Sharon’s Wolves(51)

He nudged Sharon’s face with one hand to get her to turn her head to one side and witness the same thing. “Shit,” she mumbled.

“Yeah.”

Jackson twisted his neck to the side also. “Good timing.”

“Could have been worse,” Cooper commented as he inched across the room, noticing the spirit was smaller and denser this time as though sucked in on itself to take up less space.

And the reason quickly became apparent when Cooper glanced down at the computer monitor being used to track seismic activity in the area.

He leaned over the desk, catching his breath, while he forced his mind to work. “What the fuck?”

Jackson leaned on the desk next to him.

Sharon wormed her way between them. “What is it?”

He grabbed the readout coming out of the printer to the right, confused. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”

The aura still hovered, but he ignored it. He got the message loud and clear. Something was terribly wrong. The question was what?

When the building started to shake, he grabbed the edge of the desk with one hand and Sharon with the other. “Shit.”

It didn’t last long, but longer than the last few tremors. When it subsided, the damage in the room was minimal, and he suspected he would find the entire building to be as well. A few folders had fallen to the floor. Things had shifted on the desk, but nothing major.

The muffled sound of his cell phone ringing had him releasing Sharon to scramble for his jeans and extricate the cell from his pocket. He answered it before the ringing stopped. “Hamilton here.”

“Cooper, it’s Stuart. What the hell’s going on there?”

“No idea. The readouts are wonky. They don’t make sense. I was studying them when we got another tremor.”

“I see that. I mean, I see the same readouts from here. Where’s your team? Are they still out checking the seismometers?”

“Yes.” Cooper glanced at the time on his phone, feeling guilty for what he’d been doing since arriving at the office while his team was out there checking equipment. “They’ve only been gone about an hour. No one has checked in yet, but they wouldn’t have reached many locations yet.”

“I’ll give them a call now. You see if you can make sense of those readouts.”

“Yes, sir.” Cooper ended the call and glanced up to find Jackson standing next to him, his jeans pulled up but open.

He held out Cooper’s pants. “Might want to put these on.” He smirked.

Cooper grabbed them and stuffed his legs in one at a time, dragging them up over his hips and then zipping and buttoning the denim in place. He spun around and grabbed the rest of his clothes, his mind racing. He hurried back to the readout and held the paper out for several feet.

“You okay?” Sharon asked as she leaned into his side.

“I’m not sure any of us are,” he commented.

Another phone rang. Sharon’s. He recognized the tone. She pulled it out of her pocket and touched the screen. “Joyce… Yeah… At the college… Okay. I’ll tell him. Thanks.”

Cooper stared at her while she ended the call.

Jackson wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. He too was fully clothed now. “Cooper’s mom? What did she say?”

“She said several groups of people have agreed to meet Monday night. They’ve secured the high school auditorium to discuss the fracking situation.”

Cooper snapped his fingers and pulled his phone back out to get his boss on the line again.

Stuart answered immediately.

“Hey, Stu. We need the fracking site fifteen miles north of here shut down immediately. It’s on the fault line. It has to be causing or contributing to these small quakes.”

“Already on it. I called the US Geological Survey this morning. It will take days to get an injunction though, and that’s the best case scenario.”

Cooper paced the floor in front of his machines. He ran a hand through his disheveled hair, fighting the urge to scream. “We might not have days.”

“I can see that. But it’s difficult to get anyone to pay attention under the best circumstances, let alone on a Saturday afternoon.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” Stuart sighed. “I have a call in to the governor’s office too. I’ll let you know when I hear back. If I thought it would do any good, I would head your direction, but I’m of more use to you here at the area headquarters. I have all the same readouts.”

“No. You’re right. Stay in touch.”

“Will do.” Stuart ended the call, leaving Cooper staring at the floor, wondering what the hell to do next.