Rapid Fire Read Free Page A

seconds.
     
    She tried
not to think about her first impressions of the theme park, how a sniper could
sit up on the low ridge of hills nearby and fire down into the crowd she had
assembled in a too-convenient knot. But what other choice did she have? She’d
needed to get them the hell out of the park, and the vehicles weren’t an
option.
     
    Three
minutes.
     
    Then she
heard sirens in the distance, approaching rapidly.
     
    “Thank
God,” Maya whispered to herself, knowing she couldn’t say it aloud, couldn’t
let the crowd know she was worried.
     
    They
needed her to be strong, to keep the peace.
     
    Precious
seconds ticked by as the Bear Claw cops pulled in, led by Alissa and Cassie,
riding with Tucker in his he-man truck. The chief’s car followed moments later.
The sight of her friends loosened the tight band around Maya’s heart, even as
the suspicious looks she got from the other arriving officers made her feel
worse.
     
    Uniforms
ranged out around the rapidly quieting crowd. As the tension subsided a degree,
a youngish cop jogged over to Maya and said, “We’ll take it from here, ma’am.
The chief would like a word with you.”
     
    She tried
not to wince at the “ma’am,” which served only to underscore her status as
not-quite-a-cop. But there wasn’t time for regrets, not while her wristwatch
clicked down past two minutes thirty seconds.
     
    She
hastened to the knot of cops gathered near the chief’s car just as two vans and
a box truck arrived in a cloud of dust, bearing John Sawyer, the leader of the
Bear Claw Bomb Squad, along with his team of experts.
     
    “He said
I had ten minutes,” she told the group. “We’ve got two-thirty left, give or
take. The park is cleared of people, but there’s a petting zoo in the livery
building and close to three hundred head of bison pastured right behind the
buildings.”
     
    “Not much
we can do about that now,” Chief Parry said pragmatically, but his grizzled,
careworn face settled into deeper lines at the prospect of bloodshed, human or
otherwise. When Sawyer joined the group, the chief quickly updated him. The two
put their heads together to rough out a plan, which gave Maya a moment to
glance at the others.
     
    Alissa’s
honey-blond hair was tied back in a ponytail and stuffed under a navy BCCPD
ball cap, while Cassie’s straight, nearly white-blond hair was shorter now, cut
near her shoulders. Tucker stood just behind Alissa and off to one side,
shoulders stiff and protective. A wolf guarding his mate. Knowing that the task
force had remained active even after the capture of Nevada Barnes three months
earlier, Maya was faintly surprised by the absence of Special Agent Seth
Varitek. Cassie’s nemesis-turned-lover had been loaned to the task force for
help with the evidence work, but perhaps he was off on another case.
     
    In
Varitek’s place, a stranger stood at the edge of the group, part of the
conversation but apart from the center of it. He was maybe a shade over six
feet tall, lean but muscular. He wore navy pants and a crisp white shirt at
odds with the heavy boots on his feet. His close-cropped sandy hair was
standard military, as was his stiff-backed posture, and she sensed him studying
her from behind his dark sunglasses.
     
    She felt
a shimmer of familiarity. A cold crawl moved across her shoulders and up her
neck to gather at the base of her skull.
     
    Who was
this guy?
     
    Her watch
beeped to indicate sixty seconds left in the countdown. Thirty.
     
    In silent
accord, the cops turned toward the Chuckwagon Ranch as the seconds bled away.
There was no way they could search the entire place in time. They didn’t even
know where to begin.
     
    As the
final few seconds ran down on the digital display, Chief Parry nodded to Maya.
“Good work getting everyone out. They’re safe, thanks to you.”
     
    It was
the first time he’d spoken to her since he’d taken her badge. The recognition
warmed her, but she said, “I was