People were huddled in corners and underneath tables, while a woman, a teenaged boy, and two men lay dead. Rifles lay beside the two men. The woman and teen had been shot in what could have become one of the worst mass shootings on American soil. I could only assume they didn’t have time to mix the Kool-Aid, so they were taking out the members with bullets one by one.
The men had clearly had their necks snapped, compliments of my husband.
I ran to the woman and boy and knelt beside them. Feeling for any sign of life. There was none.
Reyes came back through a doorway and did some kind of military gang signs to Garrett, sending him into the room he’d just come from.
“Reyes.” I rushed to him but took great care when I walked into his arms, trying not to cling. Failing as my arms locked around him. As my fingers curled into his shirt.
He seemed completely unfazed by his injuries as he stared down at me.
“The Fosters?” I asked.
He shook his head. “They’re here somewhere. They have to be.”
Damn it. I’d lost track of them when I went all tornado. Which, who knew that was possible? Show of hands.
Uncle Bob raced in then with several uniforms. They checked the bodies and began assessing the other Diviners.
Ubie took Reyes’s hand in a firm shake. “You’ve looked better.”
“So have you,” he teased.
“Hey,” I said, interrupting, “where the hell are we?”
They both grinned. “We’re near a town called Datil,” Ubie said, “just west of Socorro.”
Socorro was south of Albuquerque. That part I knew. Had been to the pretty town many times. But Datil? “There’s a Datil, New Mexico?”
“There is. Your dad never told you about it? The area is gorgeous. Your dad wanted to put in a ski resort and call it Ski Datil. Get it?”
I laughed into Reyes’s shirt, and he pulled me closer, wrapping a large hand around my head and kissing the top of it.
Uncle Bob cleared his throat and placed an uncomfortable gaze on my husband. “I hate to be a downer, Farrow, but did you get shot?”
He shrugged and pulled me tighter. “I wasn’t the only one.” When I signaled him with a look of panic, he gestured toward the back room, and said, “There are three more victims in there.”
“Damn,” I said. “How many did they kill before you got to them?”
“Five.”
“Any…?” I lowered my head. “Any children?”
He gestured toward the teen. “Besides that kid, no. It looks like some of the adults were protecting them.”
My heart broke. Odds were most of those people just wanted a home. A safe place to live and raise their children. They probably showed up with only the clothes on their backs, and the Fosters took advantage of that.
Medical swarmed in, and we were officially on active duty as Uncle Bob supervised the rescue efforts. We began ushering people out. I leaned down and helped an elderly woman to her feet, then I recognized her as the one who’d been holding Dawn Brooks.
“Where is Dawn?” I asked her.
Shaking a fragile finger, she pointed to a cabinet. “I stashed her in there when the shooting started.”
“Bless you.”
Reyes took hold of her arm as I dove for the cabinet.
“I didn’t even know they had guns here,” she added.
I opened the cabinet door and peeked inside. Huddled in the farthest corner was a tiny ball of curls. “Dawn?” I said gently. She shook and was crying into her dress. “Dawn Brooks? I’m here to take you home.”
She dared a peek at me, her face hopeful. She wanted to trust me, but she’d been through a lot. I didn’t rush anything. I sat beside the open cabinet and gave her time to adjust to my presence. After a few moments, I held out my hand. She eyed it, then slowly reached out to me. I pulled her out of the cabinet and lifted her into my arms.
“Are you uh angel?”
I laughed softly. She did have a gift. The Fosters were right. “I get that a lot. But, no, I’m not. I’m just a girl like you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t fink so.”
Oh yeah. She rocked.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and refused to let go the rest of the night, even as I saw after Shawn, made sure he was the first one taken to the hospital. Even as I asked Diviner after Diviner where the Fosters were. None of them knew. Well, almost none. A couple of the higher-ups knew more than they were letting on, but short of torturing them with a three-year-old in my arms, I saw no way to get the information out of them.
They were devout. Not to their faith or their religion. To the Fosters. Getting information out of them would take some time.
I called Cookie, who was frantic. Worried sick. At her wit’s end. And I’d better not forget it. I’d taken ten years off her life. Ten good years she could have used to explore Europe. But all that was null and void because I’d shaved those years right off.
I loved that woman so.
By 2:00 A.M., things were not calming down at all. It seemed like every emergency services vehicle in a five-hundred-mile radius was on scene as well as reporters and the average lookie-loo. A small hotel-slash-restaurant from Datil, the Eagle Guest Ranch, provided coffee and water and sandwiches to the emergency crew, and a church group from Socorro provided blankets to the Diviners since they couldn’t go back inside to get their things.
Ubie walked up to me. “Pumpkin, you’ve had a long day. Maybe you should go home.”
I was still holding Dawn. We’d wrapped her in a blanket, and she’d fallen asleep, her head on my shoulder, her warm breath on my neck. I doubted I’d ever get the feeling back in my arm again, but it was so worth it.