Sam glanced at his officers. “Everybody okay?”
“I’m good,” Carl said.
“We’ve got this,” Ben echoed.
Sweat was running out from under their hats, running into their eyes and down the backs of their necks, as they stood braced and waiting.
Then they began to hear the sound of an engine coming so fast that it sounded like a whine, and within the whine, the bleating sounds of the sirens of the highway patrol still in pursuit.
“They’re coming!” Sam said, and in that moment, he thought of nothing but getting this right so they could all go home tonight.
All of a sudden, sirens were coming up behind them, too. Three other highway patrol cars coming in from the west to back up the roadblock.
“Hell yes,” he muttered as the patrol cars came to a sliding halt behind them and officers jumped out and took a stance behind the doors of their vehicles with weapons drawn.
And then a car came over the hill so fast it was little more than a gray blur, and Carl let out a soft groan.
“Oh hell, Chief. He ain’t gonna stop.”
“Yes, he is. We’re going to stop him,” Sam said.
The car kept coming closer and closer, and Sam tensed. His gut told him Munson was ready to die and didn’t care who he took with him.
Son of a bitch.
When Munson hit the stop strips, all four tires blew. The car slid sideways, then began to roll before finally coming to a halt, upside down. Before officers could grab their fire extinguishers, the gas tank exploded and the car burst in flames.
Sam radioed the station to dispatch fire and EMS, while every cop there was running toward the wreck with their fire extinguishers. He grabbed his and followed, but it was too late to save the driver. The car was fully engulfed.
***
Those with scanners knew something big was going down, and the news had spread like wildfire throughout the town. When they heard the explosion, people who were inclined to pray were already down on their knees.
Roxie had the television turned up extra loud and had given the girls a bowl of popcorn and juice boxes as they were watching cartoons.
They were used to sirens. That just meant Daddy was working. But when the explosion happened, Evie looked up.
“Miss Roxie, what was that sound?”
Roxie shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll have to ask Daddy when he comes home.”
Satisfied with the answer, the girls went back to cartoons.
But Roxie was still worried. When there was trouble, Sam always let her know he was okay when it was over, and she’d heard nothing.
***
Katie was on her way back to Delilah’s house within thirty minutes, carrying Rhett the last block. The Yorkie showed his appreciation with constant chin and nose licks, and by the time Katie handed him and the sack of poop back to Delilah, she’d fallen hard.
“Thank you so much,” Delilah said as she dropped the sack in her garbage and took Rhett by his leash.
“It was my pleasure,” Katie said. “Around the same time tomorrow?”
“Yes, please,” Delilah said.
“Oh…do you have a cell phone?” Katie asked.
“No. I still have my landline.”
“If you’ll give me your number, I’ll call you when I get home and you can write down my number. That way if something happens to change your routine, all you have to do is call and let me know.”
“Oh, good idea,” Delilah said, and recited the numbers while Katie entered them into her contacts.
“Got it,” Katie said. “I’ll call you after I get home.” Then she scratched Rhett’s little head. “Bye, buddy. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.
Rhett yapped.
Katie laughed.
“I think you have made a friend. He’s telling you goodbye,” Delilah said.
“I made two friends today. You and Rhett,” Katie said, then walked down the steps and back to the street and headed home.
She was hot and hungry and thinking about what to eat for lunch when she began hearing sirens. She thought of Sam. What was it like for people married to cops? She was about to set herself up to worry when her cell phone rang.
When she saw it was Lila, that distracted her.
“Hello, my friend!”
“Hey, Katie. Do you have a few minutes?” Lila asked.
“I do. I’ve been out for a walk and am on my way home. What’s up?”
“Watch your national news tonight. Mark and Megan made the news and not in a good way.”
Katie stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
“What happened?”
Lila began reciting the sequence of events of Mark finding drugs and money and turning Megan in, then her getting bonded out of jail and going home to find out her father was missing.
Katie was horrified. “Oh my God! I can’t wrap my head around this. I met Walt Lanier several times during the three years Mark and I were together. I can’t believe he was mixed up in drug trafficking. I never liked Megan the few times I saw her, but I’m blown away by the extent of criminal activities they were in. Is Mark implicated?”
“The authorities say he is not. It appears when he found the evidence, he called the police. He was going to be a witness in Megan’s trial, but that’s no longer happening,” Lila said.
“Why?” Katie asked.
“Because after Megan bonded out of jail, she went home and went to bed, and sometime afterward, she was murdered in her bed. They’re calling it a hit and looking for her father.”
Katie gasped. “Murdered? No! He wouldn’t kill her. He must be dead, too.”
“He left the night before she came home…like he knew something was going to happen.”
Katie started walking again, talking as she went.
“This is shocking and horrible, and I can’t believe I know someone who’s mixed up in this mess. I miss you, but right now the last place I would want to be is in Albuquerque, facing the media as the woman Mark jilted to marry a criminal who just got whacked.”
“Oh wow. I never thought of how this might fall back on you in any way.”
“Well, the criminal part would not, but you know the media these days and how they like to report all the dirt before they bother with the truth.”
“I’m sorry. I hated to call you with this, but I didn’t want you to be blindsided by it when you heard it on the news, because it’s gone national.”