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He stared at his phone. Combs forced himself to relax before he crushed it—he wanted to throw it—and took a deep breath before hitting re-dial. He pressed the phone hard to his ear, plugging the other ear to mute the thunder and wind that shook his car.
"What'd she say?" Gonzales flinched when simultaneous lightning strobed and thunder boomed. "Dammit, Combs, get us to cover. We're no help to your son or to September if we get blown to Oz."
Combs shook his head. He ground his teeth to keep from cursing. Fury mounted when the connection failed. Failure all around. The connection had been bad, but he'd heard enough. He'd ask if she'd found Willie. Her answer broke his heart.
". . . found Willie. . . It's bad...a body..." And the phone went dead. He closed his eyes, willing her to answer, for the call to go through. Damn the storm, damn the dog, damn September, she promised to find him. Alive. ALIVE, dammit.
Gonzales raised his eyebrows, silently asking again. Combs lowered his phone. He couldn't repeat what September had said. That would make it—NO! Not his little boy!—a reality.
Wind pummeled the car. Tornado sirens raged, coyotes answering in an eerie chorus. They'd only traveled a mile or so out of town. Combs knew the general vicinity of September's search but the storm meant no chance in hell of finding them. He slumped against the steering wheel. Too late anyway, what does it matter. God, make this a bad dream. Let me wake up.
"Son of a bitch." Gonzales never swore.
Combs recoiled as if splashed with ice water by the vision out Gonzales's passenger window. Snakes of black spun earthward from the distant wall cloud, lightening etched gashes in the dark sky. Holy shit.
"It's coming, Combs, it's coming. Get us out of here. How about, uhm, now? Now would be a good time. Vete de aqui, ve rapido, Go-go-go-go!"
A muffled Niagara Falls roar filled his ears. A sudden adrenalin spike transformed Combs from apathy to flight. He shoved the car into gear. Tires squealed, the U-turn barely held the road, and he floored the gas. "Where?"
"Don't care, just go, ve rapido, fast fast fast." Gonzales half turned in his seat. "Man, I need a raise." He turned back around. "First solid building we find, we get inside. Cars are deathtraps in a tornado."
Combs knew that. "If they don't want to let us in?"
"They will. We're the cops. People love us." Gonzales smiled.
He ignored the lame joke. He owed it to his partner to get them to safety. But how could he care about being alive, staying safe, when his son... Willie hadn't had a chance. Don't think, just go.
The engine screamed into town, the car rabbiting and swerving as the twister rode their bumper like a hound sniffing blood. He had to drive perpendicular to the storm path. Combs took a hard right, almost nailed a lamppost, and sped halfway up the block before he recognized a familiar business. A brick building. Glass on the front but as he recalled, the place had a storm cellar, rare in this part of the world.
"Hold fast." He fishtailed into the parking lot. Both men vaulted out before the car engine stopped and raced to the door of Doc Eugene's veterinary clinic.
The vacant waiting room, normally bustling this time of day, offered no shelter. Floor to ceiling windows offered a great view of the parking lot and death by glass should the storm punch through.
"This way." Combs loped down the hallway, and dodged through the door to the first examining room, into the treatment area. "Hey Doc? Where are you?" Gonzales reflexively ducked and cursed again when something thumped the roof of the building.
"Who's there?" Doc Eugene's muffled voice came from behind another closed door. Gonzales and Combs hurried to join him.
"Detective Combs? Detective Gonzales, too? What're you doing here? Don't you know there's a tornado?" The small room, not much bigger than a walk-in closet, served as storage for the vet clinic's pharmacy and other supplies. Doc Eugene and a flamboyant heavy younger woman huddled on the floor beneath a shelf, in the far corner. She appeared peeved to see them.
Combs and Gonzales pushed inside and closed the door. The overhead light flickered in concert with thunder. All four gasped when another clatter-thump buffalo stampede crossed the roof.
"You said he had a storm shelter." His quivering mustache belied Gonzales's steady voice. The man might have been asking for a veggie wrap, extra hot sauce.
Doc Eugene snorted, but made room for the two detectives. "A lot of good it does me. Flooded last week, and still a foot of water and God knows what else swimming around in the sludge." He pushed his glasses up his nose. "No way to get the animals in here, but we've only a few including BeeBo's kitten that September dropped off earlier. This is the next best thing to a storm cellar: an interior room with no windows. And plenty of pain meds, pet food and fluids." He laughed, and then nudged the woman beside him. "Robin, these are the detectives I told you about. They're going to find the sick bastard who killed my Pam."
Robin ignored the detectives. She put an arm around Doc Eugene's shoulder as if to comfort him. When he shrugged it off, Robin’s nostrils flared and she stared at her hands.
Doc Eugene’s wife, Pam, had been Shadow's breeder. She’d died during the Blizzard Murders last November, along with Combs’s mother.
Gonzales answered the unspoken question on the veterinarian’s face. "We had to outrun the storm. The funnel hadn't touched down yet, but was snapping at our heels." He turned to Combs. "Hope we still have a car when we get out of here." He pulled out his phone. "I've got no bars."
Combs sank to the floor, and slapped Gonzales's leg. "Get down. We'll worry about the car later." He pushed against the wall, knees bent and arms circling them. Now they'd escaped the tornado, he couldn’t stop thinking about September's call.
Gonzales checked the shelves filled with various medications, shampoos and other pet products. He picked up one of the pet collar tracking devices. "Sell many of these? Sure saved us a ton of time, when September went missing."
Doc Eugene took off and polished his glasses. "After all the news stories, I can barely keep the collars on the shelves. The company even gave September the technology and all upgrades for life."
The building shook, and Gonzales braced himself. "Damn. Didn't know I'd think back on the drought with nostalgia." The lights went out. The overhead stampede became constant.
Combs closed his eyes, and let tears run unchecked. How had Melinda let this happen? What would he tell Willie's mother? Would Cassie even understand? He was helpless, hopeless and angry, and oh, so much alone.
