“We’ll catch up later.” Lydia rolled her shoulders and released a long breath.
Bree smiled. “When we both slow down. Tell Kate hi for me. She’s been asking me about being a doctor.”
“She has?” She should know that, but she and her seventeen-year-old sister had clashed a lot since she’d become her guardian last year.
“Yes, she doesn’t think she can work with animals like you and your dad, but she’s interested in the medical field. See you.”
Lydia watched Bree weave through the tables starting to fill up with people coming in for an early lunch. She scanned the bistro, trying to decide whether to stay and eat or order and take it back to the Aurora Animal Hospital down the street, the veterinary practice she inherited from her father when he died last year. They treated large and small animals as well as the Northern Frontier SAR dogs and the K-9s that worked with the police.
Her gaze settled on Melinda, the owner of the restaurant, talking to a man with dark brown hair sticking out of a black ball cap. The guy took Melinda’s hand and moved closer. Was this Todd, the boyfriend she’d been telling Lydia about this past month?
Lydia started to look away to give them some privacy when she spied the man lean toward Melinda, a furious expression on his face. Melinda jerked her hand from his grasp, and the guy pivoted and stormed away, passing Lydia’s table.
She averted her look toward a man and a young woman sitting at the table next to her. She knew the guy. He worked at the drugstore—
“Sorry you saw that, Lydia.”
She looked up at Melinda. “I’m the one sorry for staring. Are you all right?”
The bistro owner waved her hand. “Boyfriend problems. He isn’t too happy with me at the moment.” Melinda slipped into the chair next to Lydia. “How have you been?”
“Tired. I had to operate on one of the K-9 dogs that was hurt at the church bomb site. It’s been all over the news.”
“That’s what everyone’s been talking about. Two bombings close together.”
Lydia shivered when she thought about the pictures she’d seen on the news. “I know some police officers, and they’re working overtime.”
“Yeah, I heard there’s no connection between the hardware store and the church, but they were only ten days apart. Do you think it’s the same person? Have you heard if it’s the same MO?”
“It sounds like it. Both times there was a laugh track that sounded seconds before the bomb went off.”
“What a sick person!” Melinda rose. “Are you going to eat lunch here or order takeout since Bree left?”
“Takeout. The veggie wrap.”
“It shouldn’t take too long.” Melinda headed for the kitchen in the back.
Glad to be sitting for a few minutes, Lydia glanced at the different people coming into the bistro. Some she recognized because they were regulars, like herself, but a couple were new to her—a young, petite woman with an older gentleman, a young man with long brown hair and a bald man about thirty-five or forty. She loved to people watch. She’d once considered being a writer, but her love of animals clinched her decision to be a vet and follow in her father’s footsteps. She’d hoped that decision would reconcile them. It hadn’t.
Before Melinda brought her takeout, she made her way down a long hallway to the restroom. A man slipped out the exit door at the end of the corridor. Odd, it wasn’t used much.
A few minutes later as she came out of the woman’s bathroom and paused, she panned the dining area, pleased to see the restaurant doing so well. But one of the new customers had left. Maybe the bistro didn’t serve what he wanted. She noticed Melinda carrying a takeout bag toward the table where she’d been sitting.
But before Lydia moved forward, a blast of maniacal-sounding laughter resonated through the restaurant. Melinda dropped the sack, a look of horror on her face. Lydia took only two steps back into the hallway before her world exploded.
* * *
Sergeant Jesse Hunt took Brutus out of the back of his SUV, secured his leash and walked toward the rubble of the church he attended. One person still remained missing and two were found dead in the bombing last Wednesday. He was on duty and had only stopped by to see David Stone, the head of Northern Frontier SAR, at the bombing site to assess it after the two people were hurt searching it Friday.
“Have they stabilized the structure?” Jesse asked as he approached David.
His friend turned toward him, a grim expression on his face. “Yes, this morning. At least this time I hope nothing else happens. I don’t want any more people hurt, but we need to check thoroughly for the one missing.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen people found days later and I heard of someone who lasted a week in the wreckage. That’s why I’m here. I can help later after my shift.”
“Good. It’s nice that late August still gives us long days.”
“Is Pastor Paul around?”
“No, he went to a parishioner’s house. They’re making plans for holding a church service here on Sunday.”
“That sounds like him. Someone bombing his church isn’t going to stop him from having worship services.” Jesse surveyed the large mounds of debris, noting some were marked already searched. His church had been large and thriving. At first the authorities wondered if it had been a crime associated with religion, but as they investigated they discovered too many links to the hardware store destroyed a week and a half before the church. The establishments weren’t connected, but the way the bombings were carried out indicated the same person or persons did both, down to the type of bomb, detonated with a timer and the sound of a laugh track.
“At the hardware store there weren’t any deaths or injuries, but you and I know the two who died here.”
“And the one missing.” Jesse’s cell phone rang. As he answered the call, he saw it was his commander. “Hunt here.”
“There’s been a third bombing at Melinda’s Bistro, down the street from the Aurora Animal Hospital.”
“I know the place. Brutus and I are on our way.” Jesse hung up as David received a call, no doubt about the new bombing.
Jesse waved at David, then jogged with Brutus toward his SUV. Settled in his car, he switched on his engine and sirens. Fifteen minutes later he parked his car with other police cruisers and hurried toward the crime scene. The whole street was blocked off. So far, if this was the same MO, there had been only one bomb going off, but this bomber was escalating with each site, the amount of time between each bombing and from the look of the site the size of the bomb. Melinda’s Bistro would have just started serving lunch, which meant probably more deaths than the previous one. Did the killer take it even further with the addition of another bomb?
When he arrived at the command post, he assessed the destruction up close. A shudder snaked through him. A cloud of dust hung in the still air where the restaurant had once been, a two-story building brought to the ground, except for one small area where the top floor remained, but heavily damaged. Cries floated to him, some from within the massive debris of concrete, wood and brick.
His gut knotted, and his determination to catch the perpetrator intensified. He’d ask Thomas Caldwell, the detective overseeing the first two bombings, if he could be on the task force the department was forming. He searched the police officers, found his longtime friend and headed straight for him.
“When can we start searching for survivors?” Jesse asked. The site had to be stabilized first to protect everyone, including the survivors.