“Oh no,” she exhaled. “No. No. No-no-no,” she said as she started weaving her way through the galloping horses, her eyes fixed on the man standing a few feet away from the governor.
“Hastings.” She raised a hand to hail the tall man as she approached.
He looked up with a smirky smile, but it quickly melted away. He straightened and closed the gap between them in two strides. “What is it?”
Not wanting to cause any panic, she thrust her phone out for him to see. The moment he digested the gist of the threat, he barked, “Stop the ride,” and turned in the direction of the governor.
“No!” Digging her heels in, she pulled him back. “We can’t stop. Look.”
Do not stop the ride.
Do not get off the ride.
“Yeah, well, no,” he said. “My duty is to my principal, and we’re getting off this thing.”
“But what if it’s on here?”
“I have to get him out of the area,” he said, grinding out each word. “We’ll slow it down and jump off.”
“They told us not to get off,” she argued, following as he strode in the opposite direction of the ride’s movement.
He stopped in his tracks, his expression softening apologetically but his jaw taut with determination. “Whoever this is toldyounot to get off the ride,” he pointed out quietly.
Cassidy gaped at his back. She stared in disbelief as the operator leaped onto the deck with practiced ease, talked to Special Agent Hastings, then jumped off a moment later. Within seconds, the carousel slowed.
By the time it wound down to a creep, full-blown panic crawled up her throat. The only word she could force past the lump lodged there was, “No!”
Hastings held on to Governor Beauford’s arm as he shot a glance at her. “We’re having a mechanical issue,” the governor announced, raising his voice to be heard over the incessant music. “We can’t stop the ride, so we’re going to have to hop off.”
Hastings must have radioed for backup, because two state troopers in uniform appeared as if conjured. They steadied the governor as he jumped from the platform, his politician’s smile never slipping. “This is why we test run these things.” He waved encouragingly to the gaggle of press. “Hey, kids, you want to go check out the cows?”
The small crowd around the carousel quickly fell into step behind the jovial politician. Cassidy pulled her phone from her pocket again and typed out a reply.
Who are you? Why are you doing this?
The three dots danced at the bottom of her screen. A response came through with periods emphasizing each word.
Do. Not. Stop. The. Ride.
She looked up, a grim frown tugging at her lips. She caught sight of the skinny young man at the operator’s controls. The next time she passed him, she said, “Can you kill the music?”
He tugged his ball cap lower on his forehead. “Are we done here?”
“I’m not, but you are. Don’t stop the ride, but cut the calliope, and grab one of the officers for me.”
Firing off the first questions that came to mind, she typed furiously.
Who are you? What do you want?
She waited, her throat dry, praying she’d get something, anything, more out of whoever was doing this.
Another number popped up seconds later, but the message read simply,Twelve.
“Twelve? Twelve what? Twelve o’clock? Twelve bombs?”
Cassidy typed frantically, copying and pasting her queries into each of the text threads in a desperate attempt to maintain contact.
But no one replied.
