water on the roadway. The gusts of wind continued to jostle the heavy van, and Lucy looked at the camera. Thei
r prisoners had barely moved. Carr, in the rear, was talking. Lucy could somewhat read lips, but the camera was partly distorted so that they could view the entire compartment and it was almost impossible to tell what he was saying to Trembly.

  The radio beeped. “Nate, it’s Riley.”

  “Trouble ahead? You’re slowing down.”

  “We’re coming into Mason. Serious accident in the center of town, so we’re making a little detour. Nothing to worry about, I got word from the sheriff’s deputy that the route I want to use to get back to 87 is clear. Just wanted to give you a heads-up. We’ll be merging back right past town.”

  “Roger that. Thanks, buddy.”

  Chapter Two

  Route 87

  The wind drove the rain from the east, gusts rocking the van. Nate’s hands gripped the steering wheel tightly.

  The detour took them a couple of miles out of their way, but they were back on 87 and only lost ten or so minutes. Lucy checked in with headquarters as soon as they passed Mason, and the FBI backup was already en route to Comfort.

  “We’re halfway to Fredericksburg,” Nate said, and immediately slowed. “Holy shit!”

  In front of them, Riley had slowed almost to a stop. The road had flooded, but he was rolling through it. It didn’t quite reach the underbelly of his truck, which told Lucy it was less than a foot deep.

  Lucy got on the radio. “Is this the Llano?” she asked.

  Riley replied, “Comanche Creek. We’re lucky we got through it—two hours ago it was practically dry.”

  “Does that mean Llano is going to be impassable?” Nate asked.

  “Not necessarily,” Riley said. “Llano is a deeper, wider channel. We should make it through—though I might be finding a different way back home if the Comanche continues to rise. We have to watch the creek that branches off of Llano, there’s a bridge about a mile south of the river.”

  “We appreciate your help out here.”

  “I’m calling in road conditions as I see them, which helps everyone. Over.”

  They passed through the last of the water and picked up speed on the highway. Lucy glanced at the camera in the back. The men weren’t talking, but Carr was restless. His hands didn’t stop moving.

  She tilted her head and leaned closer to the camera.

  Almost time.

  She looked at Trembly. His hands were also moving, though his signing wasn’t as clear as Carr’s because of the angle of the camera. She thought he signed, Tomorrow night, but she wasn’t certain. The shackles made his movements short and jerky.

  She said, “I think they’re talking to each other in sign language.”

  Nate glanced at the camera in the dash. “How can you tell?”

  “I learned sign language in high school—it’s hard to tell what he’s saying because it’s a bastardized version of ASL. The only thing I clearly made out was Carr signing, Almost time. Trembly’s gang used a variation of ASL to communicate during the robberies.”

  “Who is this Carr? Does he know Trembly?”

  “Carr might not be his real name.” The two men stopped signing but weren’t slumped over as they’d been at the beginning of the drive.

  Nate immediately got on the radio to Riley. “Hey, buddy, keep your eyes open. Seems that our prisoners might know each other, and I’m getting a bad feeling about this.”

  “Roger that.”

  To Lucy, Nate said, “Call it in. Have headquarters run facial recognition and rush Carr’s prints—we need to know what we’re dealing with.”

  Lucy got on the radio. “This is Special Agent Lucy Kincaid. Agent Dunning and I are on 87 south of Mason, approximately ten miles north of Cherry Spring.”

  Zach Charles, the VCMO analyst, came on the radio. “Roger that, Lucy.”

  “We have a potential issue. The prisoners seem to know each other and are using sign language to communicate, just like Trembly’s gang did during the robberies. It reasons that Carr may be one of Trembly’s gang.” She hesitated, then said, “Either he’s a complete unknown, or he’s using a false identity.”

  “What are they saying?” Zach asked.

  “They’re aware of the time, it seems they’re waiting for something. Trembly said something about tomorrow night as well. Nate’s concerned that they may be planning a break.”

  “You still have backup, right?”

  “Yes—a police escort. We’re—Wow, that river is huge.”

  “What?”

  “We’re crossing the Llano River.”

  The water was right up to the bridge but hadn’t spilled over. It was violent and the wind caused gusts of spray to hit them, making visibility difficult as they crossed.

  “Can you contact Fredericksburg? They’re going to escort us to Comfort, but we need backup now—they can meet up with us. Nate and I would feel a whole lot better if we had another patrol.”

  “Hold on,” Zach said. “I’ll contact them.”

  Lucy hadn’t taken her eyes off the prisoners in the back. She leaned forward trying to make out what Trembly was signing. “I think Trembly is asking how long and Carr is just saying not too long, road slow or something . . . damn, they have their own style, and it’s difficult to read.”

  “We know more than we did five minutes ago.”

  The signing between the prisoners stopped. Nate was both looking in his mirrors and monitoring the road ahead. They hadn’t passed a car or emergency vehicle in more than ten minutes.

  Zach returned. “Two patrols from Fredericksburg PD are being deployed to your location—they say the road is a mess all the way down from your location to town. Watch for rising water, but you shouldn’t have more than eighteen inches in any one spot. Power’s out all over, don’t leave the road—a lot of the side roads are impassable.”

  “We might not have a choice,” Lucy said. She looked at the men in the back. Were they anticipating something or was that her fear? “Is Mike Crutcher in the office?”

  “I’ll track him down.”

  “Have him call me, on my cell, if he can get through. We need to keep the radio open.”

  Riley had slowed down, and Nate did the same. The winds continued to come in waves from hard to van-shaking, and it was all Nate could do to maintain control. “What are you thinking?” Nate asked.

  “We need more information about the Tremblys. According to the file, I don’t know if Crutcher talked to anyone in his family. He has a brother, couple of sisters. None of them have a record. What if the rest of the gang is family? According to the witness statements, they indicated that at least one of the gang was a woman. Trembly and Hansen have been friends since high school. Crutcher’s people have been trying to find the other Hansen, his younger brother, who has a record, but he’s also in the wind. They didn’t kill anyone until the last robbery, but they’re violent and aren’t afraid to use fear and intimidation.”

  The radio buzzed and Lucy answered. “Agent Kincaid.”

  “Agent Kincaid, this is Officer Cliff Rabke with the Fredericksburg Police Department. I hear you might be having a spot of trouble. Whereabouts are you now?”

  Nate responded, “We just crossed the Llano River.”

  “We’re already out, we’ll meet up with you probably about Road 648. Your office said you’re in a tan van with government plates.”

  “Yes, sir. We’re being escorted by Officer Dominick Riley with Brady PD.”

  “I know Riley. You’re in good hands.”

  “Sir, we don’t know what to expect with the Trembly gang, but they already killed one civilian.”

  “Stay alert. We should cross paths in about twenty, twenty-five minutes. We have two patrols en route to escort y’all back to town, and we have a nice, warm jail cell for your prisoners and a pot of hot coffee for you, until you can figure out what’s what.”

  “Thank you, Officer,” Lucy said.

  “Over and out,” Rabke said.

  Nate nodded to the dash camera. “Anything else?”

  �
�No, and they can’t know exactly where we are—there’s no windows back there. They have to be tracking the time, and they act like they’re anticipating something.”

  Nate got back on the radio to Riley. “Be alert.” To Lucy he said, “It wouldn’t have been too difficult to figure out which way we were going once we left Brady. Or they could have been watching the jail—but no one has followed us.”

  “No one’s passed us, either.”

  “They could be on radios or cell phones. You said there were several people involved in the heists, right?”

  “Five according to the witnesses,” Lucy said.

  She alternated looking at the camera and looking at the roadway. The rain was still coming down at a sharp angle, the wind pushing water over the road. The asphalt was slick; drainage was minimal. They were driving through two, three inches of water across the entire highway. But there was no place for someone to hide. Few roads or driveways merged into this section of 87 and bushes and trees were set far off the road, most of the land flat and grassy. Then she saw the creek—which looked like a roaring river—that they were about to pass. The force of the water coupled with the strong winds pushed waves over the road.

  Riley slowed to a crawl; Nate followed suit. They crossed over the bridge and Lucy breathed a sigh of relief.

  Nate was monitoring the GPS, which was also attached to the dash. “We have a couple of roads coming up, looks like they don’t go anywhere, and they might not even be paved, but it’s a good place for—Shit!”

  Immediately, he slowed down. In front of them Riley was hydroplaning, his car wildly skidding on the road as he tried to control it.

  “It’s a fucking spike strip!” Nate exclaimed. He tried to brake before he hit it, but he couldn’t avoid it. The strip had been camouflaged just beneath the surface of the water covering the road, made more difficult to spot because of poor visibility. Fortunately, Nate hit it going much slower than Riley and was able to control the van into a stop.

  Lucy had her gun out.

  Riley spun around but kept his truck upright.

  Nate hit the radio. “Nate Dunning, FBI, officer needs immediate assistance at this location! We’ve been ambushed!”