by Vicki Hinze
“Well, well.” Conlee could have told Max. But it was another of his “see how sharp your operatives really are” tests.
Max got on the cell phone with Stan Mullin for an update. After a quick briefing and information exchange, Stan said, “Blake says they should be through spraying Area Three by dusk. Sheriff Coulter says most of the roads have been cleared of debris enough that the trucks can get down them.”
“You verified the chemicals being used aren’t tainted with Z-4027?” Max still had a bad feeling about them. It was the only rational explanation.
“Yes. They ran the tests twice, and I ran them a third time so I could certify them.”
“Stan, something is wrong here. It’s got to be in the chemicals.”
“I know there’s something wrong, Max. I’ve got knots in my gut, telling me something is wrong. But those chemicals tested fine all three times and that’s a fact.”
Max was unconvinced. He stared at one of Gabby’s shoes on the floor next to his. He liked the look of their things being together. Them being together. Hell, he might as well face it. He was crazy about the woman. Totally nuts. “Who ran the tests?” The answer had to be in the chemicals. There was nowhere else for it to be.
“Erickson and Swift. Mayor Faulkner and Carl Blake acted as impartial observers.”
All the usual suspects. A stray thought took hold. “Did you test the same chemicals they did? In the same truck?”
“They tested two trucks. I tested the canister, before it went into the truck.”
Normally that was a good practice. Canisters could be contaminated and so could trucks. Stan had tried to cover all bases. Unfortunately, because of who the testers were and who the observers were, this time that had been a severe mistake.
But knowing a mistake existed and identifying it were two different things. Max glanced at the bedside clock. Seven-thirty. There was a lot of ground to cover and they didn’t have much time. “Keep me posted.”
“Will do.”
Max tucked the cell phone into his pocket and joined Gabby in the kitchen. A map of Carnel Cove was tacked to the wall across from the table. At the counter, with the phone crooked at her shoulder, she wrote furiously. “Thanks, Candace. Thank Darlene, too.”
Gabby hung up the phone and held up the paper. “Darlene came through for us. We’ve got the patients’ addresses.”
He smiled. “Remind me never to give you any kind of flack that’ll have the ladies coming after me.”
“I’ll do that.” She grinned and planted a quick kiss to his chin. “Grab some coffee and let’s see what we’ve got.”
“To peg a pattern, we need to color-code hospital admittance times.” Max poured himself a cup of coffee and managed a total of one quick sip before Gabby shoved a box of pushpins at him.
“Start with red. I’ll tell you when to switch colors.” Gabby began reading off the patients’ addresses.
By the third one, a cluster was forming that had Max’s hand and her voice shaking. And it wasn’t in Area One, where the lab incident most likely caused infections.
“Switch to blue,” Gabby said. “Sixteenth and Main.”
Max put in the pins, the dread he had felt instinctively dragging down on his stomach, and from her expression, on Gabby’s, too.
“Switch to white, Max. These are the last to be admitted.” She read off three additional addresses. It wasn’t many, but it was enough. “Oh, God.”
He backed away, looked at the two clusters of red and blue, and the small one of white.
“Red is Area One, blue is Two, and white is Three, right?”
She nodded, horror flooding her eyes. “This is the attack, Max.” Proof stared her in the eyes. She didn’t need memory to verify it. “They’re using the spray to infect people.” She turned on him. “Didn’t you have Stan check this? Didn’t Richardson double-check it at the Home Base lab?”
“Yes, I did. Stan just told me that Swift and Erickson ran the tests, Mayor Faulkner and Carl Blake observed. Then Stan ran a third test on the canister. All tested clean.”
“What about Dr. Richardson?”
“Commander Conlee said he ran a double-check at the Home Base lab. It was clear there, too.” This wasn’t the time for it, but her comment steamed him. “And don’t talk to me like I’m incompetent, Gabby. I know my job.”
“I’m sorry, but someone’s manipulating something, and we’d better find out who and how—now. The freaking truck just came down our street. We can’t stop spit if we’re dead.”
“Call Keith at Candace’s and warn them. Elizabeth, too. Keep them on the line until I get Stan.” Max had Stan on speed dial and pushed the button. When he answered, Max said, “Halt all spraying, Stan. Immediately if not sooner.”
“Why?” Even with the background noise, he sounded stunned. “You know why we—”
“Just do it,” Max interrupted. “I’ll explain when I get there.”
“How the hell am I supposed to contact the fleet? Storm damage has communications down between headquarters and the trucks.”
“Don’t they have cell phones?”
“No. Blake didn’t equip them with phones, and we didn’t have them on hand to spare. He replaced CB radios with hi-tech systems that have been down since the storm. Satellite time is at a premium, he says. It wasn’t cost-effective.” The grumble in his voice made his feelings clear about that decision. “The best we can do is to reach them individually. It’ll take time.”
“We don’t have time.” Max dragged a hand through his hair. “Are you in Area Three?”
“Yeah. At the park on the cove.”
“Get Sheriff Coulter and every available man out to those trucks and shut them down. Do it now, Stan.”
“You got it.”
Max turned to Gabby, who was on her cell phone, and lifted a finger.
“Hold on, Candace,” Gabby said. “I don’t know why! Don’t you think if I knew why I’d tell you? Just hold on.”
Max interrupted. “Tell her and Keith to get to the park at the Cove and not to drag their heels getting there.”
“Why?” Gabby asked automatically.
Max frowned. “We’ve got to do a mass evacuation—fast—or a lot more people are going to die.”
Andrew Abernathy left the Silver Spoon Café and drove to his fishing cabin. Anguish was tearing him apart and his conscience was carrying so much guilt that any moment he expected it to burst, cause a stroke, and kill his vindictive ass.
The cabin was empty, dark, lonely. But it was the only place memories of Liz and Douglas didn’t nag him for making a deal with the devil and selling his soul in the name of revenge, which is why when he’d left the Spoon, he’d driven the twenty miles to the lake cabin rather than just go home.
Carnel Cove wasn’t a safe place to be anymore. Especially not right now. And that Andrew knew why and had become a part of it was his greatest sin of all.
Being dead would be better than living with this, Andrew. You know it.
Liz. Even here. Nagging him from the grave because he had failed to remain the man he had become in their life together. The man with faith in the system, with purpose and dignity, ethics and integrity. He’d sold it all. And not once in his mind since had his beloved wife looked at him with love in her eyes. Only regret. And shame.
He’d rather be dead.
Determined, he walked across the hardwood floor to the kitchen wall phone and dialed the director. When he answered, Andrew said, “Jackson has everyone meeting at Carnel Cove Park. Stan Mullin called the police station and ordered Jackson to stop the spraying. Everything. All of it. Total shutdown.”
“And you know this because …”
“I was having breakfast with the sheriff when he got the call. He looked worried as hell. Mullin told him there are forty-eight cases of EEE at the hospital. They’re all dying. All of them. What the hell are you doing killing our own?”
“Would you think, Andrew? I’m tired of your whining. In tri
al studies some of the mice die. It’s a fact. Because they’re sacrificed, many others live.”
“You’re not God. You don’t get to choose who lives or dies. What, did you draw it out on a map? Figure out who was dispensable and who wasn’t by where they lived?”
“By their financial status, actually,” the director said coolly. “We don’t want to upset the economic stability of Carnel Cove, Andrew.”
“You cold son of a bitch. These mice are men, women, and kids. Families. They have lives and people who love them. They love other people. Don’t you care how much hell you put anyone through?”
“I care.” His tone was even, deceptively calm, and assured. “As much as you do.”
That remark knocked the wind out of Andrew. He collapsed onto a kitchen chair, deflated and devastated because it was true. For all that had been good, he’d poisoned. And now he was left with this ugly truth. “Oh, God.”
“Just for today.”
Andrew clenched his jaw. For today, he supposed, the director did feel like God. He chose who lived or died. He controlled people’s lives and fates. And he did it for money. Bristling, Andrew rebelled. “No. No, more. This is going to stop. I’m going to stop it.”
“Don’t even try,” the director said. “You know exactly what will happen to you, and nothing at all will change. We’ll move forward as if you never existed.”
“Not this time.”
“Andrew, do not do something stupid. You can’t fight us and win. You know it. I’ve been easy on you because of Liz and Douglas, but stop screwing with me. I’m tired of it.”
Andrew stared out the window. The director didn’t issue idle threats. But neither did Andrew. It began to rain. Soft and gentle, like cleansing tears. “For the first time in a long time, I know exactly what to do.”
“You can’t stop this, Andrew. There’s nothing you can do and if you think there is, then you’re a delusional fool.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I guess we’ll see about that, won’t we?”
“Big mistake.” The director hung up the phone.
Cardel Boudreaux stood in the woods behind Gabby Kincaid’s house. His rifle was mounted on a tripod, and he stood bent, looking through the scope. She and Maxwell Grayson had left the house and were getting into her red Jeep. He was going to be doing the driving. Cardel had had to speculate on that—who would drive—and set up in the woods accordingly.
He had gotten lucky, and now Gabby Kincaid was firmly fixed in Cardel’s crosshairs. “Okay, baby. I’ve got you now.” He rubbed the trigger with the back of his fingertip, a quirk he’d developed coming out of training. “Time is up.”
His cell phone vibrated against his hip.
“Son of a bitch.” Cardel blew the shot. She was inside the Jeep and that husband of hers was already pulling out of the circular driveway. Frustrated to the tips of his ears, Cardel answered the phone. “What?”
“Did you take care of that matter?”
The director. Calling about Gabby Kincaid. “If you’d waited ten seconds to call, I could have said yes. As it is, you cost me my shot.”
“How unfortunate.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” Cardel put the rifle in its case. Collapsed the legs of the tripod. He was getting tired of sleeping in the woods to avoid leaving a trail and he was ready to be done and get the hell out of this sweltering hellhole.
“Get over it, Boudreaux. I’m paying your organization a lot of money for your services and they don’t include an attitude.”
“What do you want?” Cardel didn’t take this shit. Not off anybody.
“Forget about the woman. Meet me at Abernathy’s fishing camp right away. We’ve got a fire to stomp out.”
Another hit. Another seven-figure fee. Cardel could eat a little dirt and take a little lip for another seven-figure fee. “Yes, sir. I’m on my way.”
Chapter Thirty-one
The park at the cove was hopping.
Gabby got out of the Jeep and walked with Max past a trash drum, overflowing with debris someone had gathered since the storm, and into the knot of about sixteen people standing near their cars and trucks. Two motorcycles were in the group. One she recognized as Paige’s, and the other was a decked-out Hog covered with Hell’s Angels stickers. Stan Mullin nodded toward Max. “More help is on the way.”
“Good.” Max stepped into the center of the group.
Gabby stopped short, next to Candace and Elizabeth, saw a man she recognized as Candace’s ex standing at her side. “Keith? What are you doing here?”
Candace touched Gabby’s arm and whispered, “Saving our asses, darling.” She nodded toward Max. “Pay attention and be quiet. You’re still not yourself.”
Smelling the briny water, Gabby focused on Max.
“Where’s Sheriff Coulter?” Max asked Stan Mullin.
“Jackson, his men, and the volunteer firemen have spread out to search for the trucks. They’re all in Areas Three and Four.”
“Both areas?” Max asked.
Stan nodded.
Max stifled a curse. “Who sent them into Area Four before Three was finished?”
“It wasn’t me,” Stan said. “Judge Abernathy called Jackson and asked why the trucks weren’t following the plan, or we wouldn’t have known they were in both areas.”
But Faulkner would. He knew everything that happened in Carnel Cove. Max slid a look in his direction, but the mayor wasn’t paying attention. He was whispering something to Carl Blake. What it was, Max couldn’t hear, but it was clear Sissy Blake didn’t much like it. Her expression would have to soften to pass for stony.
Max glanced back to Stan, who had that “I know what you’re thinking and I agree with you” look in his eye. “Where is he?” Max didn’t have to say Abernathy’s name. Mullin knew.
“An hour ago, he was at the Silver Spoon. No one knows where he is now.”
They already lacked the manpower to pull off this evacuation effectively. Areas Three and Four encompassed half the county. Running down Abernathy would have to wait. “Do the trucks have testing equipment?”
Stan nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Okay.” Max turned to the group. “Here’s the problem. Testing shows the mosquito spray we’re using is fine, but we have reason to believe it’s contaminated. Hurricane Darla has severed communications with the trucks, so we have to manually hunt them down and halt the spraying. In the meantime, we have to evacuate as many people as possible from Areas Three and Four.” Max looked from the crowd back to Stan. “What are current wind conditions? Do we have to worry about the chemicals blowing back into Areas One or Two?”
“Southeast, ten to twenty,” Stan said. “NOAA considers all areas high-risk.”
A disgruntled mumble rippled through the crowd. “Okay,” Max said. “Let’s divide into four groups. Each group covers an area. Recruit help along the way. Move house to house through neighborhoods and densely populated areas first. Elizabeth,” Max shifted his gaze to her, “can you get the women from the church in Areas One and Two to start a phone chain and warn people in Areas Three and Four to leave immediately?”
“Of course. Darlene has a street address index. We’ll get on it right away.”
“Thanks,” Max said. “The goal,” he announced to the entire crowd, “is to get as many people out of Carnel Cove as possible.”
“Some aren’t going to want to leave.” The man belonging to the Hell’s Angel Hog rubbed his T-shirt. There was a skull on its front that matched one on the shirt of a woman standing beside him wearing glued-on jeans. “They didn’t evacuate for Darla and they won’t evacuate for this.”
“Yes, they will,” Max said. “This is a mandatory evacuation authorized by the federal government. Anyone here have a felony against them?”
Half the group looked at Jeans and Skull. “I got busted for DUI three years ago,” he said.
“You been drinking?” Max asked bluntly.
“No.” He smiled. “I’m a Baptis
t preacher now. We don’t drink alcohol.”
“That works for me.” Max nodded. “Everyone raise your right hand and repeat after me.” He deputized them and they repeated the oath. “Put anyone who refuses to evacuate under arrest and haul their asses out of Carnel Cove. If we’re right, then later they can thank you for saving their lives.”
“Now, hold on there, Grayson.” Mayor Faulkner stepped away from Carl and Sissy at the back of the group and moved forward.
Gabby watched him shoulder his way through the crowd. Carl didn’t look pleased; he hadn’t since he and Faulkner and Sissy had arrived. But Sissy looked strained, as if she had to work to project her public persona when all she really wanted to do was scream. That would not happen. Gabby couldn’t imagine Sissy allowing herself to scream in private, much less in public. She gave all three of them another glance. Actually, none of them looked pleased.
“What are you doing?” Faulkner shouted. “You can’t evacuate my town.”
“I’ll be right with you, Mayor.” Max held up a wait-a-second finger and then turned to the group. “Move!” He pointed to Gabby. “You stay put.”
People scattered, and Gabby kept her distance from the group. If she still wasn’t herself, she couldn’t afford to mess up. Max had warned her that would cost them their lives. He was totally in charge, and when he had raised his voice, even Faulkner had backed up a step. If anything could have amused her in this situation, which it couldn’t, seeing Faulkner rattled would do it.
“Grayson, you don’t have the authority—”
“Actually, I do,” Max insisted, his expression as steely as his voice. “Stan will verify it.”
Stan nodded, and Gabby looked down at the ground. Everyone’s shoes, including her own, were caked with wet earth. But Faulkner’s dirt wasn’t sand. Odd, considering the shoreside park sat on sugar white sandy beach. There was no clay in the area, and yet his shoes were covered in red clay. Suspicions aroused, she wondered if maybe that too was a result of Hurricane Darla damage, and looked from Faulkner through the half-dozen people still in the immediate vicinity. Everyone’s shoes were caked with sand—except for two others.