“Oh, shit. Sorry, sheriff.”
“Whoa. Colby. Just the person I was looking for.”
“Sorry. Can’t stay. Gotta go.”
“It’s important. It’s about Alby.”
He stopped and expected Johnson to tell him that Alby had murdered his mother.
“You think we can head out back, somewhere it’s not so loud?” Colby agreed and followed him out a side door and across a parking lot into an enclosed yard where there was a swimming pool and a smaller guest house. The drone of music faded as they disappeared behind trees and bushes.
“I’m regretting letting Dylan stay here now,” Johnson said as he made his way over to the pool. There were lots of leaves floating on the top of water that had turned a dark shade of green. Johnson continued. “Look, there is no easy way of saying this.”
“She’s dead, right?” he asked.
“What? Who? Who’s dead?”
Colby squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “Nothing. What were you about to say?”
“It’s Alby. I wondered if you’d seen him? It’s just that uh…” He was having difficulties finding the words or maybe it was because he was embarrassed. “He escaped custody. There was a transfer and…”
“I know.”
“What? How do you know? Were you involved?”
“No. Word spreads fast.”
“Damn it.” Johnson brought a hand up to his head and ran it over his dark hair. He was younger than Wilder by about five years. He was in his mid-forties, blue eyes, single, no kids. Since arriving back in Humboldt, Colby hadn’t seen him out of uniform and since taking over he already looked as if he’d aged ten years. “I was hoping to keep this under lock and key for a while until I could…”
“Find him?”
Johnson shifted from one foot to the next, placing a hand on his service weapon. “I want to find out where the others went. It’s not him that I’m concerned about as much as it is what happened.” He paused for a second. “What do you know about John Boone?”
“He was among them?” Colby asked.
“Yeah.” Johnson gripped his sheriff’s hat with both hands in front of him.
“He’s bad news. His family makes the Stricklands look like upstanding citizens. They are known for dealing in hard drugs. They have a farm up in the hills. Originally transients. A family that was a thorn in the side of both of our families until John got put away. One thing is for sure. If he’s out now and he hasn’t left the county — you can expect a wave of trouble.”
“Look, can you find out where Alby is? Speak to him?”
“You want me to bring him in?”
Johnson looked off across the yard to a stone garden. “Under normal conditions. Yes. But with all the crap that has happened, I would rather just not see him again. If you know what I mean.” He looked back at Colby. “We simply don’t have the resources that we did in the first few months. Following the guidelines to release low-level offenders was a godsend. I mean, I don’t want them out there any more than residents do and that’s why we were transferring the worst ones south, and the rest would be released.” He took a deep breath. “I trust you, Colby. Dan spoke highly of you and out of all your family you seem to be the only one with a level head. If Alby returned, speak to him. Find out what happened. Find out who killed those correctional officers. And then see to it that Alby doesn’t show his face again or the people of this town might string him up.”
“I expect the Stricklands will do that before anyone else.” He nodded. “Okay, look, I’ll…”
He was just about to continue when an enormous explosion rocked the town. The two of them turned to witness a fireball shooting up into the night sky, followed by another explosion, and then more.
“That’s coming from ward one,” Johnson said.
Chapter Six
It was chaotic in the streets but the response to the explosion was fast. There hadn’t been a fire in the town since the mall was devoured. Since then they had developed an effective system that didn’t rely on the firefighters but instead utilized all residents and the nearby rivers and bay. Without power they had to resort to an old-fashioned bucket brigade, where the response to a fire was handled by the community.
Residents would pass their buckets along a line of people for the water to be dumped on a fire. It worked but was slow. A fire could rage out of control and burn an entire building down by the time they got enough water there. That’s why they’d already taken the necessary steps to ensure they had water ready in every ward. Lots of buckets and rain barrels were filled and stored on the back of stalled trucks spread throughout neighborhoods.
When those were empty, they could refill them using the waterways nearby.
Even though they lived right beside a bay, it was still too far to form a line from the bay to each of the wards. That’s why they relied heavily on the nearby rivers. Ward one was surrounded by the Martin Slough, a steady flow that was part of the Elk River watershed and fed into Humboldt Bay.
By the time Colby and Johnson made their way out, most in the mansion had spilled out onto the streets, expecting to find the city had been overrun. It hadn’t, at least that they knew. The commotion was focused on the south end. Residents mounted horses and galloped away, old ’70s trucks pulled off into the night, and a siren wailed as police manning army trucks headed toward the disaster.
“Alicia,” Colby shouted, getting her attention as she emerged.
“You can come with me,” Johnson said, beckoning them toward his truck. “It’ll be faster.” As they got in, an amber glow formed above the homes of ward one. Another explosion erupted followed by another. As Johnson crushed the accelerator, he got on the radio. They had
