“It was a big stack of C-4 with three power supplies and a digital timer,” Murphy was saying. “We used schematics and re-routed the power sources, defusing it step by step. Took some time, but it wasn’t rocket science or anything.”
“Was it like the earlier bomb?” the Chief asked.
“No, sir. Completely different,” Sabrina said in an effort to show Murphy she was paying attention.
“So, are we dealing with two different bombers today? What are the odds of that?” Cochran’s voice was tinged with disbelief.
“I think this may be the same bomber, sir, but it’s just my…gut reaction. I don’t have any solid evidence. The bombs were, in fact, different, suggesting more than one bomber.”
“Don’t discount gut feelings. They’ve saved my ass more than once,” the chief said. “Let me know once you get any solid evidence. Meanwhile, we’ll treat it as a serial case until we know for sure. I’ll coordinate the investigations with your Captain Hennessey.”
“Yes, sir,” Sabrina and Murphy both said. Chief Cochran left their circle to address something regarding the evacuation and letting people back in the building. Everyone would have to wait outside until the device was removed.
“I figured Hennessey would be here by now,” Sabrina said, looking around.
“He’ll show up, but in the mean time, don’t you have a date?” Murphy’s eyebrows lifted. Sabrina gave him a sharp look out of habit which transformed it into grateful smile.
“I have to give the bomb disposal guys the okay to remove the device.”
“I’ll do it. Quit stalling.” Murphy smiled and nudged her on. It was time to take that chance.
Sabrina winked at her partner and turned to walk towards Jake.
Jake watched every step of her approach with the look of a starving man about to consume his favorite meal.
“Hello,” Sabrina said, watching him as he stuck something unseen in the outer storage box on the fire truck. “You packing up to leave?”
“Yeah, we were on the Advance Team. The other responding trucks will do the final clean up. I’m off duty in about ten minutes. I have to go back to the station, but how about I meet you somewhere in an hour?”
Before she could answer, a slimy, familiar voice intruded. “You aren’t seriously considering meeting this lothario, are you, Sabrina?” Ted Echols inserted himself between them, his back to Jake. “My offer is still open, you know. I have a lot more to offer you than he does, honey.”
“Ted, I’m not your honey. You make me tired. Go away,” Sabrina responded with an exaggerated dismissive sigh.
“Ted wanted me to tell you something from earlier when you walked into the building. What was it again, Ted?” Jake looked up in the air as if to find a memory. “Oh, yeah. He said, ball-breaker or not you still have a nice ass.”
“Son of a bitch!” Ted turned to Jake.
“Really?” Sabrina ignored Ted and focused on Jake. “And what do you think?”
“Let’s go, and I’ll tell you exactly what I think. It’s too crowded here to chat. Deal?”
“Deal.” Sabrina pulled a business card out of her pocket and handed it to Jake. “Here’s my number. Call me and let me know where we’re going.”
Jake took off his glove and made contact with her hand as he grabbed the card she offered. Sabrina thought he had beautiful hands. His long fingers were tanned and callused. Working man’s hands, and she wanted them on her. A flash of heat ran down her body and made her feel wet and achy at the mere thought of him touching her. The warm contact of his fingers sizzled through her as though she’d touched something on fire. Sabrina watched entranced as he tucked her card down inside under his jacket.
She’d only touched his hand, for heaven’s sake, but the physical attraction for her was immediate and had a zing-like effect on her. Maybe it was time to relax. Maybe it was time to let someone into her lonely life for a little while, someone she could trust. Reality intruded, and Sabrina realized she and Jake weren’t alone.
“Wait a minute! You never go out with anyone. You can’t meet him,” Ted said as if horrified. The jerk.
“Yes, I can. It’s none of your business, Ted. I mean it. Why don’t you go away?”
“Echols!” someone shouted for him from several paces.
“Think about what I said, Sabrina,” Ted remarked as though he hadn’t heard a word she said.
Sabrina rolled her eyes and dismissed Ted from her mind. Now, for Jake.
Chief Cochran stepped up to the two of them, hindering any further private conversation between them.
Damn the luck.
“I wanted to tell you good job,” the chief said as he stuck out his hand to her. “We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Dave Cochran, Chief of the Number Seventy-seven Fire Station.”
“Sabrina Morgan, bomb technician.” She took hold of his hand and smiled.
“Morgan. Morgan. That name sounds familiar. I wonder if I know your father. Is he a firefighter, maybe?” he asked as if trying to get a memory from an elusive place in his brain.
Sabrina sobered. She didn’t want to talk about her parents. “No, sir, my father was an accountant for the federal government. He died quite a number of years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago.” Sabrina shrugged and retreated behind her fake I’m-okay smile as she looked at the ground.
“Well, let’s get going, Jake. The shift is over when we get back. I would imagine you have things to do.” Chief Cochran headed around the front of the truck.
Sabrina watched Jake. She was about to make some inane, ridiculous comment about whether he was going to call her or not, when…boom!
The explosion behind her from the hotel vibrated the ground as if an earthquake were in progress. The blast rocked a stunned Sabrina forward off her feet and into Jake’s arms for the second time that day.
Chapter Three
Sabrina screamed, “No” at the top of her lungs, competing with all the explosions, flying glass and falling debris coming from the hotel. Jake grabbed a hold of her and wrestled her to the ground when she tried to run back to the building. The rest of Sabrina’s bomb disposal team was now trapped inside the collapsing building. Or worse.
Jake covered her trembling body with his while she struggled to take in the event happening behind them. How could she have failed again? She had done everything by the book. It shouldn’t have gone off. Her terror crippled her, and she couldn’t stop shaking. She heard herself making whimpering noises and couldn’t stop that, either.
Sabrina heard Jake whispering soothingly to her. Once again, that feeling of security and safety swept over her. He calmed her with mere words. She could hear the apprehension in his voice. He was worried about her.
“Shh, baby. It’s okay. You’re okay. Don’t cry.”
Was she crying? She didn’t cry. There was no crying in bomb squads. Her arms were trapped at her sides under two hundred pounds of fireman. Otherwise, she would have checked her face for tears.
One of Jake’s arms shifted from underneath her shoulder and tucked behind her head. Her face pressed close to his neck. Again, she could feel the prickle of his whiskers. She rubbed her face against his to experience the sandpapery feel of him in an effort to calm herself. She kissed his neck. He stopped shifting when her lips connected with his skin. She could feel him holding his breath. She kissed his jaw near his ear. Sabrina heard sobbing and realized the noise was coming from her. Damn, she was crying.
“Not again. Not again,” she heard herself moaning. She felt as if she watched herself from a distance, like it wasn’t happening to her. Maybe she was asleep. She endured explosion nightmares regularly. Perhaps this was a vivid one.
Chief Cochran had been wrong about the way the building would come down if the bomb went off, she thought suddenly. Every pane of glass shattered on the front of the building, but the direction of the explosion was at the back left of the buil
ding.
The area with bathroom where she had been working on the bomb still stood…for now.
Please don’t let anyone be dead, she prayed. Not because I failed.
* * * *
The bomber couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
The situation was too perfect. There she was prancing around with that fireman, making eyes at him all the while thinking she defused a bomb created by a master. She was arrogant, and to that end, she was in for a big surprise.
The bomber watched through night vision binoculars from his hiding place as she cried and shook as she lay like a whore underneath that fireman. Just like she had earlier in the day. Perfection.
Calming his emotions in case anyone noticed him, the bomber took a final quick look around at the devastation and panic he’d caused. Satisfied no one was paying him any attention, he pocketed his binoculars and strolled out from his hiding place. Behind his mask of concern, he surveyed the damage he’d wrought. He was not going to be stupid and hover around the bombsite to be caught on film. He wanted to see the anguish and suffering, but he was far too intelligent, and so he stayed back.
The bomber had been forced to detonate the second bomb before he wanted to because Sabrina and the fireman seemed to be leaving. There weren’t very many people back in the building yet, only official personnel and not the amount he’d been hoping for, but he couldn’t let Sabrina leave thinking she succeeded today. He wanted her to be present so he could watch her wallow in failure, and she was putting on a fantastic show for him. He could see her distress at his latest achievement.
He gathered strength in the utter despair of her agony, which was, after all, most important, for now. He wanted her to suffer, over and over again. Eventually, he’d kill her, but for now, watching her fail at her chosen profession was very gratifying.
That would teach the bitch to be alive. She should have been dead over twenty-three years ago. Now, she’d pay the price for her defiance. No one would make a fool out of him. No one. He’d have his revenge.
The bomber’s next plan was insidious and yet deviously clever. After one more strategic explosion, he planned to do nothing. Sabrina had to discover the note he’d hidden, and that would occupy her for a time. Would she understand the significance of his message?
His next message would be deadly. Then he would control the rage inside himself and watch as she waited for him to set up another bomb...or not. He laughed to himself in glee. She would be waiting for quite a while as the anticipation ate at her, and when she became complacent, he would strike again, upping the ante. Wouldn’t he just.
* * * *
“Where is he?” Sabrina asked several hours later as she paced in front of the bomb truck with Murphy and the few others remaining from the unit.
“He’ll be out any minute,” Murphy said, consoling her.
“Do you think he’s dead?” she asked for the hundredth time.
“No, they’d have said something by now.”
They waited for word on the last member of the bomb disposal team trapped in the rubble of the building. After the explosion, three of them had contacted the bomb squad via radios. Two had already been sent to area hospitals.
Sabrina refused to leave the site until everyone from the bomb squad was out of the building. All the firefighters helped move rubble at first. Portable spotlights were set up and focused on the building to facilitate the effort. More alarms had gone out to fire stations across the city. They were called in to relieve those first responding trucks. Firefighters took turns rotating in and out of the hotel to help. There had been a small fire one of the trucks put out on the opposite end of the building from where the rescue operation was, but luckily it had been doused quickly.
The crowd had dispersed some after a while. The hotel patrons had been sent to other hotels. Luckily no civilians had been hurt in the explosion. Sabrina lost track of Jake after a couple hours in her concern for her friends, the bomb disposal team still inside.
Hennessey arrived minutes after the explosion demanding answers. She hadn’t been able to speak. Murphy had done all the talking. He talked Hennessey through what they’d done, which was a by-the-book defuse. Thus far, Hennessey hadn’t made any comments about the explosion. He always preferred to chew things over in his mind to get all the curse words lined up for the most effective rant, and she deserved them.
Hennessey released them to go home two hours after the explosion. Sabrina gave her boss a heated glare and refused to budge. Murphy told him Sabrina wanted to check the guys out personally for any injuries before she would allow herself to leave, and maybe not even then. Her boss had little to say and spent the rest of the time ignoring them. Sabrina figured she and Murphy were in for more trouble than a mere bill for a building this time.
Suddenly, there was a flurry of excitement at the entrance of the hotel where the firefighters had tunneled in for the rescue. Sabrina saw the last stretcher being brought out carrying George, the final member of her bomb squad disposal team. She ran to intercept it halfway to the ambulance. She wanted to see that he was alive. Murphy only made a half attempt to stop her. He knew better. Luckily, Hennessey was distracted or he would have tackled her.
“Hey, it’s about time you came out. You had us all worried,” Sabrina said, walking alongside the stretcher. She bent over the stretcher to talk to George as he was hauled to the waiting vehicle.
“Sabrina…I need to tell you…” He lifted a shaky hand to her. She grabbed it and pressed it to her forehead as tears welled, threatening to overflow.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to talk. I’m about to get kicked off the scene anyway. I just needed to see you alive with my own eyes. I’m so very sorry, Georgie…”
George’s gaze settled on her face. “The bomb is intact, Sabrina.”
She stopped cold in her tracks. “What?” Sabrina bent further down and turned her head to listen to what he was saying.
“The bomb you defused is still intact or else we would’ve been a smear on the wall. Something else blew up. I knew you’d blame yourself. Tell Hennessey to dig it out and see for himself.”
Sabrina shook off her surprise at his words and continued holding his hand until he was placed in the ambulance. Either he’d been given some great drugs or something else had exploded. She ran back to the bomb truck. She needed to get that bomb and see for herself.
“Murphy, George said the bomb they were next to was intact. The bomb we worked on wasn’t what blew up.”
“What drugs was he on?”
“He insisted the bomb we defused is still there. We need to get it out of there to show Hennessey. He said they would have been vaporized if the bomb we’d worked on had gone off.”
“There is no way in hell he‘ll risk it. The building is about to collapse.”
“Then I’ll go back in there alone. I have to know, Murphy.”
“All right, I’ve seen that look before. Let’s go talk to the boss, but don’t get your hopes up. He won’t risk you.”
The two of them made their way to Captain Hennessey.
“There’s no way in hell I’m sending anyone back in there. Are you crazy, Sabrina?” Hennessey shouted. She should have known he wouldn’t be receptive to her plea.
“But the bomb is intact.” She looked back at the building longingly.
“Okay, so the bomb is intact. When the investigators sift through the rubble, they’ll find it.”
“I’m on the investigating team. I say we go now to prevent any damage to the bomb. I defused it for a safe, quiet journey to the containment truck, not to have tons of rubble fall on it. What if it’s in play?”
“I’m not risking your life or anyone else’s on the chance it will detonate and annihilate the building. The answer is no.”
“How about a robot…”
“No! Do you understand that word at all?”
Sabrina turned to face the building and threw up her hands in frustration. As if her hands lifting had orchestra
ted the collapse, the remnants of the Old Town Hotel building shuddered behind her and fell. Everyone waited, breaths held, to see if the other bomb would blow. Silence. Sabrina looked over at the rubble and sighed in defeat.
Hennessey came up behind her and spoke in a clear, low voice. “Go home, Sabrina. Get some sleep. You’ll have plenty of time tomorrow to start the investigation. You can put all your theories in the final report. No one, and I mean not a single soul, robotic or otherwise, goes near the building until the structural engineers give the okay. I don’t want to see you until noon tomorrow. You got me?” He gave her a final glare and turned his attention to another bomb squad member who was waiting to talk to him.
“We’ll tackle it tomorrow, Sabrina,” Murphy said. “Go home and get some sleep. You’re going to need it. We’re going to need our wits about us to dodge all the fingers that will be pointing in our direction.”
Defeated, Sabrina nodded. She was suddenly so tired she hoped she could stay awake long enough make it back to her car at the sheriff’s parking lot and drive herself home. She and Murphy were the last two left after the final ambulance had departed.
“You need a lift?” Murphy asked looking over her shoulder.
“No, she doesn’t,” answered a sexy voice from behind her, a voice that sent a low voltage current through her. “I’ll take her home.” Jake took her elbow in his warm hand. She would have jumped in surprise at him having snuck up on her, but she was just too tired. She also should have told him no. She didn’t need a ride, but she found she lacked the stamina to fend off a handy chauffeur tonight. The sound of Jake’s voice relaxed her further. If she got any more relaxed, he’d have to carry her home. Altogether, not an unappealing thought.
“See you tomorrow, Murphy,” she said, waving, and turned to Jake. He’d changed clothes, and it looked like he’d showered. The five o‘clock shadow was gone from his face.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said as Jake led her to an oversized black truck. “I live over on Madison Boulevard
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