Identity Unknown by Terri Reed Page B

now.
    â€œThat’s weird,” Sean said.
    A bad feeling prickled the skin at her nape. “Yes. Too weird.”
    Just as the generator brought up the emergency lights, Harrison stepped out of the men’s restroom. Audrey could make out his silhouette.
    â€œWhat’s happening?” Harrison’s voice reverberated with unease.
    â€œDon’t know,” she replied. “Sean, stay with Harrison. Get Ophelia and get to safety.”
    She hurried toward the back where John Doe was locked in a cell. In the time she’d worked for the sheriff’s department, the electricity had never failed without cause. She could only assume the man after John Doe was behind the outage. She reached the cell door. She couldn’t make out John in the dark. She reached for the keys attached to her utility belt.
    A loud explosion rocked the building.

FIVE
    J ohn jerked awake to a cacophony of noise. Emergency sirens bounced off the cell walls. He heard shouted voices. Heart pumping with a jolt of adrenaline, he rolled from the cot, landing soundlessly onto the balls of his feet in a crouch. Every muscle tensed in anticipation. Fight or flight? Not flight. He was trapped in a cell. He scanned the darkness, momentarily disoriented. He’d been lying with his feet facing the cell door. Staying low, with his hand stretched out before him, he moved toward where he thought the door was located.
    â€œJohn?” Audrey’s call rang in his ears.
    Relief tempered the adrenaline racing through his veins. “Here.”
    A beam of light swept over the cell and landed on him.
    He wrapped his hands around the cold steel of the bars. Though he couldn’t see her behind the glare of the flashlight, the rapid pace of her breathing pinpointed her location. “What happened?”
    â€œSomeone killed the lights. The explosion was likely the generator.” The flashlight bobbed. The rattle of keys echoed in the cell, then he heard the faint squeak of a hinge as the door opened.
    Warm, strong hands grasped his and pulled him toward the back exit. “Come on. We’re getting out of here.”
    He tugged her to a halt. “They’ll be expecting us to go out the door. It’d be too easy to pick us off.” He wasn’t about to let her put herself in the line of fire. She might be a deputy sheriff, but it was his head they wanted, not hers.
    â€œSo we wait for them to come blazing in? I don’t think so.”
    He didn’t like that option any better. “Are we the only ones in the station?”
    â€œNo. We have to get everyone out alive.”
    â€œAre there only two exits?”
    â€œThe break room window. It drops onto a strip of grass between this building and the community church.” She tightened her hold on his hand. They ran back to the squad room, where another deputy held a flashlight illuminating a male civilian and the woman John had seen behind the glass in the lobby.
    â€œI’ve called the sheriff,” the deputy announced to the people next to him. “He’s on his way. We’re safe here. The fire department has the fire under control in the back parking lot.”
    The deputy turned suddenly, his hand going for his sidearm as John and Audrey approached.
    Audrey dropped John’s hand. “Whoa, Harrison. It’s me.”
    â€œAudrey, what’s happening?” the woman said, her voice shaky with panic.
    â€œI don’t have answers yet, Ophelia,” Audrey told her. “But we need to get out of here. But not through the doors. We’ll go out the break room window and hide inside the church.”
    â€œYou think the explosion was deliberate?” the younger guy asked.
    â€œUnfortunately, Sean, I do,” she replied. “It’s the same person or persons who crashed into the ambulance.”
    John didn’t like the way Sean moved to Audrey’s side in a clearly possessive way. She’d said she