Chapter Nineteen
“Where are you? Are you
safe?” Walker’s gut clenched. His worry dialed up a
notch.
“I’m still at the house.
Cam called me.” Fear edged her voice.
“Is there anyone
inside?”
“I don’t think so. No one
should be in the mill this time of night. Cam called the fire
department. I need to wake Gran and get over there to see what’s
going on.”
“I’m in town with Sawyer.
We’re leaving now and will get there as soon as we can.” Dealing
with the ramifications of his knife being used in a heinous crime
would have to wait. He didn’t believe in coincidences. It was
becoming increasingly clear, whoever was messing with him had upped
their game.
“Okay.” Her voice carried
her anxiety.
“Be safe, Laney. Don’t
think you need to save anything or fight the fire yourself. Don’t
put yourself in danger. Wait for the fire department to do their
job.”
“I will.”
He disconnected and turned to Sawyer.
“The mill’s on fire.”
“Let’s go.”
Walker slid behind the wheel of his
truck, his mind racing. The old mill house with its presses and
bottling equipment were the heart of the operation Delaney had
built to sustain the farm. A fire could carry to the packing shed
housing the bakery and retail store. If those burned, their season
would be over before it even started.
Overlaying that fear, there was always
the danger with any fire that it could move into the mountains and
become a wildfire that could rage through the forest with
devastating consequences.
The drive to the farm had never seemed
so long. Walker had the gas pedal to the floor as he tore down the
highway and turned onto Mill Creek Road. The headlights of Sawyer’s
truck shone fifty yards behind him. Circling red lights were
visible from the road well before the turnoff to the
farm.
Walker forced himself to slow down as
he took the gravel road to the mill. Three fire trucks and two
sheriff’s department SUVs were parked in the area in front of the
mill, red and blue lights spinning.
He parked off the road, his gaze
already searching for Delaney as he stepped out of his truck.
Sawyer pulled to a stop behind him.
Firefighters in their reflective
turnout gear were hauling the hoses to wind around the building to
the back of the structure. He glanced at the names of the
firefighters emblazoned on their gear but didn’t spot Mateo’s
“Reynoso.” Voices sounded over various radios, adding to the din.
He’d feared a fully engulfed structure, but no flames were visible.
Smoke billowed from the back, making a dark smudge across the
starlit sky. He dug his phone from his pocket, keeping it to his
ear as he called Laney even as he began circling the mill searching
for her.
With Sawyer at his back, they followed
the direction of firefighters, staying out of the way. He spotted
Franny and Oscar standing beside the low block wall separating the
employee cottages from the area open to the public.
The white paint at the back of the
mill was scorched and firefighters were spraying the area with
water, but as far as Walker could tell, it looked like the fire had
been behind the mill and hadn’t gotten inside.
Cam stood near Franny, arms wrapped
around herself and looking very much alone. His call connected, and
Walker swore in frustration when he heard Laney’s voicemail telling
him to leave a message. “I’m here, call me,” he growled.
He jammed the phone in his pocket,
worry forming a hard knot in his gut. “Any of you see Delaney?” he
asked as soon as he thought the three could hear him. Oscar and
Franny shook their heads.
“She was at the house when
I called and said she’d get here as soon as possible, but that was
at least twenty minutes ago.” Cam pulled up the hood on a yellow
hoodie so it covered her head.
Walker pulled out his phone again and
this time punched in the house number. While he was waiting for it
to connect, he shot a look at Sawyer.
“Already on it.” Sawyer
strode to a group of firefighters.
“What’s he already
on?”
The phone continued to ring in
Walker’s ear. Voice grim, he told Cam, “He’s telling them we have
one person unaccounted for. They need to look for her in the
mill.”
“Hello?”
“Clara, it’s Walker. Is
Laney there?”
“No. She woke me to tell
me about the fire, then left the house. What’s going
on?”
“The fire looks mostly
out, but no one’s seen her and she’s not answering her phone. Do
you know if she took the side-by-side or was coming on
foot?”
“I don’t know.” Anxiety
laced Clara’s voice. “Let me get my cellphone. I’ll see if I can
find her location. Hold on a minute.”
“Great.” He gave silent
thanks Clara was savvy enough to know how to use the capabilities
on her phone. While he was waiting for her to come back on the
line, Sawyer returned to stand beside him, hands on hips as he
watched the scene.
With her attention on Sawyer, Cam
seemed to pull herself up straighter and he thought she’d squared
her shoulders like she was marching before a firing squad as she
approached him.
“Walker?” Clara’s voice
sounded in his ear.
“Yeah.”
“It shows her phone on the
road between the house and the mill, but closer to the
mill.”
“Okay. I’ll walk toward
the house and see if I can spot her. If I don’t, I’ll want your
phone to try to track her.”
“Yes, of course. Let me
know.” Clara’s voice broke and Walker bore down on the growing fear
that something had happened to his Laney. Something bad.
“Will do.” He
disconnected, keeping his phone in his hand in case she
called.
Taking the time to get a flashlight
from his truck, he set off down the road at a fast trot. Fifteen
minutes later he was staring at the shattered screen of Laney’s
phone in the dirt at the edge of the road.
The sounds of the emergency vehicles
carrying from the mill seemed muffled as his mind ran through the
ramifications of finding the damaged phone but no Laney. Footsteps
approached. He whipped up his flashlight, tamping down on the dread
clawing at him when he spotted Sawyer with his own flashlight, his
phone to his ear, Cam trailing behind him.
Sawyer disconnected his call. “The
mill has been cleared. She’s not there.” His attention was caught
by the phone Walker held. “That hers?”
“Yeah. It was on the side
of the road. It still works enough to be tracked, but the screen
won’t light up.” His voice sounded hollow to his own ears. He held
it up to show dirt ground into the shattered screen. “This doesn’t
happen by dropping it. Someone stomped on it and deliberately broke
the screen. Something’s happened to her.”
“That phone is evidence. I
don’t have an evidence bag on me, but hold it by the edges so you
don’t smudge any prints. We need to get it to an evidence
tech.”
Fear had Walker snarling, “We need to
start searching for her. Now. I’m not fucking worried about
fingerprints.”
“We’ll look for her, but
we also need to work smart. I talked to Sheriff Carlisle and he’s
organizing the resources we’ll need.” He took the phone from
Walker, then lifted his chin in Cam’s direction. “You need to hear
what she has to say.”
Cam stepped forward, her face shadowed
in the night. “After I woke Franny and Oscar, I ran to the mill to
see if I could do anything. I came down the path from the cabins
and spotted a guy near the storage shed. He startled me. I didn’t
expect to see anyone there. There’s a light on the shed that’s
motion activated. He took a step toward me and the light came on
and he immediately backed away. He said something about looking for
an arsonist and flashed a badge and waved me on. He wore the local
cop uniform, but I don’t think he was a cop.”
“Why?” Gathering
information was important, but Walker wanted action, to get moving
so he could find Laney. Worry something had happened to her made
him feel like acid was eating its way through his gut.
“First, I thought the most
pressing issue was keeping the fire from spreading into the mill
and he wasn’t doing anything to help. I grabbed a hose and was
spraying some smoldering crates, and when I glanced back the guy
was gone. That’s when I saw two other deputies with the same
uniform had arrived.” She glanced at Sawyer. “I tend to notice
cops. I thought maybe the guy had been first on the scene and was
waiting for backup, but it didn’t make sense he disappeared when
the two other cops arrived. If they were on the same team, he
would’ve joined them.”
Walker stared hard at Cam, the
implications of what she’d seen running through his head. “Anything
else?”
She nodded. “He wasn’t in the light
for more than a couple seconds, but I got a good look at him. His
hair was long.”
“So?”
“Most cops have their hair
buzzed short and are clean-shaven.” Her gaze shifted to Sawyer.
“Your brother doesn’t, but it’s still neat. This guy’s hair was
down below his collar and he had a messy beard. Plus his uniform
didn’t fit him right.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
Sawyer’s brows lowered.
“I’m telling you now. I
just remembered he had a big belly and the buttons barely kept his
shirt closed over the front.”
“That’s a lot of
observing.”
She gave Sawyer a cool look. “I’m an
observant person.”
Walker spun on his heel to pace as he
thought over the description Cam had given. Fear gnawed at him.
He’d been in plenty of dangerous situations in his life and never
once had trouble keeping his head, but with Laney in danger, he had
to push back on the urge to go on a rampage and destroy everything
in his path until he found her.
With her safety at risk, the stakes
were higher than they’d ever been. That’s the way it was when you
loved someone desperately. He tipped his head back and stared up at
the sky, sucking in slow breaths of smoke-tinged air. He flipped
through all he’d learned since returning to Sisters. What he and
Sawyer had gleaned from the papers Mrs. Watkins had given him, what
he’d learned talking to people around town, trying to work out how
that might’ve put Laney in danger.