Scratchgravel Road (Josie Gray Mysteries #2)(87)

He spoke again, his voice low, with a forced calm that made him sound even more unstable.

“I came here to tell you that you’re wanted outside. Things are going bad out there. Someone stopped me and said to get you. They want you out there now.”

His words were carefully enunciated, and his eyes had grown wide and unfocused. Josie wondered if he was on something, prescription or otherwise.

“Let them know I’m on my way. I need to lock things up.” Josie rested her hand on the butt of her gun at her waist.

His face turned red, his eyes wide now. “You do not understand. Things are completely screwed. I will take care of things here. They need you outside!”

His voice had become rigid. It was clear he had no intention of leaving the building.

Josie tried to remain calm and took a step forward to move them into the larger area outside the room where she stood a better chance of defending herself. She brought her hand down toward her gun, but he stopped her with a yell.

“Don’t do that!” He brought his hidden hand around to the front of him. He held a pint-sized glass beaker half filled with liquid.

Her skin grew cold.

“I did not want to do this,” he said.

*

When the rock tumbled down Norton’s Peak, the trencher operator stopped and left his machine for further direction. Mitch stopped laying the explosives and ran to catch up with him.

“The trench is about halfway done. I got several hundred pounds of explosives laid. For now, let’s keep going, digging the trench and laying the C-4. If the rest of the peak crumbles, we stop and detonate what we have. Start back up where you left off. Keep running where I have the flags laid.”

The man nodded and took off toward his machine.

“Hey!” Mitch yelled, and the man turned back. “When this blows it’s gonna rain shit on all of us for half a mile. You’ll get hit with some heavy mud. Just be prepared. I’ll call first.”

The man said nothing, just gave a thumbs-up and climbed back up in the trencher.

Mitch turned to Otto. “Get Sandy on the phone. Tell her we’re going to light the fuse soon. This is her last chance to call it off if she’s still worried about the tremors.”

Otto got Sandy on the cell phone and explained.

“It’s not good,” she said. “We’re just east of the peak. Everything is crumbling, breaking loose. Tell Mitch to blow us a hole in the ground before this mess plows through the middle of those barrels and causes a real disaster.”

Sandy hung up before Otto could respond.

*

While Mitch briefed his crew on safety precautions and each man’s location, Otto called Josie again and got no answer. He started to worry.

Otto interrupted Mitch’s talk. “I’m taking the four-wheeler to check on Josie. She’s not answering her phone. I want her out of there.”

Otto got on his four-wheeler. Spinning mud behind him, he quickly got it up to third gear, and made it back to the front of Unit Seven. He pulled his gun and used the key to the side door, which opened behind and to the left of Skip’s office. He hoped he was being paranoid and overly cautious, and that Josie would give him hell for playing mother hen.

He opened the door slowly, and stepped inside, then shut it behind him with a slight click of the latch. The humming of the filtration system drowned out most of the background noise, but Otto could hear voices coming from the other side of the office. He made his way down the side of Skip’s office, against the wall, his gun at the ready.

He paused and listened. An angry male voice sounded as if it was facing away from Otto. When he heard Josie respond, her tone forced, reasonable, he knew she was in trouble. He slowly looked around the corner of the office and saw Brent Thyme facing her, standing just outside the door of a small room. He could see part of Josie standing behind Brent, but he was certain she had a clear view of him.

Brent held a glass jar in one hand, his other hand pointing at her. Otto watched Josie nod her head calmly, acknowledging Brent’s words, trying to get him to continue. Otto hoped she had seen him. He walked into the open expanse in the middle of the building, his arms extended, his gun pointing directly at Brent. Otto hoped he could make it to Brent before he sensed movement and turned.

*

Josie saw Otto enter the room from the corner of her eye, but kept her focus on Brent.

“Destroy the tape or I throw it. Your skin will melt just like Santiago’s.” He held his hand out. “You don’t want this.”

Brent’s face was filled with a rage that Josie would not have believed he had inside of him.

“We’ll look at the tape together. You explain it to me,” she said.

“That tape means nothing,” he said. “It distorts everything. What Beacon did to us. They killed Santiago! That tape proves nothing, and they’ll make it look like I’m the guilty one!”

“I can help you work through this. You have to trust me, Brent.”

“It’s bullshit! I have a family to take care of. They don’t care about any of us! It’s smoke and mirrors.”

Josie let him rant, and kept her eyes focused on him, encouraging him as Otto made his way toward them.

Otto approached and she watched the expression on Brent’s face change from rage to shock the instant that she knew the barrel of Otto’s gun had reached the center of Brent’s back.