Chapter 9
The lake was a hub of activity. Fishing boats, houseboats, and pontoons trolled up and down the water. Families with small children, groups of teenagers, and young adults all enjoyed the warm weather and the low-hanging sun. It was almost seven now, and the sun wouldn’t completely set until eight-forty-five. There was still time to enjoy the day. Portman’s on the Lake was sponsoring a raft race tomorrow, a tradition for over two decades, where contestants had to build their own rafts by hand and traverse three miles from Portman’s to the dam and back without their rafts falling apart. Mason, Ari, and a few of their friends had decided to enter this year.
I’d been looking forward to cheering them on, but after the letter to the paper and the guy playing games with people’s lives because of me, I wasn’t sure what I’d be doing.
Good Time’s Book Nook was two miles past the last of the resorts on Highway 44 west of town. I’d driven past the place many times before, but I’d never seen it with so many cars out front. Auctions were a draw for rural areas, but I was betting half the people here were city tourists looking for a different kind of adventure. The Good Time’s Book Nook itself looked like a large metal outbuilding, with a parking lot big enough for swap meets.
“Why haven’t they evacuated the area?” Ezra asked, pulling out his phone. I assumed he was calling Reese. “I just arrived,” he barked. “Why are there a hundred or more people still here?”
I shuttled us around the large but full parking lot, searching for an empty space and having no luck. I saw Reese, her arm gesticulating wildly as she spoke on the phone. Broyles was at another vehicle talking with Levi and someone else.
“You’ve got to be crappin’ bricks,” Ezra said scathingly. “I’ll call him. Just get in there and see if you can find anything that looks like it might blow up.” He punched the disconnect button with his index finger, then dialed another number. “Chief,” he said. “Why aren’t we evacuating the auction? What? The mayor? She can’t...” He shook his head. “This is a bunch of nonsense. If someone gets hurt, she will have more to deal with than an election. Fine,” he conceded. “I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.”
I spotted the backup lights of a vehicle getting ready to leave and pulled up close enough to claim the spot when they pulled out. Other cars were also looking for parking, and I wasn’t about to let them take this one from me.
“The mayor is here,” Ezra groused as he got off the phone. “She’s one of the sponsors for this auction. It’s a freaking charity event to raise money and awareness for the community foundation.” He shook his head. “More like an event to raise awareness for her campaign.”
The community foundation fund was a worthwhile charity. They donated money for various programs in Garden Cove, including grants for schools, beautification projects around town, and low-interest loans for small businesses. Still, I understood and mirrored Ezra’s frustration.
“The best we can do is cordon off the building and keep everyone outside until we finish our search.”
“It’s something,” I told him. I honked at a car that tried to skirt past me for my spot as the other vehicle, a compact pickup, finally pulled out. The guy honked back and flipped me off before moving on.
I whipped into the spot before anyone else got any ideas about trying to take it from me. We were running out of time. If we didn’t find the bomb by eight, it would go off. As I parked, a gnawing worry tugged at me. The Book Nook didn’t feel quite right to all the clues. What if we were going down the wrong trail? With less than an hour until the deadline, I wasn’t sure we had any choices left.
“I’m worried that this isn’t right,” I told him. “Auctioneers talk fast, and yes, this place has books, but it doesn’t fit the rest.”
Reese knocked on the window, and I jumped. She opened the back door and crawled inside. “What are we doing?” she asked. “What did the chief say?”
“He said the same thing. Mayor says no to shutting down and evacuating the auction.”
“Broyles and his team are going over the building, but there is a lot of stuff in there left over from when it was a swap shop. A lot of things that look like can bombs. It’s hard to tell what’s what. A lot of false alarms so far.”
“Let’s go over the poem from Nora’s vision again,” Ezra suggested. “Break it down, line by line. Maybe we jumped too fast to the wrong conclusion.”
I took a breath and tried to recite it as exactly as I could remember. “Gather quickly where secrets are told....”
Reese leaned forward from the backseat. “Secrets aren’t told here.”
Ezra shrugged. “Unless were talking about secrets kept in books from the characters.”
“Maybe.” I nodded. “And past sins running hot and cold?”
“Historical books?” he suggested.
“Friends gathering, strong and few,” I continued.
“Friends might be gathering here, but this is way more than a few people.”
“Maybe the guy didn’t know there would be a big thing going on tonight when he planned this.” Ezra scratched his chin with his thumb. “How long has this auction been on the books?”
“A few months,” Reese answered. “She got the permits approved back in February.”
Broyles got into the backseat on the other side. “The building is clear,” he said. “We’ve gone over it with the sniffer and got nada.” His tone sounded unsurprised. “This has been, no offense to the consultant, but a colossal waste of time.”
“It’s not a waste of time as long as the threat is out there,” Ezra said.
“If,” Broyles countered. “If the threat is out there.”
Ezra heaved a noisy sigh, and I could feel his exasperation. “You can help, or you can get the hell out.”
The ex-military thorn in Ezra’s side responded by easing back into the seat and keeping his mouth shut. Small victories, I thought.
Ezra put his hand on my arm. “What’s the next line?”
“Twelve rules to rule them all,” I told him.
“The numbers wrong, if it’s a Tolkien reference,” Reese said. “There are twenty rings in the ‘Lord of the Rings.’”
“One rules them all,” Broyles contributed with a grunt.
“What else?” Ezra asked.
I continued, “The last part is to seek them out before they fall, their Tolkiens of victory in their palms won’t protect them against the bomb.”
“Tolkiens?” Broyles mused. “As in more than one?”
“I’m sure that’s what he said,” I confirmed.
“Maybe he meant more than one book. Like several of Tolkien’s novels,” Reese interjected. “There’s The Hobbit, and...”
“The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Other than that, just some short stories,” Broyles said.
I turned to look at him.
He tucked his chin. “What? I can’t know something about classic literature? Are you sure he said Tolkiens?” he asked, then added on an embarrassed mutter, “I mean, if what you’re saying happened, actually happened.”
“I am pretty sure,” I answered him, choosing to ignore his nay-saying. “Why? What are you thinking?”
“Tolkiens in a palm. What if it’s tokens. Like a coin.”
“We found a Susan B. Anthony silver dollar outside the florist shop,” Ezra said. “Maybe that has some significance.”
“Or,” Broyles countered, “The token is a chip.”
My eyes widened. “Like a sobriety chip?”
He shrugged. “Twelve rules to rule them all? Could be referring to twelve steps.”
“There’s a meeting tonight at the Cove Community Church,” I said rapidly. It started at seven-thirty.” I grabbed Ezra’s hand. “Tippy is celebrating her third year tonight. Pippa and Jordy were going as her family support. They’re taking the babies.”
“The CCC used to be the old library,” Reese said. “The town sold the building to the church after they built the new library about ten years ago.”
I’d already started the car and was backing out before Ezra could say, “Son of a?—”
* * *
By the timewe got on the highway, heading back to town, I had three police cars for an escort. One was in front of me and two behind me, lights flashing and sirens blaring as we sped towards Cove Community Church.
Reese called the threat in, dispatching nearby officers to the building to evacuate anyone inside. Despite these efforts, I couldn’t shake the fear for my friends’ safety. Ezra had repeatedly tried to contact Jordy and Pippa, but their phones went straight to voicemail.
I gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white with tension, restraining myself from flooring the gas pedal and overtaking the police escort, which seemed agonizingly slow.
The dash clock read seven forty-eight. “We’re not going to make it,” I muttered, tapping my fingers anxiously on the wheel.
“We’ll make it,” Ezra assured me, his tone firm. He leaned forward, eyes fixed on the road. “Reese, any confirmation that anyone has arrived on scene?”
“Not yet,” she replied, shaking her head as she checked her phone. “Most of our officers were at the auction, and those in town were dealing with a drunken disorderly at the Rose Palace Resort. Everyone’s at least five minutes away. They won’t get there much before we do.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “Try Pippa again,” I urged, my voice tight. I racked my brain for anyone else who might be at the AA meeting but came up blank. “Do you all know anyone who might be at the meeting?” It was a long shot, but I had to ask. Reese’s cousin Fiona, a young woman who’d been murdered a few years ago, had been in Narcotics Anonymous. When none of them answered in the affirmative, I asked, “Does the church have a contact number for the person who organizes the meetings? We need to get them out of there.” The more I thought about the message, the more the AA meeting made sense. Few gather, sins of the past, twelve steps, a token... Why hadn’t I figured it out sooner? Maybe because “EZ Reader” didn’t seem to fit an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Even the fact that the church used to be a library didn’t tick all the boxes.
I hoped we were wrong. I hoped we weren’t too late.
“Still no answer,” Ezra said, frustration evident in his clenched jaw. “They probably silenced their phones for the meeting.”
“Pippa’s been so excited about tonight. Tippy has really come a long way since arriving in Garden Cove. She even baked the cake for Tippy’s celebration.” A chilling thought struck me, and I stiffened. “What if he chose the meeting because he knew Tippy would be there? Is he targeting the people I care about?”
EZ Holden, that’s his name. EZ Holden will play my game.
The psycho playing the terrible game had mentioned Ezra specifically. “Time’s not your friend, Nora. That’s what he said in the first vision when he was taping the timer to the bomb,” I recalled, voice trembling. “Will you find the bomb before it finds its prey? What if he meant ‘pray,’ as in the serenity prayer? Don’t they say it at the end of every meeting?”
Broyles made a noise of frustration from the backseat, shifting restlessly. I heard him speaking into his phone, “Hey. Yeah, I’m okay. Are you at the meeting at Cove Community Church tonight?”
I glanced at Ezra. His eyes narrowed, his scowl deepening.
“I need you to announce that everyone needs to evacuate the building,” he instructed the person on the other end, his tone commanding. “Now. There’s a bomb threat. The police are on their way.” I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Broyles nodding. “Thanks. See you in a few.”
“Who was that?” Reese asked, her brow furrowed.
Broyles frowned, his shoulders slumping slightly. “My sponsor.”
“I didn’t know you were in AA,” Reese said, her voice tinged with anger and hurt.
“It’s anonymous for a reason,” Broyles replied, his tone softening as he looked down.
“You should’ve called sooner,” I scolded him, glaring over my shoulder. “Lives are in danger.”
“Are they, though?” he replied doubtfully, crossing his arms. “I’m still not sure I believe you.”
“And yet,” Ezra pointed out, raising an eyebrow, “you called your sponsor.”
Broyles didn’t respond, staring out the window. Had his drinking been the reason he left the military? Was that why he’d come to Garden Cove for a fresh start?
I glanced at Ezra to see if he knew about Broyles’ past with alcohol. He shook his head slightly. The phone call, revealing himself as a recovering alcoholic, had cost Broyles personally.
“Thank you,” I told him, my voice softening. “Thank you for making the call.” It was seven fifty-four now. I could only hope the call hadn’t been made too late.