Firebreak: A Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

she’d reached her last volunteer, Josie received a phone call from Doug.
    “Josie. We’ve got lightning strikes again and the wind isn’t letting up. I just called MPR and told them to announce the evacuation routes. You get your volunteers going. I’m ordering mandatory evacuation for the area inside the city limits, and the northern and eastern regions. You ready to jump on it?”
    “Absolutely. I’ll call Otto and Marta, and I’ll text my group. They’re waiting for the signal.”
    “The smoke jumper crew has been on a line just north of downtown, about ten miles south of the mudflats. They’re working with about thirty firefighters to clear debris and expand Lonesome Road to make a hundred-foot firebreak that’s clear of fuel.”
    “How’s it coming?”
    Doug sighed. “Those guys are working as fast as they can. My biggest worry is that I haven’t correctly predicted the line of the fire.”
    She understood his fear. In the end, he would take responsibility for the plan’s success or failure, regardless of the fire’s behavior. It was a tough place to be, knowing lives and homes depended on your best guess.
    “Can you get out to the homes on Casson’s Road and go door-to-door?” he asked. “The fire’s driving straight toward that area and the wind’s picked up again. I’m afraid we may lose the eight homes there. It doesn’t look good at all. Tell those folks they need to be out immediately.”
    Josie glanced at her watch. It was 7:05 p.m.
    “Realistically, how much time do they have?”
    “I want them out within the hour,” he said.
    “We’re on our way.”
    *   *   *
    The landscape within Arroyo County varied from flat dusty desert to areas of grassland farther north that received rain from mountain runoff as well as water from underground springs. The locals called the area north of town the mudflats owing to a low depression in the desert that filled with rain during the monsoons and made a mud pit that the local kids and ATV riders descended on for a giant party each summer. It was designated public land, and as long as the party didn’t get too rowdy, law enforcement let the revelers go.
    Just to the east of the mud pit was a swath of prairie grass several miles wide. A road wound through the grassland where eight homes dotted the land. Josie loved her home and Dell’s cattle ranch at the base of the mountains, but she thought the green grasses gently blowing in waves in the spring and summer were one of the prettiest sights in Artemis. The problem now was that with no rain for nine months, the grass had turned brown and brittle—perfect fuel for the fire.
    Josie and Dell loaded Chester into the back of her Artemis PD vehicle, a four-wheel-drive retired army jeep that served her well on the gravel and dirt roads throughout the county. They were quiet on the drive as they watched the wall of smoke in the distance, stretching from ground to sky, swallow up everything in its path.
    They pulled into the first driveway at 7:20 p.m. The home was dark, the homeowners apparently gone. Josie checked the front door and Dell checked the back to make sure both were locked and the family had actually left. A half mile down the road they pulled into the driveway of the second home, a sprawling ranch with an attached garage. A man and woman were outside, frantically throwing boxes into the back of an SUV. The man ran up to Josie, looking relieved to see the police.
    “We heard on the radio, mandatory evacuation.”
    “That’s correct. It’s time to leave. You have pets taken care of?”
    Josie noticed Dell heading up to the front of the house where the woman had gone back inside, apparently for another load.
    “We don’t have any. Just us and the kids.” He turned and pointed to the SUV. The open back doors revealed two girls under the age of five strapped into car seats. Both of them were wide-eyed, gazing out the car door at their parents’ panicked activity.
    “You know the