The Terror (A Sarah Roberts Thriller Book 18) Read online

  Without checking his blind spot, he slammed the pedal down. The van shot forward. At the next set of lights, a police cruiser was parked on the side of the road, its lights rotating slowly. Two red sawhorses blocked the road. As John drew closer, he read the words stenciled across them.

  Police Line Do Not Cross.

  “Don’t, John,” Susan said, barely loud enough to be heard over the revving engine. “You always have to make a scene,” she shouted, louder now. “Just don’t.”

  Susan wouldn’t tell him what to do anymore.

  John tried to maneuver around the sawhorses, but couldn’t. One of them bounced off the front bumper and shot sideways, the crack of wood like the sound of a slap across someone’s fleshy cheek.

  “Stop the van,” Susan said beside him, her voice broken, gone to tears. “Stop! I want out.”

  Someone shouted outside the van. John paid them no attention. Susan, his girlfriend, his lovely woman, the bitch that always had to control his life, control everything, was willing to walk away. She was willing to leave.

  He slammed on the brakes. They rocked forward, then slammed back into their seats as the van came to a complete stop.

  “Get the fuck out!” He tried to lunge across her but got tangled up in his own seatbelt and ended up banging his shoulder into her left forearm. She cried out in pain while using her good hand to open the door.

  At the same second Susan spilled sideways from the van, her face a mask of wet redness, someone slapped the window beside John’s head.

  Startled, he whipped around so fast a wave of dizziness came over him.

  A pretty blonde girl—more woman than girl—stared at him, a calm but frantic look in her eyes. She tried his locked door.

  Susan’s friend Nancy. It had to be.

  “Open up, John!” the woman yelled as she pounded on the window like a lunatic. “Get out of the van.”

  Of course Nancy would know his name.

  Nancy eased away from the window, then backed up quickly as a small contingency of police officers ran toward her.

  “You will die if you stay in the van.” The woman’s face changed to a look of panic. “Get out now, while you still have a chance.” As she moved even farther from the van, her lips formed the words, I’m sorry.

  In that brief second, John couldn’t believe that Susan had set him up that well. Why would Nancy be saying she was sorry? Susan had played him the entire time. She was trying to force him to meet her friends. But to what end? Why was it so damn important? And what would Nancy have to apologize for?

  John had been given a glimpse of how protective Susan’s friends were. That Nancy would run up to the van as Susan jumped out and try John’s door, pounding on the window, yelling at him to get out, only told him that Susan could keep her friends. He didn’t need them. And he certainly didn’t need her.

  “Fuck all y’all.”

  The passenger door remained open. The street was oddly empty. Not a soul to be seen. Susan was gone. It was over.

  A smile cut his lips sideways.

  “Good riddance, bitch.” John hit the gas. “Fuck you to glory hell, whore bitch.”

  Then John was no more.

  Chapter 3

  Sarah continued moving away from the van after mouthing the words, I’m sorry. Several officers held her arms as they guided her back to safety.

  The van’s engine revved. It shot forward, then lifted off the ground as something exploded in the rear of the van. The shock wave knocked Sarah’s entourage to the sidewalk. She shook her head, trying to clear the dull ringing in her ears. The red van rolled forward until it butted up against the building beside the Scotia Bank. Flames licked up and out of the rear windows that had been blown out.

  The B.C. Health Services building was going to have a burn mark unless the fire department got into action fast enough.

  Sarah rolled to her side and managed to clamber to her feet. The three uniformed men beside her also stood. She closed her eyes and listened. Vivian was trying to tell her something. It was important. The plea in Vivian’s voice was evident around the ringing in her head.

  What is it? Sarah shouted internally.

  Her sister’s words came through loud and clear.

  “Get down,” Sarah yelled as she bent over and waved her arms. “There’s another bomb.”

  No one moved. Not a single person responded, their hearing jeopardized from the blast. Officers on the street watched as the van burned, while others kept back from the heat of the flames. A firetruck barreled along Bernard Avenue making its way to the burning minivan.

  A stinging drop of sweat fell into her right eye. She had to blink it away, then rub her eye. This was madness. Being deafened by the first blast would wind up killing so many more as they converged on the van to extinguish the flames licking out the back when the second blast came.

  In thirty seconds, another bomb would take the doors off the van.

  Sarah grabbed the cop beside her, spun him around, snatched the gun from his holster, then shoved him away from her. He pivoted quickly and lunged for the gun, clinging onto her wrist, his mouth emitting some kind of shout, but she couldn’t hear him over the ringing in her own ears.

  She pulled her hand out of his grip easily enough. After a quick step back for room, she raised the weapon and clicked off the safety.

  The firetruck’s siren broke through the ringing in her ears. Sound was returning and that truck was getting too close.

  At any moment, she expected a bullet for her efforts. Stealing a cop’s gun and lowering it to aim at the firetruck was enough for another officer to shoot her. She only hoped she was too quick for any of them to respond.

  She aimed at the approaching vehicle and fired into the large, square grill. The driver reacted instantly by spinning the wheel and heading toward the opening that turned onto Ellis Street to his left, away from the burning red van.

  Six seconds …

  Wild with panic to keep people away from the van, Sarah screamed and jumped into the middle of the street.

  Five seconds …

  From the corner of her eye she saw Parkman trying to pull Officer Lee’s arms off him. Another cop jumped in, subduing Parkman, his face a mask of fear and anguish.

  Several uniformed officers lined the sidewalks, weapons trained on Sarah. A brave cop stepped toward her, arms extended, empty palms facing her, his mouth working. It looked like he was saying, calm down.

  They didn’t want to shoot her. She knew this intuitively. She was an invited guest. She had known about the bomb. She was Officer Lee’s pet project and no one wanted to kill that.

  But aiming the gun at a cop was a surefire way to get shot herself, regardless. In the highly anti-cop environment society had taken on, the police weren’t taking any chances.

  Four seconds …

  In retrospect, this might have been a mistake. Stealing an officer’s weapon would have consequences. Aiming it at a cop, dire ones.

  “There’s another bomb in the van,” she shouted, her voice distinctly different because she only heard it internally. “Stay back.”

  The van was close. Too close to her.

  Three seconds …

  Vivian’s whisper, a caress in her inner ear. A welcoming, comforting voice. She needed to get away from the van. The urge to hold her ground for a few more seconds warred with the urge to run at full tilt toward safety.

  The prophecy said a man and a woman would die in the blast. But the girl got out of the van in time. The man didn’t. Sarah had stood at the driver’s side door, banging on the window. She’d looked inside. Only John had remained in the vehicle.

  Two seconds …

  Her heart fluttered in her chest as if someone had reached in under her rib cage and squeezed it with their hands.

  A woman would die, too.

  She was the only woman standing close to the van.

  Vivian?

  A cop lunged at Sarah, scrambling for the weapon. Sarah reacted by drop
ping the gun and jumping back in the same instant.

  One second. Run!

  Sarah jumped, twisted her body while still in the air, and as if in a slow-motion movie reel, landed on her left foot, her right sweeping in a wide arc. She connected with the cop’s shin, altering his trajectory.

  At the exact second the cop hit the ground awkwardly and tumbled into a roll on the cement, Sarah was already leaping away off her good foot.

  She made it three steps before she dove for the ground.

  The second blast came, bigger than the first.

  From her perspective, the ground seemed to take forever to reach her. She landed on her right shoulder, took the hit hard, and rolled four times before coming to a stop. The ringing in her ears increased as she lifted her head and grunted.

  The shock wave had prolonged her dive, thrusting her fifteen feet past where she had been standing with the cop. His unconscious face had black patches on the cheeks and forehead, but his chest still moved.

  She lowered her head and focused on getting to her feet. Bent over, hands on her knees, trying to collect her breath and slow her heart, someone stepped up to her.

  Parkman.

  His hand rested on her back.

  He knew why she stole the weapon and discharged it at the firetruck. He knew it was to warn people away, to save people who couldn’t hear her pleas.

  A thankless job. A dangerous job.

  She straightened up and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. He offered her a subtle nod, then led her back to the command station where Lee was waiting for them.

  Firetrucks were coming in again, the threat to their safety eliminated. Two officers surrounded the two paramedics tending to the brave cop who had come at Sarah.

  Lee was saying something, but Sarah couldn’t hear him. She looked away and watched as crew after crew of emergency personnel stepped in to do their jobs. They were the real heroes here. They donned their uniforms every day and did this sort of thing for strangers.

  The only difference was they were bound to appear on scenes after calamity. Sarah on the other hand, appeared before calamity. But what good was that if she couldn’t do a better job and stop the chaos from happening in the first place?

  She allowed Parkman to lead her inside where a paramedic checked her over with a small flashlight. He did something with cotton swabs in her ears. Cops came and went, some offering her looks of gratitude, others snarls of anger. She wasn’t well-liked in these parts. Stealing a weapon and shooting into a firetruck wouldn’t win her any points with the RCMP.

  Shuffling sounds, clicking, fabric rustling came to her. Voices made it down her ear canals.

  Then Officer Lee was in front of her. He jerked his head to the side and walked away.

  “C’mon, Sarah,” Parkman shouted beside her. “Lee wants to talk.”

  She allowed herself to be led by Parkman, her right shoulder still aching.

  A man and a woman would die.

  But only the man died as far as she knew. Did she save the woman? Could she, even after Vivian said it was in their blueprint? Lives were planned before people came here to live their lives out. Sarah wasn’t authorized—nor was Vivian—to alter a person’s blueprint. Only when death wasn’t in the cards could Sarah step in and stop it. Free will allowed people to act in any way they wanted. But when that free will not only impinged on others, but hurt them, or worse, killed them, causing far-reaching consequences, then Vivian and Sarah could step in as was part of Sarah’s new understanding.

  When Vivian said the bomb was coming and a man and a woman would die in the blast and there was nothing Sarah could do to save those two, Sarah believed her. By telling her where the bomb would detonate saved dozens of lives because the police had cleared the street. According to Vivian, that had to be good enough.

  Lee led them through a clothing store that had been converted to a rudimentary command post. At the back in the employee lunch room, he cleared out two officers, pointed for Parkman and Sarah to enter, then slammed the door behind him.

  “What the fuck was that?” Lee shouted, his white blonde hair mussed from exhaustion. His glasses slipped down the sweat on his nose, and he pushed them back up. He held a hand to his side as if it ached.

  Sarah didn’t have to read his lips anymore. Her hearing was coming back enough that Lee’s shouting was discernible.

  “What was what?” she asked. Her mouth suddenly dry, she glanced around for a water cooler or a sink. A small fridge sat on a table in the corner. She walked over to it, found a bottle of water inside, and drank half in one go.

  “You almost done?” Lee asked.

  “Hey,” Parkman cautioned, a hand raised, voice tinged with aggression. “Take it easy. I saw what happened, too. Sarah saved lives today. Lighten up here.”

  “She stole a fucking gun,” Lee screamed, a thick vein pulsing down the center of his forehead. “A cop’s gun! She could’ve been killed out there.”

  “But she wasn’t, was she?” Parkman shouted back, taking a step toward Lee.

  Lee blinked in surprise at Parkman’s aggression.

  “You may want to rethink your position here,” Lee said, his voice a notch lower.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Lee. It’s you who needs to rethink what you’ve done here.”

  Lee crossed his arms. “How’s that?”

  Parkman pointed at Sarah. “You invited her here to stop that madness.” He pointed toward the door. “And she did just that. Did you stop to think why she took that gun when no one could hear her warning them off?” Parkman waved his finger back and forth while shaking his head. “Sarah’s no idiot. She knew the second bomb was coming. And when no one could hear her, she did the next best thing at great risk—infinite risk—to herself.” Now he pointed back at Sarah. “She saved lives at the risk of her own because that’s what Sarah does. What she does not need is a lecture on her actions after the fact.”

  Parkman stepped back, took a deep breath, and turned away from Lee. He walked to the lunchroom wall, placed an open-palmed hand on it and leaned into the wall.

  Sarah downed the rest of the water as Lee, arms still crossed, faced her, seemingly unfazed by Parkman’s outburst.

  “Sarah?” Lee said.

  “Yeah?” She had collected herself, calmed her heart rate, and was feeling cold in the air-conditioned back room after coming in from the outside covered in sweat.

  “You gonna play a little nicer when helping the authorities in the future?”

  “I do what I have to. If I can play nice, I will. If not, I won’t.”

  “Who decides?” Lee asked.

  “Certainly not you. At least not where I’m concerned. And I would hope you don’t let anyone ever decide for you how you’re going to act in any given situation. I can’t be placed in a box, Lee.”

  “What I meant was, am I talking to you or Vivian?”

  “One and the same.” She capped the water bottle and tossed it in the recycle bin.

  Lee stole a glance at Parkman, who was now leaning his back against the wall, arms crossed. Sarah knew it bothered him to shout at Lee, but Parkman had to be riled up after seeing what Sarah had just done and how close she was to being killed by the people she was there to save.

  “Sarah?” Lee said. “Do you know why you weren’t shot when you aimed the gun at that firetruck?”

  She shrugged. “Luck?”

  “I called out the order to not fire at you. I waved them off. I ordered my men to stand down.”

  “So I have you to thank for saving my life? Is that it?” She walked closer to him. “Look, I’m not trying to be a prick here. I’m just doing what I do and at the time, getting that gun and warning people away from the van was the best I could come up with. At the second it popped into my head,” she tapped her temple, “another thought came to me from Vivian. She said I would be okay. That understanding was like a comfort blanket for me. So I went with it and here I am. All okay.”

  Lee uncrossed h
is arms, and opened his mouth to say something, but a knock on the door stopped him. He half turned toward the door.

  “Yes?” he shouted.

  “Officer Corey Hallagan, sir,” a man’s muffled voice came through the door.

  “Open it,” Lee called.

  The door opened and a tall, barrel-chested RCMP cop in uniform stepped just inside the door, hand still on the knob.