She had to stop him. She pressed down on the accelerator, and raced toward the diner, hoping against hope that she wasn't too late.
Ruthlessly, she pushed the negative thoughts and feelings aside and focused on the problem.
The most important thing was to stop him now. To make sure that Judge Zackary and Sybil Hardy were out of his reach and in a place of safety. And that the other occupants of both the buildings could be out of range of the bomb blasts.
You can do it, she urged herself, flicking a glance at her reflection in the rearview mirror. You can find this guy and stop him before he kills again.
May put her foot down, and her focus on the road ahead of her.
She was making good time. Already, she could see the turnoff she needed ahead.
With the siren blaring in her ears, May swung the car off the highway and headed down the town's main street.
Ahead of her was the diner, a quaint, old-fashioned place that must have been a popular destination. Following the blast, it was still closed, and now looked to be getting repaired. There were two pickups parked nearby, and a couple of men were working on the shattered brickwork of the walls.
May glanced suspiciously at the vehicles. She had a feeling the killer might be trying to hide, to blend in with the locals. Perhaps he was posing as a construction worker so as not to draw attention to himself. She didn't trust anything out of place at the moment.
But the diner was not where she needed to go. Instead, May had to head across the road, to the pretty, restored, colonial building with planters outside. It looked to be on two separate levels, with an underground parking.
She stopped outside the building. As she rushed toward the entrance, a terrible thought occurred to her.
What if this killer was going to use the arrival of the police to detonate a bomb? What if, by setting foot in the building, she was ensuring the fate of herself and of Sybil Hardy?
For a moment, May felt a paralyzing fear.
She forced herself to overcome it with calm logic. The killer could surely not have predicted that police would have caught up with him so quickly. He had an ego and believed himself to be streets ahead.
For now, she did not think he would construct such a scenario. She mustn't give him powers he didn't possess, May warned herself. She mustn’t let fear allow her to be paranoid.
She pushed the door open and entered the building.
An enormous bang made her jump, and her heart leaped into her throat. But it was only the construction team across the road, unloading a delivery of bricks.
Forcing her shattered nerves into coherence, May headed across the tiled floor to the reception desk.
"I’m Deputy Moore, and I need to speak to Sybil Hardy urgently. It's in connection with a murder case. Is she here?" she asked.
The pleasant-faced, silver-haired receptionist shook her head.
"No. She's not here, Deputy."
"Where is she? It's an emergency. For her own safety, I need to get to her as soon as possible."
The receptionist looked alarmed.
"She's not in the country, ma'am. She's on an overseas vacation in Europe at this time. She left last week, and she's only returning next week."
May considered this information, thinking as fast as she could.
Had the killer known she was away? Probably, yes. He seemed to observe his victims very closely and know their movements. Therefore, she guessed that he would be waiting for her to return.
"Has there been anyone here recently, yesterday or today, who was in the building unaccompanied?" she asked, just to be sure. "Any man, in his twenties, who came in for any reason?"
"No, not in the past two days, definitely not. We've had deliveries but they have been in and out. A crew worked on the feature wall in the boardroom, but that was last week already and there were three of them, all people we've used before. Why? What is this?" she asked anxiously.
"At the moment, there is a low risk that this building might be targeted by the criminal who’s been setting bombs,” May explained.
The receptionist gasped, looking horrified.
"Please, don’t panic. The risk is not high. But just as a safety precaution, everyone who can do so, must leave the building for the next hour or two," May said. "The bomb squad is on their way, and will be checking the premises carefully when they arrive. Once it's cleared, you can go back in."
"I understand. I'll let the managers know, and we'll ask everyone to step outside for a couple of hours."
"Thank you," May said.
She turned and rushed out of the building.
This was a dead end. And that meant Dirk had chosen to target the judge first. Dread filled her as she realized what this would mean. Owen was on his way there. Kerry, too.
May had to get there, as soon as she could, because now she knew, without a doubt, that the next bomb would explode in the courthouse.