“That’s why I couldn’t place him, at first,” said Earl. “He just got released a few months ago.”
Corrigan spoke up. “The men he has with him, they’re—”
“Members of his militia, yeah,” said Earl. “That tattoo, with the crossed rifles and the fist? That’s their symbol.”
“So he’s reforming his militia. But what’s he doing here?” I asked.
Earl let out a long sigh. “Been trying to figure that out myself. Drove by the mining company. Some of the razor wire was missing from the top of a wall. The place was all shut down on account of the snow, but I called the boss and had him come in and yep, they’ve had a break in. They’re making a list of what’s missing now.” He shook his head. “But what would they want with mining equipment?”
Corrigan thought for a moment. When he spoke again, he had a sick look on his face. “Earl, do they keep explosives there?”
Earl drew in his breath...and nodded.
Oh Jesus. So an ultra-right militia was in our town and they were stealing explosives? “We have to get some help,” I croaked.
Earl nodded. “I’ll call the FBI. I don’t care if the roads are blocked, this is too big. They can send a damn helicopter if they have to.” He pulled out his phone, then frowned at the screen. “Dammit! Check yours.”
Corrigan pulled his out. I ran to the locker room and got mine. None of us had a signal. “The wind must have taken out the cell tower,” said Earl. “It’s right at the top of the hill, pretty exposed.”
We were completely cut off. Not only couldn’t we call for help, we couldn’t send a warning. Oh God... Colt could do anything here, and no one would even know.
We heard the main doors to the ER slide open and a blast of frozen air lifted the curtains. All three of us raced out just in time to see a man stagger in. He was barely through the doors when he fell forward—he would have hit the floor if Corrigan hadn’t grabbed him under the arms.
The guy was in his twenties with short, sandy hair and a light build: he could have been any college kid from the city. But he was in a bad way. His jeans were soaked through and clinging to him, his jacket—a light thing, no more substantial than a dishtowel—was plastered with snow and frost caked his hair and eyelashes. And he was trying to say something, but he was too weak and frozen to get the words out. “So,” he said, looking right at me. “So.”
“He’s ice cold,” said Corrigan. “Heated blankets, warm saline, now!”
The ER came alive as we lifted the man up onto a bed. I winced as I saw his fingers. They looked as if they were about to burst, skin stretched tight over swollen redness. I’d never seen frostbite before. Corrigan saw me looking and gave me a little shake of his head when the patient wasn’t looking: he was probably going to lose at least some of his fingers.
“So,” said the man again. His eyes were pleading, desperate to tell us something but his lips, his jaw, his vocal cords were all too cold to work properly. While the others swaddled him in blankets and got an IV going, I tried to understand. He was getting more frantic, not less, even though we were helping him, so it wasn’t himself he was worried about. I looked down at his clothes. His jeans were soaked right up to the waist, like he’d waded here through deep drifts. And he was so cold, he must have been walking for hours. Someone was out there, in the snow, way out of town.
“Sophie,” he managed at last.
24
Dominic
“No,” said Bartell. “Absolutely not!”
I pointed through the ER’s glass doors to the world outside. “It’s, what, ten degrees out there? The sun’s going to be down in an hour and then it’s going to get even colder. She’s already been out there for hours, she can’t have long left.”
“You’re a doctor,” Bartell told me. “Not a paramedic!”
“We don’t have any fucking paramedics!” I snapped. “We’re it!”
As Sophie’s boyfriend had warmed up, he’d managed to tell us how their car had slewed off the road, up in the hills outside town. How she was trapped in the wreckage and, with the cell service down, he’d been forced to hike for hours through the snow to get help.
Bartell ran a hand through his hair, gave an exhausted sigh, and nodded. “The roads will be blocked,” he warned.
“Yeah,” I muttered, pulling on my thick orange parka. “I’ll have to drive as far as I can and then walk the rest of the way.” I started throwing medical gear into a paramedic bag.
A field surgery kit landed in the bag. I spun around and found Beckett standing there, jaw set in determination.