this threat absolutely seriously. I want you all to get up and leave the ballroom in an orderly fashion. Please exit the building and go to your cars. Emergency vehicles will be arriving shortly. Please do not impede them.”
Maybe 10 percent of the people in the ballroom rose and began making their way to the exit. The rest sat where they were, looking at each other. A torrent of voices filled the air. Someone shouted, “What about our coats?”
Russ leaned toward the mike to tell him what he could do with his damn coat. From the back of the room, a voice that could bounce off the walls cut him off. “Staff members are taking all the coats outside. As soon as you’re past the portico, you can collect your belongings.”
“Isn’t that Reverend Fergusson?” Cameron asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Russ said, smiling slightly. “You.” He turned to the head-table occupants. “Get out. Now.”
Louisa van der Hoeven stood unsteadily. “Did my brother have something to do with this?”
Russ paused. He figured either Eugene, Millie, or a combination of the two was responsible for the explosives. What the hell did Louisa van der Hoeven know that would make her jump to the same conclusion? “We consider him one of the prime suspects,” he said cautiously.
She turned to her dinner companions. “Then it’s serious. Get the hell out before the place goes up like a tinderbox.” She lurched around the end of the table and took off for the door. As more and more people rose and headed toward the entryway, the mood changed from skepticism to alarm to panic. Russ saw Shaun Reid, cell phone clamped to his ear, dragged by his wife across the dance floor. Several people began running. A woman screamed. At the other end of the ballroom, there was a booming sound as the doors to the adjacent conference area were opened. A petite woman in a severely chic black suit stood next to one and yelled, “You may exit through these doors and then out into the lobby! You may exit through these doors and then out into the lobby!” As the human tide stopped, changed direction, and began to flow toward her, she fought her way to the now-empty dance floor.
“I’m Barbara LeBlanc, the manager,” she said when she reached them. “We’re clearing the hotel right now. What else can we do?”
He motioned toward the retreating crowd, shoving and pushing to get out the doors. “Let’s start by getting as far away as possible from these crates.”
She followed him toward the dwindling mass of people, looking over her shoulder at the floor in front of the head table. “That’s them?”
“That’s them.”
“Could we move them? Some of those glass panels are doors to the terrace outside.”
He shook his head. “We don’t know when they’re going to go off. I don’t want anybody touching them.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “You have a sprinkler system in here?”
“Of course.”
“Is there some way to jimmy it so it starts without a fire? If we gave the crates a good drenching, it might help.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” She turned toward the kitchen.
“Ms. LeBlanc,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Why don’t I hear a general evacuation klaxon?”
She looked embarrassed. “The system’s not up and running yet. This is our opening night.” She cut across the almost empty room and vanished through the kitchen doors.
“This is an opening night like the
“I’m trying,” the mayor said dryly. “Unfortunately, these people jamming the lobby don’t recognize that rank hath its privilege.”
Russ was distracted from replying by the sight of Clare, free of her fur, shoving against the crowd to get back inside the doors to the ballroom. Away from safety. Toward danger. “Typical,” he said under his breath. He slapped Cameron on the back and pointed to where the crush of bodies was thinnest. “Get on the phone as soon as you’re safe,” he said. “We don’t need any foot-dragging or turf games among the emergency response units. You can help cut through that.”
The mayor nodded. “Good luck.” He slipped away.
Russ snagged Clare by the arm. “Why the hell aren’t you outside?” He spoke loudly. It sounded as if the entire population of Millers Kill were jammed inside the lobby.
She laughed. “I didn’t know we had all this time,” she yelled. “Now I wish I had let Hugh get the wine out of-”
The ballroom behind them exploded.
Shaun’s cell phone burbled just as Russ Van Alstyne took the podium. He glanced at the number displayed and flipped the phone open. Usually, Courtney would have handed him his head on a platter for taking a call at the table, but she was staring, transfixed, at where Russ was going on about something and didn’t seem to notice anything else.
“Hi, Jeremy,” he said. “Where are you?”
“God, Dad, you were right! I followed her car, and she drove straight to the mill.”
“The old mill? Or the new mill?”
Jeremy sounded confused. “The new mill. I mean, she can probably see the old mill from where she’s parked, but it wouldn’t do her much good to stage an accident there. What’s that noise in the background?”
That noise was two hundred and forty chairs scraping, thumping, falling over as their occupants scrambled to get out of the ballroom. Courtney grabbed Shaun by the hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go!”
“Dad?”
Courtney plowed through the crowd, elbows flying, hauling Shaun along in her wake. “I’m here, son,” he said into the phone.
“What’s going on?”
Christ, if he told Jeremy the truth, he’d do ninety all the way up from town to be here for the crisis. And Shaun needed him at Reid-Gruyn, keeping an eye on the blackmailing bitch, making sure they didn’t move Millie van der Hoeven out of the old mill.
“It’s sort of like intermission,” he said. “Everyone’s up and stretching their legs before the dancing starts.” He and Courtney squeezed through the entryway shoulder to shoulder with at least ten others. The lobby was filling up rapidly. He clamped his hand over the phone. “Look, you head outside and get your coat. I’m going to step down the hall a ways and finish this call.”
“Shaun, the police chief said to get out!”
“Honey, it’s probably just a prank. Most of these bomb threats are. I’ll be out as soon as I can.”
She looked doubtful, but she released him. He strode quickly away from the noisy, panicked hubbub of the lobby.
“Jeremy?”
“Yeah. Are you sure everything is okay?”
“Yes. It’s quieter now. People are going back inside. Look, have you seen anyone leave the old mill?”
“No.” Jeremy’s voice was equal parts confusion and suspicion. “Why would there be?”
“I think the woman you followed has at least two accomplices and that they’re hiding out in there.”
“Dad, are these employees? ’Cause if they are-”
“No, they’re not.” He looked behind him. The mob in the lobby was flexing like a living thing now, one part desperately trying to get out, the other part determined to stay put. He could see uniformed staff forcibly preventing guests from getting onto the elevators, presumably in order to retrieve their belongings. “But I suspect they’re working with someone inside. If we’re going to find out who, we can’t call the police.” He came down hard on those last words. “I want you to-”
But he didn’t get out what he wanted Jeremy to do. There was a horrific sound, a death scream of wood and
