Elliot Marshall, Chief of the Texas State Police—Finley Creek branch, hurried through the lobby of the post. He had one hundred seven people on the clock right now. He was ultimately responsible for the safety of all of them.
The tornado siren sounded in the distance, activated by the nearby fire station on the corner of Main and Boethe Streets. They’d had no real warning.
None.
They were forty minutes south of Wichita Falls, and almost twenty north of little Value, Texas. Neither of those cities had given notice of the storm. The weather stations certainly hadn’t.
“Inside!” Elliot yelled to a crime scene tech and the detective who’d no doubt been at the same scene. Madi McAlister had a terrified look on her pretty face. One Elliot suspected was on his own. “To the hallway!”
Dom Alcardi, the detective, grabbed Madi by the arm and dragged her to the center of the building. Elliot was steps behind them when the front glass doors slid open and a woman who had to be one hundred if she was a day hobbled inside. “Help me!”
Elliot looked at Alcardi. He had the evidence tech—a petite young woman who looked like she’d blow away in a storm if left to her own devices—practically vised in his arms. “Go! Get her inside!”
He turned. Toward the elderly woman.
Elliot had just reached her when the building blew apart around them. He wrapped himself around the old woman as the wind knocked them to the floor.
And he prayed.