In Sheep's Clothing by David Archer

to pick up something for dinner while she’s out, too. Soon as she gets back, you guys can make your calls.”
    “Damn, I wish she’d hurry,” Neil said. “If anything has happened to Lacey, I’ll go nuts.”
    “Lacey’s a smart girl,” Moose said, “and her daddy is one of the toughest men I’ve ever known. I think she’ll be okay. Elaine, too.”
    The three of them sat and talked for another half hour, until Sarah returned. She stepped inside with three bags, and handed one of them to Neil immediately. The skinny kid ripped it open to find two prepaid disposable phones. He passed one to Moose and then began ripping at the package on the other. It took them only a couple of minutes to have the phones assembled and activated.
    “Neil,” Noah said when Neil looked at him, “go ahead and call Lacey. Make sure she's okay, and then see if she knows anything about what's going on.”
    Neil's eyes lit up as his thumb flew over the dial pad and put the phone on speaker. They heard the one on the other end ring four times, and Neil was starting to panic when Lacey finally answered.
    “Hello,” she said cautiously.
    Neil gasped in relief. “Hey, honey, it's me! Are you okay?”
    “Yeah, I'm all right,” she said. “Do you know what's going on?”
    “No, honey, we don't. I was calling to see if you might know something.”
    “I don't know a lot,” Lacey said. “I know somebody walked into the offices and just started blasting away. I heard there were seven dead, one of them was Jenny Atkins, the Dragon Lady's secretary. Ms. Peterson and Mr. Jefferson were both wounded, but I don't know how bad it is. They're in the hospital, but nobody is saying much of anything about it.”
    “Allison was wounded?” Noah asked suddenly. “Who's in command?”
    “I'm not sure, at the moment,” Lacey said. “I haven't heard anything more since it happened a few hours ago. I tried calling my dad, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet. He was supposed to go to the office sometime today, but I don’t know if he was there when the attack happened or not. Oh, Neil, I’m so worried.”
    Noah glanced at Moose, who was holding his own burner phone in his hand. He nodded once, and Moose got up and walked outside, dialing Elaine's phone number.
    “Lacey, where are you?” Neil asked. “Are you at home?”
    “Yeah,” she said. “I was off today, mom and I were going to go do some shopping this afternoon, but when this happened we decided to just stay home and wait.”
    Noah leaned forward. “Lacey, is anything on the news about this?”
    “Yes, but they're just calling it a random attack at the moment. The Kirtland police are actually some of our people, but they have to stay in their characters. The FBI is here, doing whatever they do. That's all I really know right now.”
    Noah nodded, and Neil took the phone off speaker. He moved to the other side of the room so that he could have some privacy, and Noah turned to Sarah.
    “Noah, who could have done this?” Sarah asked. “I mean, you don't think it was...”
    “We don't know enough to even make a guess,” Noah said, “but I wouldn't put it past Nicolaich. We know he's out there, operating on his own now. I'd have to say it's possible he blames E & E, and me personally, for his little regime falling apart. He's probably the only one I could imagine right now who would have the balls to make an attack like this, but we just don't know enough to even really speculate.”
    Moose stepped back inside, the phone to his ear. “Noah, Donald Jefferson is in critical condition at Kirtland Regional. Elaine says they don't know right now if he's going to make it at all. Allison Peterson was taken by life flight to Denver, nobody knows anything since then. Her secretary was killed in the attack, along with six other people. Doc Parker is in temporary command, but that's just because they can't find John Hackett. John is actually the number three, after Allison and Donald.”
    Noah