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AMES SET UP HIS COMMAND station on the third floor of the hotel where he planned to keep Susan and David under guard. The command station was set up at the writing desk in one of the rooms with a base-station CB he’d taken from the hotel manager’s office. This would allow him to keep in contact with Arnie and dispatch always and get updates from the crime scene on Apache Trail.
He was plugging the base unit into the electrical outlet when Susan said, “You think he’ll come back again, don’t you?”
He grunted as he stood, his knees popping like .22’s. “I suspect he might. For some reason, he seems to be fixated on you now.”
“He knows Sue can find him,” David said. He sat next to her on the sofa and put his arm around her.
Sliding the coax cable for the antenna into the back of the unit, Ames said, “I don’t want you two to worry. This guy killed two women, whoever is buried in his backyard, and he took out one of my men. If he shows up here, there’s no way he leaves this place standing.”
He took the antenna that was constructed with a magnetic base out onto the patio where he attached it to the steel railing that surrounded the small space. Back inside, he flipped the ON switch and the front of the CB lit up a pale green. He flipped through several stations until he found the truckers band. He asked for a radio check and someone responded that the radio was working fine, loud, and clear.
With that done, he turned to channel 3, the emergency station that Marlena, the dispatcher on duty, was monitoring. The command center at the station house was much more sophisticated than that which he had set up, so Marlena would be able to monitor Arnie’s end and update Ames through the emergency channel.
“Marlena, this is Ames, do you copy?”
There was several seconds of dead air and then Marlena’s voice floated into the room over the single speaker in the base unit. “I copy.”
“Good to hear your voice,” he said. “I’m set up at the hotel and I don’t have my hand-held radio. I left mine with Jimmy Mateo. I’ll need you to continue to monitor the emergency station and relay any messages from Arnie.”
“Okay. Is there a landline you can be reached at?”
He looked down at the phone on the desk and read the number taped to the base.
“Should I send someone out to get a card and some flowers for Frank’s wife?”
“No. Not until I talk to her first. But I do want you to start putting the paperwork together for his service. I don’t want a dime coming out of his wife’s pocket, so anything not covered by the county plan, I’ll take out of my pocket.”
“Yes, sheriff.”
He pulled a chair over to the sofa, set it in front of Susan and David and sat down. His tired knees were aching and his lower back screaming.
Old age creeping, he thought.
“I have to apologize again for the way things worked out,” he said. “I know you didn’t plan on being a prisoner when you decided to put your two cents into the hat.”
“Don’t apologize,” David said. “This was all beyond your control.”
“That’s what worries me. I feel like I have no control over anything anymore. This town is spiraling down, and I feel helpless.”
“So, what do we do now?” Susan asked, trying to change the subject. She had a feeling that if allowed to go on, Ames might dig himself into such despair he might not be able to pull himself out again. Right now, he needed to be sharp, and lean on his anger until they could get through this.
“We put out a BOLO on the car and we wait, I guess. I’m waiting on word from Arnie about what they uncover in that backfield. And we wait to see if our boy strikes again.”
He stood and walked back to the makeshift command center. Propped in the corner was a Remington 870 Express 12-gauge tactical shotgun. It had a 10-round capacity and was capable of firing magnum ammunition. He picked it up, checked the chamber and set it back down.
“You really think he’ll be back,” Susan said. It was a statement, not a question.
Ames turned to her and said, “Do you think he’ll be back?”
Before she could answer, a thought occurred to him. Ames asked, “Susan, can you get in his head like you did before?”
She shook her head. “I can’t control when I see the visions. They just come.”
“Can you at least try?”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“Close your eyes and concentrate. That works in the movies.”
She closed her eyes feeling both silly and excited at the same time. She could. She had never tried before, but just maybe she could.
Before she could even begin, the power suddenly went out, plunging the room into darkness.
David gasped, and Ames bolted up from his chair. Susan opened her eyes. “He’s here,” she said, but not because she had connected with him.