Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(64)

But then Isaac said into his phone, “Zeke. Talk to me.”

There was trouble in town.

“What? Fuck! What about…okay. Where’s Lilli?...No, not Show. Leave him…We’re thirty out. Twenty with a push.” He shoved his phone in his pocket and looked at his brothers, his eyes bleak behind his night-riding glasses. “We gotta ride full out, right now. The f*cking B&B is burning. VFD coming on the scene.”

Badger’s heartbeat soared into the stratosphere. “Isaac—what? What about Adrienne?” It was late—the shop was closed, and she’d be home. At the B&B.

“I don’t know, brother. They’re just on the scene. Let’s roll, let’s roll.” They fired their bikes back up and tore hell toward home.

Within two miles inside the county line, a cruiser was on their ass. They’d been speeding, too—their need to behave and stay off the Sheriff’s radar, literally and figuratively, had been thoroughly trumped by their need to get home. All four of them were volunteer firefighters. Badger realized that the last time they’d been called on a fire had been nearly six years ago—and they’d been called to the exact same place. The Keller Acres B&B had been built on the site of Will Keller’s farm, burned to the ground by people working for Lawrence Ellis.

Getting arrested would not help. So when the lights behind them began to flash, Badger was glad— frustrated and livid, but glad—to see Isaac pull over immediately. They needed to take their damn speeding tickets and get back on the road.

Badger was surprised that the Sheriff himself climbed out of the cruiser. Sheriffs didn’t usually do the interstate beat. But then he realized that this wasn’t them being unlucky and getting pulled over accidentally.

This was the Sheriff lying in wait. Badger had missed the previous runs, when Seaver’s game of chase had begun.

Isaac walked forward so that he was at the head of their group. Everybody else stood pat at their bikes and waited.

As Seaver approached Isaac, he grinned. “Where’s the fire, boys?”

Without thinking, Badger lunged forward. Tommy grabbed him and held him back. Seaver cast a momentary glance his way. “Careful there, fella.”

Nobody else seemed to react to Seaver’s question. They were standing there, taking it. But he knew there was a fire—no way that comment was a coincidence. He’d heard the call over the radio or something.

Fuck, maybe he was in on it starting. But he knew, and he was holding them up on purpose. Badger didn’t know if Adrienne was safe, or shit, the animals—he thought of the horror of the last fire—and he was standing on the side of the road while the motherf*cking Sheriff played games? He moved forward again, and Tommy’s grip tensed. Tommy was bigger and stronger, and Badger knew he was right to hold him back. But Jesus Christ!

His voice deep with fury but steady, Isaac asked, “There a problem, Sheriff?”

“Well, yes there is, Isaac, my friend. All four of you were exceeding the posted speed limit. By quite a margin, I must say. I’ll need to see ID.”

He didn’t search them or arrest them. He wrote them all speeding tickets. He wrote each one individually, and by the time he passed the completed tickets out, Badger thought he’d gone insane. He could see it in his brothers, too.

When they were finally released, Isaac said, “Be cool, brothers. We gotta maintain.” They pegged their speedometers to the limit and continued on their way. Seaver followed them all the way to the town border —from which the glow of the fire was visible—and turned around.

Their Sheriff turned around and left the fire to burn.



oOo



They went first to the clubhouse and grabbed their gear, then sped to the B&B. The main house and Lilli’s fancy garden behind it were both fully engaged, but the men already on the scene were keeping the fire contained, so that the barn and the woods beyond it were safe.

Four engines were on the scene—all the trucks from Signal Bend, Worden, and Millview. Horde and town men and women were everywhere, fighting the blaze or doing what they could to support the men who were. Badger had a horrible sense of déjà vu. Except that these pumpers were still pumping water, fighting the fire. When Will Keller’s house, on the very same spot, had burned, they’d run out of water too fast.

Tasha had a medic station set up well back from the fire. Badger thought he saw Connie, the kitchen assistant, lying on a gurney. Two other people were sitting on the ground with oxygen masks on. And the mayor, in fire gear and covered in soot, stood nearby, holding bloody gauze to his head.

But where was Adrienne? Yanking his gear on as fast as he could, Badger scanned the area. He saw her car—a burned, smoking wreck, the tires melted. She was here. She was here. Where? As he ran into the fray with Isaac, Len, and Tommy, Badger shouted her name.

“ADRIENNE! ADRIENNE!” He saw Lilli near one of the pumpers. She was grimy with soot and pointing Dora Fosse toward some point behind the trucks. He ran up to her. “WHERE’S ADRIENNE?”

Lilli grabbed his arms. “They’re trying to get to her, Badge. They’re trying to get to her.”

“SHE’S STILL IN THERE?” He shook loose of Lilli and ran toward the house.

It was engulfed. Oh, Jesus. So much fire. He ran on, pulling his mask over his face. He was almost to the blazing porch when he was tackled from the side and brought to the ground.