Time to stop messing around and get to work.
7
Ian
Nearly every minute of the next twenty-four hours pissed me off.
Not a single damned thing went right. Landon got as close as he could to pick us up, but it was still a lot on Wavy’s feet.
She was still insisting she didn’t need medical attention when we dropped her off in front of the town’s lawn and garden store. She insisted that was where she lived most of the time.
I wanted to know more about that—what the hell did most of the time mean?—but forced myself to leave her there on the curb with a thanks and a terse goodbye. Although she assured me she was fine, I still felt like an ass. The look Landon shot me made me feel ten times worse.
I was here in Oak Creek for a purpose. That purpose was not Wavy Bollinger, no matter how engaging and charming she might be.
Landon and I drove back to the Mayors Inn, one of only two hotels in town, where we’d set up rooms to use while we were here.
I showered, got checked out by the doctor one of my assistants had sent, then Landon cleaned and dressed the burn the bullet had left on my arm. Neither of us had to say how lucky I’d been. How lucky Wavy had been too. If those shots had been made by someone a little more skilled at long-distance shooting, both of us would be dead.
As soon as he was done, we began working the case. There was a shit ton to do. First and foremost, uploading what I’d recorded at the Hemingway building to the tech team to see if it provided any actionable intel. Every time I thought about what had been lost when my tablet fell to its death, I had to remind myself to unclench my teeth.
It had been the tablet that had fallen to its death, not me. Living to fight another day was always something to celebrate.
But bad news poured in as the hours went on. First, we found out that Kendrick and Neo hadn’t made any progress on the drive.
Silas Varela, a low-level Mosaic goon, was holding something over Neo’s head to make her sabotage the process. He had evidently hurt her pretty badly—leaving bruises all over her body but only in places no one could easily see. Kendrick found out and was nursing her.
I offered to take Varela out of the picture. We could relieve the pressure on Neo and throw him in a holding cell somewhere until this was all finished. But whatever the man had on her, she wasn’t willing to risk it and wasn’t sharing what it was. Kendrick was still trying to figure it out and needed more time.
Time, one thing we didn’t have.
If this Varela bastard was willing to hurt Neo, then he was willing to hurt others. We needed to do something about that. Kendrick promised to keep reporting back as they made any new progress.
Dead end number one.
“You ready to go back to the scene of the crime?” Landon asked me a few hours after I’d gotten off the phone with Kendrick. “I’ve heard from our law enforcement connection. The warrant to search the Hemingway building has come through. They’re willing to let you walk through with them in an advisory capacity.”
“Contact must be Omega Sector.”
“Yep.”
My interaction with the federal task force had been short-lived. For the past few years, we’d stayed out of each other’s space. That had worked better for all parties.
Of course, for the past few years, we’d thought Mosaic was gone. Interacting with Omega Sector now was inevitable.
I stood, leaving a mass of paperwork around me on the small hotel desk. “Let’s go. I just hope we’re in there soon enough that Mosaic hasn’t been able to wipe everything.”
We both were on the phone as we headed out of Oak Creek back toward Reddington City. The Zodiac tech team was still poring over my phone footage. But if we could get what was actually inside the building, that would give us so much more data about Mosaic.
Landon and I were each talking with different contacts as we arrived in Reddington City. I let out a curse when some sort of police blockade had us circling around the south side of town to come back up to the Hemingway building. Any sort of delay now added to my frustration. Every second gave Mosaic more time to hide their tracks.
When we stopped more than a mile away from the building, I knew that there was a bigger problem. Nothing was moving, at all.
Landon and I got out of the car. As soon as we did, we saw it.
Smoke. A shit ton of smoke farther ahead of us.
People were lined up along the block, watching. Landon walked over to an older lady and gave her one of his charming smiles.
“Do you know what happened here?” he asked her.
She shook her head, tsking. “There is a huge fire in some office buildings up the street. I heard a lot of people died.”
Landon and I looked at each other, then took off running toward the Hemingway building, dodging people as we went. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on, although I hoped I was wrong.
We were able to get past the first set of barricades with a little stealth. But as we got closer, we were stopped by policemen.
One grabbed me by the arm. “Hey, you can’t be here. This is for emergency personnel only.”
I shrugged him off. Landon and I weren’t emergency services. Hell, we didn’t even have a badge. But I could see that it was, in fact, the Hemingway building that was burning.
I needed to get inside to see if there was anything to salvage. I had given nearly everything to stop Mosaic the first time. I wasn’t going to let a uniformed cop who had no idea what was really going on stop me from getting inside. The officer grabbed me again, and I spun, a growl on my lips.
Landon’s hand clamped down on my shoulder. It was the only thing stopping me from doing something that might get my ass thrown in jail, like taking a swing at a cop.
Landon pulled me behind him and shot the officer a smile. “We’re part of the investigative crew. What exactly happened?”
The guy shot me a look but then shrugged. “Buddy, I don’t know, but you can’t be here. I’ve got strict orders. There are a lot of dead people.”
“Thanks, Officer. These two are with me. I’ll take it from here.” A voice came from behind us. I turned to find a man I’d never seen holding up a federal badge. The cop nodded and walked off to go stop someone else from getting too close.
“Callum Webb. Omega Sector sent me as your liaison.”
We shook the man’s hand. Webb was tall, standing eye-to-eye with my own six-foot one, with dark hair and eyes. Early-thirties and fit—and an awareness in his eyes like every Omega Sector agent I’d met, like my Zodiac team did. His suit may have been off the rack at a relatively inexpensive store, but he was ready to move if needed.
“I’m Ian DeRose. This is Landon Black.”
Callum nodded. “I know who you are. I was actually around when you went up against Mosaic the first time, but you wouldn’t have known me.”
“We need to get into that building.” I pointed towards the smoke.
He shook his head. “Nope. I’ve already checked. Firefighters only. Too crispy.”
Goddammit. “What the hell happened?”
Callum led us a little out of the way as more emergency personnel ran forward. “I’m still finding that out. Official word is catastrophic electrical failure, which caused a pretty massive explosion. So far, we have at least eight dead bodies.”