The three trucks swung into the sheriff’s office parking lot. A handful of townspeople whose houses were along Coronado Boulevard poked their heads out. Many even cheered. Randy shook his head in disbelief. It was a sight he would never have expected.
Edwardo and his bodyguard headed inside the office, followed by Randy and his deputies.
“When I give my word,” the cartel lieutenant said with a toothy grin, “do I not deliver?”
“This will go far in helping the people of Encendido accept you,” Randy said, trying to be positive.
Edwardo didn’t like that. “Accept me? Why wouldn’t they accept me?”
Randy’s palms began to moisten. “I don’t know, I’m just saying.” This guy was acting like a Mexican Joe Pesci. Even the deputies around him looked nervous.
“Just saying? Your citizens are thirsty. I bring them water and you imply that we are not welcome here.”
Keith cleared his throat. “Sheriff Randy’s just saying that folks here were just getting used to Mayor Reid before his recent... departure. But we’re all confident your generous gift will go a long way to help win them over.”
The features on Edwardo’s face softened. Then a smile appeared. He was happy again, at least for now. “Consider it the first of many more deliveries. Compliments of my father, Fernando. Not far behind these are trucks filled with food. One way to deal with men like Señor Dale is to cut them off at the knees. He thinks distributing water himself will win him friends. I intend to show him the error of that thinking.”
Just then the front doors swung open and in walked a handful of Ortega’s men. In the middle of the group was Shane Hardy.
“I take it you two know each other,” Edwardo said.
“Where’s Mayor Reid?” Shane asked, sounding more than a little nervous and looking like he hadn’t slept in days. His right arm was bandaged, likely a wound he’d received during the battle over Dale’s property.
Edwardo regarded Shane thoughtfully. “I’m afraid Mr. Reid is no longer with us.”
Shane’s eyes darted over to Randy. “We had an agreement.”
“But you failed to live up to your end,” Edwardo said. “You were supposed to get us that property and for that we would allow the safe passage of those inside. It was not our fault that your brother chose to ignore the ‘kidnappers’’ demands.”
“Nicole was supposed to convince them if they had any doubts,” Shane said. He spoke like a man pleading for his life, and maybe he was. “She told me she tried, but that Dale was worried about risking the lives of everyone else. The plan was to set up a meeting after they discovered the ransom note.”
A vein in Edwardo’s forehead began to throb with visible anger.
Randy shook his head. “Maybe Edwardo is right. Perhaps your brother was happy to see you go. The second he finds out what you’ve done, he’ll have nothing in his heart but hatred for you. Mayor Reid said you were the ace up his sleeve, the one who would help rid us of Dale. You played your hand and like it or not, your brother called your bluff. As far as I’m concerned, you’re useless to us now.”
Edwardo seemed to agree. With a flick of his wrist, he ordered his men to take Shane away.
“We could keep him locked up here at the sheriff’s office,” Randy offered. “Until you decide what you wanna do with him.”
“That sounds fine. But I’m not convinced yet he’s as useless as you think,” Edwardo said. “Do we still have his wife on the inside?”
Randy shrugged. “Hard to say. Shane did speak with her yesterday. Said she was acting a little funny, but didn’t think their cover had been blown.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way.”
Suddenly, an explosion from outside rocked the sheriff’s office, blowing out windows along the eastern wall and sending ceiling tiles tumbling around them. Everyone ducked for cover, except for Edwardo, who spun on his heels and rushed through the front doors, his men rising and following briskly behind him.
Pistols drawn, Randy and his deputies did the same. His first thought was that they were under attack. Retaliation for the assault on Dale’s place.
Smoke billowed from separate fires around the corner. They rushed in that direction, but Randy didn’t need to see to know what was there. All three water trucks had been destroyed, each of their hulls torn open by a shaped charge of some kind. The metal on each bent inward, leaving a gaping hole where the water went rushing out, quenching the thirsty ground, most of it splashing into the nearby sewer drain.
There was a wooden fence that separated the parking lot from the row of houses beyond it and on that fence someone had used black paint to draw something. Looked like a circle with two intersecting lines. A set of crosshairs.
“I’ll skin him and his entire family alive for this,” Ortega barked furiously. He was talking about Dale, of course, but Randy wasn’t so sure he was the culprit. During his attack on the sheriff’s office, Dale hadn’t left any kind of calling card. Didn’t seem to be his style.
A crowd of townspeople had gathered to see what was going on.
“This may be someone else,” Randy said.
“Grab one,” Ortega told his men, pointing toward the group of people gawking at the destruction.
“What are you doing?” Randy asked, afraid of what Edwardo’s temper might lead him to do.
Two of his enforcers approached the crowd, which started to scatter, but not before they grabbed hold of a thin man in his late twenties wearing a gray t-shirt. They dragged him over as he attempted in vain to resist.
“Symbols are important to you,” Edwardo shouted, as though those who had blown up his trucks were listening. “Well, they are important to me too. So here’s what will happen every time you destroy something of mine.” He cocked the hammer back on his pistol and raised it to the man’s head. Randy stepped forward to stop him, but he couldn’t get there before the gun went off, killing the man. The cartel enforcers let his body flop to the floor like a child’s doll.
Randy opened his mouth to say something as Edwardo blew a trail of smoke from the barrel of his gun. “You have something to say, Sheriff?”
“You didn’t need to do that.”
“Oh, but I did,” Edwardo replied. “And if the people in this fine town don’t start falling in line, there’ll be a lot more where that came from.”
Images from the old newsfeeds of ISIS killing large numbers of any who dared oppose them began to flash before Randy’s eyes.
“Now do your job and find out who destroyed my water trucks. Because if you can’t, then I will and you can bet I won’t be nearly as nice.”
Chapter 19
Dale
Watching Colton work the pulley system to lift and lower the retractable stairs was a sight to behold. They had offset it slightly from the middle back window so the opening could still be used as a firing position. More importantly, it meant that they now had more than one option for entering and exiting the house. Like the stone keeps from the Middle Ages, if a threat were to present itself, everyone could quickly enter the house and raise the stairs. Dale also had them include a failsafe in case the addition became stuck or otherwise inoperable. Two pins and key joints could be pulled and the stairs kicked off the metal hinge which held them in place.
“Not bad if I do say so myself,” Colton shouted from the upstairs window.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you were a master carpenter,” Dale cried and gave him a thumbs up.
Standing next to her father, Brooke didn’t look pleased.
“What is it, honey? I thought you’d be happier when the job was finally done.” He wondered if the incident with Nicole was still weighing heavily on her. The whole situation still felt unreal, like watching a movie and somehow knowing in the back of your head that you were seeing scenes from your own life. They had locked Nicole in one of the bedrooms, her hands and feet bound, while they tried to figure out what to do next.
After the group confronta
tion this morning, Ann had retreated to the room she shared with Walter and hadn’t emerged since. Dale wondered if she had told the old man already, part of him hoping that she had kept it to herself. Walter needed his strength in order to heal and get back on his feet. News like that would only derail that process.
“I think the stairs are great,” Brooke said. “What’s not so great is we haven’t seen any other traders, apart from Billy, since the cartel attacked us.”
Dale had noticed the same thing, but had told himself they would eventually return.
“There are items for the house we need,” she said. “Stuff we normally exchanged for jugs of water. It was one of the reasons Sandy and I had to head to the Keller farm to find fertilizer. I just can’t help but feel like each time we head off, we risk driving right into an ambush.”
The thought made the flesh on Dale’s scalp shrink-wrap to his skull. “We’ve been fortunate, I know. But I’m not sure what to tell you. If folks are too afraid to come by, what can we do?”
She glanced up at him. “Maybe if we talk to Billy, he could get the word out that things are safe, at least for now. I think it’s also important people see that we’re doing what we can to contribute.”
Markets in war-torn Third World countries often operated even amid the sound of distant fighting. As US forces had discovered during patrols in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq, finding markets devoid of people was usually a sign of an ambush.
“If they aren’t loyal to us,” she went on, working her diplomatic magic on him, “they may become loyal to Sheriff Gaines or worse, the cartel.”
The thought was indeed a frightening one. Besides, what Brooke was suggesting didn’t involve a long drive. Billy was close enough that he often walked to their place.
“All right,” Dale said at last. “I’ll head over.”
She cocked her head at an angle then drew her lips into a thin line.
“Fine, you can come too.”
Regardless, it would need to be a quick visit, since he’d already begun work on the tunnel and wanted to get another few feet done before dinner. For that, he needed more two-by-fours and sheets of plywood to act as a brace against cave-ins. Perhaps heading to Billy’s wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
•••
After filling the pickup with six jugs of well water and arming themselves appropriately, Dale and Brooke headed out. The drive along Charleston was laughably short, perhaps a mile down the road on the way into town. A few more minutes and they would reach the school, the spot where Zach and his biker boys had been ambushed and slaughtered.
They pulled into Billy’s driveway and killed the engine about the same time the crusty old guy appeared in the doorway, shotgun in hand and attitude aplenty. He had a quaint white bodega-style house, surrounded by all manner of junk. At one time, this might have been considered an eyesore. These days, it was a shopping center.
He squinted as Dale approached.
“Good to see you, Dale,” he said. “Glad to see you brought your lovely daughter instead of that ill-tempered mutt.”
“Duke would be hurt to hear you talk like that,” Dale said, grinning.
“Well, he can kiss my grits.” Billy laughed and then coughed violently into his closed fist. When he was done, he wiped his hand on the leg of his grease-stained jeans and fixed them with a sharp stair. “I know why you’re here.”
He must have seen the plastic bottles of water sloshing around on the bed of the truck.
“Yes, but not only for that,” Dale admitted. “We couldn’t help but notice no one’s been by to trade recently. We wondered if you might spread the word that we’re still very much alive and open for business.”
Billy seemed to consider that as he set the shotgun against a chair. “Believe me, Dale, they know you’re still around. That ain’t the problem.”
“Then what’s keeping them away?” Brooke asked, jumping in.
“Looks just as beautiful as her mother, this one,” Billy said, his tone respectful and brimming with nostalgia.
Dale put an arm around his daughter, who twisted out of his grasp. She wanted to be taken seriously and he admonished himself for letting his fatherly love transform her from the woman she’d become back into the little girl who used to cry to be picked up and cuddled.
“Well, Billy, you gonna answer the young lady?”
Billy’s face darkened. “To put it simply, we been warned not to, Dale. Told by the sheriff and his deputies that trading with you is tantamount to an act of treason and I’m sure you can guess what the punishment for that is. The explosion this morning didn’t help matters.”
“Explosion?” Dale said, surprised.
“You haven’t heard? Cartel brought in a handful of water trucks from across the border and someone went and blew ’em up. Last I heard, some folks thought it was you or that brother-in-law of yours.”
“Zach?”
“Yep. He sure is a loaded pistol, that one.”
Dale shook his head before the words were even out. “I don’t know who did this, but I can assure you it wasn’t any of us. These last few hours we’ve had our own problems to deal with.”
“Oh, I know you weren’t responsible,” Billy told him flat out. “Minute I heard, I figured it was those idiots playing soldier. Think they’re some kind of resistance movement, but I already told you they’re nothing but a bunch of vandals. Apparently, that Ortega fella got so upset he executed a man in cold blood right after it happened. Said he’d do plenty more if those responsible weren’t caught. Seems Sheriff Gaines is gonna have his hands full.”
Following their chat, Dale convinced Billy to trade the wood he needed to help brace the tunnel. It was only after they were done, during that short drive home, that Brooke told him what had really happened at the Keller farm.
“Brooke, I can’t believe you kept that from me,” Dale said, feeling his mood darken even more. The feeling of being so far out of the loop wasn’t a good one.
“I knew you’d only forbid me to set foot off the property again. You’d already convinced yourself Sandy and I couldn’t take care of ourselves. Don’t forget she was a sheriff’s deputy.”
Dale pulled in and then killed the engine. “I’m just thankful neither of you were hurt.”
“Caleb would never do something like that.”
“Caleb? The two of you are on a first-name basis now?”
She smiled. “We went to Encendido High together. He wanted our help, but I told him it was something you’d never want to get mixed up in.”
“And you’d be right,” Dale said, thoughtfully, slowly. “Except things have changed. You heard from Billy how the cartel executed a man. It won’t be long before that isolated incident becomes a daily affair. It was one thing when we were dealing with Randy and Hugh, but now with the cartel killing innocent civilians, the situation’s different.”
“So you’re saying you’re not mad?”
He looked at her, the muscles in his face tense. “I’m saying maybe it’s time you contact Caleb and tell him to set up a meeting with his boss.”
Chapter 20
Not long after, Dale was upstairs knocking on the door to Walter and Ann’s room. She opened the door a crack and poked her head out.
“Can I speak with you?” he asked.
Her eyes fell to her hands and hung there for a moment. “Is it about Nicole?”
He didn’t respond, but he didn’t need to because Ann already knew what this was about. She followed him into an empty room down the hall that Brooke and Colton were sharing.
“Have you told Walter yet?” He was referring to the situation with Nicole.
“I just don’t have the heart to,” she explained, her eyes welling up again. She rubbed them, trying to fight away the tears.
“I get that he’s recovering and the timing isn’t great,” Dale began. “But we need to make a decision and I couldn’t imagine doing that without speaking to him first.”
Intellect
ually, she seemed to understand Dale’s argument. Emotionally, however, the act of sitting down and having that gut-wrenching conversation with her husband was proving too spiny a subject to broach. Much like a rotting molar, the fear of short-term pain often made people endure long-term agony.
When she didn’t say anything, Dale went on. “We should go in and talk to him together.”
“When?” she asked quietly.
“Right now,” he answered.
They left the privacy of that bedroom and headed back to where Walter was recuperating. Both of them entered and stood at the foot of his bed. The night table next to him was littered with rolls of fresh bandages and medical tape. Sitting next to that was a plastic cup with a bendy straw and a dog-eared paperback novel.
Walter opened his eyes and smiled briefly before the corners of his lips dropped into something resembling a frown.
“I’ve only seen that look on Ann’s face one other time,” Walter said. “It was spring of nineteen sixty-two and Doctor Cheevers was trying to tell us we would never have children of our own. I didn’t believe him, not for a damn second, but the look on Ann’s face then—it was like she somehow already knew.”
“I wish we had better news for you, Walter,” Dale said, the fingers of his left hand doing a nervous little dance, perhaps a carryover from a childhood dealing with overbearing parents and disgruntled schoolteachers.
“No one’s dead, I hope,” Walter said, using his elbows to prop himself up in bed.
Ann still wasn’t saying anything and so Dale carried on. He explained what had happened the evening that he had discovered Nicole on the shortwave, speaking with Shane. Predictably, the old man’s face had squished up with acute confusion. Walter sat in stunned silence for several minutes, his gaze drifting toward the window and a striking blue sky outside. Ann remained next to Dale, standing as rigid as a statue, not saying a word.
When he couldn’t take it any longer, Dale finally said, “We’ve discussed what to do about this, but she’s your daughter and I wanted to get both of your opinions before we made a move.”
Defiance: A House Divided (The Defending Home Series Book 2) Page 9
