Chapter Ten #3
He stepped into the drone’s path when it was mere feet away and took a wild swipe at it. He clipped one of the offset rotors and caused it to wobble, but the device was far from disabled.
The drone spun around, then the whirring intensified and it began to rise.
Jake knew he had one more shot at it before it flew completely out of reach.
Gripping the end of the pole like a Louisville Slugger, Jake planted his feet like they’d taught him in junior deputy baseball and swung clean and smooth.
The pole connected with a cringe-inducing thwack. Bits of shattered plastic rained down around him. The body of the drone clattered to the ground about ten feet in front of him.
Dragging his new weapon, Jake approached with caution.
The soles of his boots crunched on a bit of plastic and he danced to the side, rising onto his toes in an effort not to trample any possible evidence.
He stopped about five feet from the site of the crash, planted the end of the pole on the pavement, and turned it over so the hook extended toward the downed device.
He flipped the casing over and spotted the camera lens. After few more pokes with the hook, he whistled sharply and Max came trotting out to join him, his lead trailing on the ground.
“What have we got?”
Max lowered his head, his forehead creasing in concentration as he began to sniff the area, moving in the methodical grid he was taught as a puppy. After a couple of minutes, the dog shook off any suspicion of explosives, then wandered back to Jake’s side.
Satisfied, Jake gave the dog a pat and a treat. “Good boy. We like it when there are no bombs.”
Unzipping a pocket on Max’s vest, he pulled out an evidence bag and a pair of latex gloves. The dog danced to the side, annoyed to have his equipment ransacked. Jake chuckled but persisted. “You’re the best packhorse a guy could ever have.”
Snapping on the gloves, he began picking up every piece of matte-black plastic he could locate on the blacktop. He was still stooping and scraping when Max let out a woof of impatience, his face turned in the direction of the carousel.
“Yeah, well, why don’t you grow yourself some thumbs? It would go faster of you could help,” he chided his partner.
For his part, Jake was doing his level best to not check the carousel. Colonel Aronson’s questions and the implication he could be removed from the case rang in his ears. If he was going to stick around until the end of this mess, he needed to play it cooler than he had been.
“Much cooler,” he mumbled, bending to pick up the drone carcass.
A tiny red light blinked slowly on the top. It was a minuscule distress signal. But it would go unanswered. Using the tip of his gloved finger, he pressed and held the power button until the light blinked out. With a groan, he straightened and walked over to where Max sat impatiently waiting.
“We need to run this up to the boss,” Jake said, shifting the drone and evidence bag of parts into one hand.
He let loose with another grunt as he swooped down to take up the dog’s lead.
His muscles were sore from walking the fairgrounds.
The tension of the situation didn’t help.
Nor did laying eyes on Cass for the first time in years.
Jake rolled up to his full height and tilted his chin to the sky, giving every aching muscle a big stretch as he focused on breathing deep. No matter how hard he stretched, a part of him was still doubled over from the gut punch of recognition when her eyes had first met his.
Recognition and wariness.
As if he posed as much of a threat to her as the bomber targeting her.
This time, Max had to quick-step to keep pace with him. As they wove past the wreckage of the duck pond stall, Jake kept his jaw clenched tight. He didn’t dare glance in the direction of the carousel. If he did, he’d get caught up in her gravitational pull.
And he couldn’t go there. Not when he could see Colonel Aronson charging down the hill, headed in their direction. He’d almost made it past the mangled corn dog stand when he heard her call out.
“Jake?”
He kept walking.
“Jake, I need to talk to you,” she shouted.
He gave his head a sharp shake but stayed the course.
“Jacob Michael Donovan!”
She escalated to the use of his full name at the exact same time Aronson bellowed, “Donovan!”
Their voices melded in a strange sort of angry harmony on the three syllables of his last name. It drew him up short. Glancing from Aronson’s stormy expression to Cass’s high-colored outrage, he shook his head in bewilderment.
He held up the broken surveillance equipment as if the fruit of his prowess might be enough to ward them off any reprimand. “Someone was flying a drone over the scene. I think it may be long to our guy.”
But even as the words left his lips, the triumph he’d felt in downing the drone shriveled into a tight ball and lodged in his throat. For some reason, neither of them was celebrating.
Jake got the feeling he’d done something very, very wrong.