Chapter Eight
Tensions on the concourse of Barton Coliseum ran high.
Colonel Aronson was in deep discussion with two other men.
One was dressed in field gear, the other in a suit.
The shorter one turned and Jake spotted the Little Rock Fire Department insignia on his shirt.
He could only assume the other was city police.
Evan Furst and another firefighter hung back, close enough to catch the tenor of the conversation if not the details. “What’s going on?” Jake drew Max to a halt beside them.
“Ain’t nobody happy,” the man beside Furst grumbled. He shot Jake a sidelong glance as he disengaged. “I’ll be outside if anyone’s looking for me.”
Jake watched him go, idly wondering how he’d managed to step on the guy’s toes when they’d never crossed paths. Turning back to Furst, he cocked a brow. “What did that mean?”
The firefighter shrugged. “The teams aren’t pleased with the decision not to disarm.”
Jake instantly understood the mild animosity was directed toward him. No doubt word had spread he’d been involved in the decision to let things ride until they came up with a better angle. “Ah. I see.”
“I guess your girlfriend on the carousel is the one calling the shots,” Furst said, crossing his arms over his chest as if settling in for the confrontation.
“A—she’s not my girlfriend.” He was extra careful to leave the “anymore” echoing around in his head off the end of the statement.
“B—this literally is her circus and she has this creep’s monkey strapped to her back, so I think it’s reasonable to heed her input.
And C—if anyone is going to be responsible for the property damage or delay to the opening, it’s her and not us. ”
Furst’s shoulders dropped slightly, but his jaw remained tight. “Sitting back and letting things blow is not what we do.”
“Rushing in when we know we can’t predict the pattern or understand the perpetrator’s motivation would be reckless.
We know he can detonate at will, and we know he has eyes on us,” Jake countered.
“As long as the price of holding off is repairing a few buildings rather than paying a condolence call to a team member’s family, I think it’s the right course of action. ”
“Course of inaction,” Furst replied.
Tiring of the circular discussion, Jake jerked his chin at the man in the suit. “Who’s the tie?”
“Governor’s office.” Furst cracked a wry half smile. “Skittish as a drop of water in a hot skillet.”
Jake chuckled at the description, then glanced back at the doors. “We’ll I’m not going to wade into those waters.” He clicked his tongue and Max was on his feet again, ready to go. “We’re heading for the Swine and Sheep barns.”
“Hope you brought nose plugs,” Furst called after them.
Hitting the crash bar on the tinted-glass door, Jake blinked as they emerged into the bright sunlight once again.
Aronson might have different orders for him now the game had changed, but the last thing he wanted was to be ensnared in command debates.
He’d been lucky the colonel was willing to listen to the line of reasoning he and Cass had laid out, and now the guy was taking heat for it.
The best thing Jake could do for his own career was to put as much distance between himself and the decision-makers as possible.
Other than the Equestrian Center, the Goats and Sheep, and Swine barns were about as far as he could get without leaving the fairgrounds.
“Come on, boy.”
He and Max walked down the hill at a brisk pace. Jake looked from side to side, but did not stop as they passed Cattle Barn 3. He slowed at the opening of Cattle 4 and his gut clenched when he spotted the splintered wood and straw bedding blown past the entrance.
Sergeant Winter sat sideways in the driver’s seat of the cart they’d been using, a bandage on his cheek and his phone pressed to his ear. He raised a hand in acknowledgment when Jake and Max passed, but he didn’t make any move to intercept them.
Jake wondered idly where Winter’s team was but didn’t dwell on it. No doubt Aronson had redistributed them and left Winter to babysit the site on the off chance the bomber might wander through to inspect their handiwork.
He exchanged wordless waves with a couple of other teams as they took the long way around one of the horse barns.
The grassy patch outside the Swine Barn was dotted with signs listing judging times and a few sponsor advertisements utilizing the traditional hog call heard at Arkansas Razorbacks events—Wooo, Pig, Sooie! —to their best advantage.
The smell emanating from the barn set Max’s nose twitching, but Jake couldn’t help but grimace. “Phew, pig,” he said, wrinkling his nose.
“Sooie for sure,” came the disembodied answer from another stall.
Letting Max take the lead, Jake came around the corner and found one of the Little Rock PD tactical team members engaged in a staring contest with a 250-pound spotted hog.
“Whoa.”
“Says his name is Wilbur,” the officer said dryly.
Jake nodded a greeting. “Hello, Wilbur.”
“You must be a mind reader,” the other man said, his drawl soft around the edges.
“How so?”
“We were about to call for a sniffer,” he said, nodding down at Max. He hitched his belt higher, then jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Got a mystery bag. A duffel. Down at the end, not inside a stall.”
Jake raised his eyebrows, then checked his watch. It was a quarter to three already. Time was moving way too fast.
“Why don’t you guys fall back, and I’ll let Max check it out before we’re pulled out for the top of the hour.”
The officer snorted indelicately. “This is the craziest darn thing I’ve ever seen.” Running his hand down the front of his vest, he shrugged. “Sure. Have at it.” He stepped around Jake and Max, then called to the other side of the barn, “K-9 on site. Let’s move on, y’all.”
Jake waited until two officers emerged from the far aisle, then asked, “Where’s the bag?”
The man who’d greeted them smirked. “Won’t your doggie find it on his own?”
“Where’s the bag?” Jake let his impatience seep into his tone.
One of the other officers pointed to the opposite end of the barn. “Inside the entrance. Looks like it was placed there intentionally. Not tossed or left behind,” he added. He held his hands up defensively as the others turned to glare at him. “What? I want to get this over with and go home.”
“Don’t we all?” Jake bent to unclip Max’s lead. “There you go, Max. As the nice man said, have at it.”
Max took off; his nose to the ground, the fur along the ridge of his back rippling. Jake could tell by the dog’s intense concentration he’d already caught a whiff of something. He followed in his partner’s wake, waiting for a positive identification.
It didn’t take long.
As the call went out for them to fall back, Max sat down at the end of the row and stared at a bag parked inside the cinder-block wall and barked the confirmation.
“Good boy.” Jake squatted beside Max and eyed the bag.
The duffel was the kind used to carry a change of clothes to the gym. Small, well-worn and made of faded navy-blue nylon. Jake couldn’t spot a logo or any kind of branding. If there was a manufacturer’s tag inside, it would be someone else’s job to get to it.
“Let’s go.” He stepped toward the door closest to them and pushed out into the gathering afternoon heat.
He secured Max’s lead then relayed the location of the bomb.
“We have a positive on the Swine Barn,” he said into his radio.
“North end of the building, duffel bag inside the door to the left, up against a wall.”
“Ten-four,” Aronson said. “Now get out of there.”
“We’re out.” He took a deep breath of fresh air, then expelled it slowly. The midway started beyond the barn, and though he’d received the colonel’s message about his chain of command loud and clear, Jake found himself cutting a direct path to the carousel.
When he hopped onto the ride, he found Cass seated on her seahorse bench, the wrapper of a fully-loaded sub sandwich spread across her lap. She looked up at their approach, her check stuffed. “Suddenly, I’m starving,” she mumbled as she chewed.
Jake froze in place, watching as she dabbed at her mouth with a paper napkin, heat crawling up his neck. “Sorry,” he said, his voice cracking like a teenager’s. He cleared his throat. “Where’d you get that?”
“My pal T.B. brought it to me.” She opened a bottle of water and took a long pull. “Anything happening?”
“We ID’d one before the call went out to fall back and I came straight here.”
Cass lowered the sandwich to the wrapper. “Where was it?”
“Swine Barn.”
She raised a thumb to her mouth and licked a bit of mayo from the side. “Gives us eight.”
“Nine.”
“The gate, Manny’s food stand, Cattle 1 and 4, Poultry…” She trailed off, searching her memory as she counted on her fingers.
“Arkansas Building, pirate ride and Swine,” he finished.
She held up her fingers. “Right. Eight.”
He inclined his head in her direction. “Backpack.”
Cass wet her lips. The nervous tic combined with the widening of her eyes to give him a glimpse of the girl he’d known so well. It was all Jake could do to keep from grabbing her and holding her close.
Let the jerk who was doing this to her blow them both sky-high.
“I keep forgetting about the backpack,” she confessed, reeling him back from his daydream.
“I can’t think about anything else.”
She broke eye contact, returning her attention to the sandwich in her lap. She picked up the half she’d started on, then spoke without looking directly at him. “Want half? I doubt I can eat all of this.”
Jake’s stomach growled an affirmative, and he took the seat across from her. “Sure.”
She wrapped a napkin around the uneaten half and offered it to him. Max’s hopeful gaze followed her every movement. Jake lowered his hand and said, “Down.”
The dog stretched out between their feet, resting his muzzle on his paws and shamelessly working her over with nothing but his expressive eyebrows. “Poor guy,” she cooed. “I’d share mine, but I bet the mean man won’t let me.”