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Diana raised her gun and aimed at the corner where he would appear.
Five bullets. One chance.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
The wall clock in Sheila's office read 9:17 AM, its steady ticking a counterpoint to her growing frustration. Doc Sullivan's maps covered her desk, their edges curling in the morning light. She'd highlighted every known entrance in yellow, every suspected private entrance in orange.
The result looked like a spiderweb drawn by a child with too many markers—messy, complicated, and ultimately not functional.
She rubbed her eyes, which were gritty from too little sleep. A full night had passed since Diana Martinez had entered the Copper Queen Mine. A full night of MSHA restrictions, protest signs, news crews, and dead ends. And somewhere in that maze of tunnels, a killer was playing a game whose rules only he understood.
Her father still hadn't called about his meeting with Hank Dawson, even though he'd left to speak with the former sheriff a few hours ago. That worried her. Gabriel had promised no more secrets, but old habits died hard. And Dawson…
What role had he really played in all this? Had he known what Tommy was when he brought him into the department? Or was he just another pawn in a game that had been running since before Sheila was born?
The sound of footsteps in the hallway made her look up. Finn appeared in her doorway, moving naturally again, as if he'd never been shot at all.
"Thought I'd find you here," he said. "Roberts called. Said you never went home last night."
"There was no point. Couldn't sleep anyway." She gestured at the maps. "I keep thinking we're missing something obvious. Some pattern in the private entrances, some way to predict where he might surface."
Finn crossed to her desk, studying the maps. "Star asked about you this morning. She's worried."
"I know. I'll make it up to her." Sheila traced a tunnel route with her finger. "But right now—"
"Right now Diana's still missing, Tommy wants immunity, your father's chasing old ghosts, and you're trying to hold everything together." Finn's voice was gentle. "But you can't help anyone if you burn yourself out."
She started to argue, but movement on one of the security monitors caught her eye. A MSHA inspector was doing his perimeter check.
"Five bullets," she said quietly.
"What?"
"Diana had a Glock 26. Standard magazine holds ten rounds. We heard five shots." Sheila stared at the mine entrance on the monitor. "She has five bullets left. Five chances to defend herself. And we're up here pushing paper and following protocols while she's down there alone with him."
"She's smart," Finn said. "And she knows those tunnels. She might—"
The radio on Sheila's desk crackled. "Sheriff?" It was Deputy Walker. "We just heard what sounded like gunfire. North entrance."
Before Sheila could respond, another voice cut in. "Barnes here. Heard it too, but it seemed to come from the east side."
More reports started coming in—each deputy certain they'd heard shots, each one reporting a different location. The mine's acoustics were playing tricks again, making it impossible to pinpoint the source.
Four more voices came across the radio, all reporting gunshots from different directions.
"How many shots?" Sheila demanded. "Did anyone get a clear count?"
The responses overlapped, contradicted each other. Two shots. Three shots. Maybe just one that echoed. The deputies' uncertainty bled through their voices.
Despite this uncertainty, Sheila felt a burst of hope. Somewhere in the darkness below, Diana Martinez was fighting for her life. She was alive, and by the sound of it, she wasn't going down easily.
Still, Sheila hated that she couldn't rush into those tunnels right away to help Diana. She'd already seen firsthand how unstable those tunnels could be, and getting killed or trapped in a desperate attempt to reach Diana would only make the situation worse.
She pushed back from her desk, needing to move, to think. "Let's go back to what we know," she said, more to herself than to Finn. "Ray said the buyer was older, gray in his beard. Military training. Religious."
"And his father was a miner," Finn added. "That's what you told me, anyway."
She turned to the whiteboard where she'd been tracking leads. Under "Killer Profile" she had listed: