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A narrow stream of water was pouring down the wall on the west side of the cavern. It was coming from a fissure in the ceiling. It gathered along the floor, quickly pooling in the corner.
“Where’s it coming from?” Mato stared in horror at his father.
Levi shrugged, frowning. “I dunno. Maybe the explosion blasted through the water pipes in the garage?”
Prim gazed wildly around them, looking for any avenue in which the water could run off. There was none that she could see. She, Levi, and Mato were sealed inside a large rocky bucket that would soon fill with water.
After a startled look at each other, panic slowly set in. They stood and started banging on the walls, hollering at the tops of their lungs.
“Help! Please, help!”
Ten minutes earlier
Shep straightened as the sheriff shot into the parking lot in his police cruiser. Though his sirens were off, his emergency lights were flashing.
He rolled down the passenger window and hollered, “Get in!”
Shep hastily let his dogs out of the truck and whistled for them to jump into the back seat of Adriel’s cruiser.
He broke every speeding law, racing down a back road in order to reach the Paddocks’ garage.
“Marco and Paco will join us soon,” the sheriff ground out. “They’re already on their way.” He kept his dark gaze on the road, both hands gripping the steering wheel.
“Who’s manning the guard shack?” If everyone in uniform on the rez was speeding toward the Paddock’s garage, it left no one on duty.
“At the moment? Nobody.” The sheriff didn’t sound like he particularly cared. “The Feds have road blocks set up everywhere, so I’m not sure it matters.”
Around the next curve, they encountered their first one. Adriel flashed his badge at the agents who converged on them. “We’re looking for a missing P.A. Her name is Primrose Midraven.” He gave a brief physical description. “We have reason to believe she was abducted and brought this way.”
Shep pulled up a picture of her on his phone and held it up for them to look at. He held up his Heart Lake PD badge at the same time.
“Nope.” The agents shook their heads balefully at them. “Haven’t seen her.”
A rumble shook the ground, rattling the blockade and knocking over one of the striped sawhorses.
Rook and Bishop growled in alarm and started barking ferociously.
The agents got on their radios, shouting back and forth to each other. Shep overheard the words “explosion” and “garage.”
His heart quaked as he listened. He finally leaned his head out the window and hollered, “What’s going on?”
One of the agents rubbed the back of his neck, looking grim. “There was some sort of explosion inside a garage up ahead. We don’t have all the details yet.”
Shep and Adriel were forced to sit behind the blockade for another full hour before they were released.
“Alright. Area’s been contained.” One of the agents stooped down beside Adriel’s window to talk while another two agents opened the blockade. “Everyone with outstanding arrest warrants are in custody, except two. Not a shabby raid, when it’s all said and done.”
Adriel exchanged a worried look with Shep. “Can you tell us their names?”
“The owners of the garage, Levi and Mato Paddock. It’s possible they’re buried in the rubble.”
“According to an eyewitness, Mato is the one who abducted my girlfriend!” Shep couldn’t believe the guy was acting like it was over when an innocent woman was still missing.
Perceiving that they weren’t going to just drive away, the guy turned them over to the lead investigator in charge of the raid. He’d set up a central command station of sorts in the back of an enormous van without windows.
The guy seemed more concerned about arranging some high security transport for Tim Getz and Tam Kelly than anything else. Shep’s heart sank lower with each minute that passed without a manhunt being launched.
“We’ve gotta do something,” he groaned, when they were requested to wait in their vehicle for further instructions.
