Explosive Attraction

by LENA DIAZ,

  Rafe briefly closed his eyes. When he looked at her again, his eyes were filled with pain. “Shelby and I saw a therapist. He was supposed to help us save our marriage. Turns out, all he did was help himself to my wife.”

  Darby gasped and clutched a hand to her throat. “That’s why you used to despise me? Because I’m a therapist and your wife cheated on you with a therapist?”

  He clamped his jaw tight, not answering.

  “That’s a pretty broad brush you’re painting an entire profession with. Tell me, do you still feel that way? Do you think I’m a bad person, just because of my occupation?”

  “I don’t think you’re a bad person. And I’m trying to look past your career choice.”

  “You’re trying to...” Darby hopped off the bar stool. She was so mad she wanted to punch him. “While you’re trying to look past my profession, I’ll try to look past yours. After all, you’ll send anyone to prison, whether they deserve it or not. You don’t care if they’re mentally ill, if they can’t understand the consequences of what they’ve done.”

  He hopped off his seat and took a step toward her, his eyes blazing. “It’s not my place to decide innocence or guilt, or even punishment. I find the facts and present them. You’re the one who ignores the facts. You’re the one who will do anything to get some creep off with a light sentence.”

  Darby crossed her arms. “All the time we’ve spent together, everything we’ve shared, hasn’t changed a thing. You still think I’m evil. And I still think you’re pigheaded. Tell me, why did you sleep with me last night if you thought I was so terrible? It was just sex, wasn’t it? It didn’t mean anything to you.”

  His entire body went rigid as he stared down at her.

  Some of Darby’s anger faded as she watched the emotions play across his face. She was good at reading people, and she saw the hurt when she made her accusation. It was the one thing that gave her hope. She reached out toward him, ready to apologize, but he turned away.

  He picked up his duffel bag from the couch. “Pack your things. We’re leaving.” He headed toward the door.

  “Wait.” Darby ran to catch up with him.

  He paused at the front door.

  Anger radiated off him in waves. Darby realized nothing she said right now would get through to him. She’d have to wait until he calmed down. “I thought we were going to stay here for a while. Where are we going?” she asked. “To another hotel?”

  It took him several minutes to answer, as if he was trying to calm down enough not to shout. “Buresh called while you were upstairs. He wants us back at the station. He said there’s a major break in the case. With any luck, you’ll be back home before the day is over. And except for work, you’ll never have to see me again.” He yanked the door open and stepped outside.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Buresh met Darby and Rafe as soon as they entered the police station. He led them into a conference room where several other detectives were waiting. A folder lay on the table in front of Buresh’s chair.

  “Should I stay outside?” Darby asked, feeling out of place and more than a little uncomfortable with Rafe still so angry.

  “Nothing that matters has changed,” Rafe said. “Where I go, you go, until the killer is behind bars.” He pulled out one of the chairs for her.

  Nothing that matters?

  She clenched her hands, ignoring the chair. “Captain Buresh, I’d prefer to wait in your office. I’m sure I’ll be safe—”

  “Dr. Steele,” Buresh interrupted. “You both need to hear this. Please, sit down.”

  They all sat, and Rafe turned to Buresh. “You said there was a major break in the case.”

  Buresh cleared his throat, looking extremely uncomfortable. “These guys worked through the night, did some amazing detective work, the best I’ve ever seen. They—”

  “Buresh,” Rafe said, his voice impatient.

  The captain folded his hands together on top of the folder. “Fullerton isn’t the killer. After checking in with his parole officer that first time, he must have decided he couldn’t handle the pressure again of living on the outside. Who knows? For whatever reason, he committed suicide.”

  Nausea roiled in Darby’s stomach. She clasped a hand to her throat. Under the table, Rafe took her other hand in his. Even though he wasn’t looking at her, even though she’d hurt him and he was still angry, he was trying to comfort her.

  She selfishly clutched his hand like a lifeline.

  “I’m sure you checked death records when you were trying to find him,” Rafe said, his voice hoarse, as if Fullerton’s death weighed as much on his conscience as it was weighing on Darby’s. “What took so long to figure out he’d killed himself?”

  “There was never a death certificate. Apparently he killed himself at his cousin’s house. His loving cousin withdrew all of Fullerton’s money from the bank. Apparently he had several thousand dollars from an inheritance. The cousin buried Fullerton in his backyard and never told anyone.”

  “What makes you sure the cousin didn’t kill Fullerton?” Rafe asked.

  “There were other witnesses. Took a while, quite a bit of pressure, but we feel we got the whole story.”

  Rafe nodded. “So we still don’t know who the killer is.”

  Buresh cleared his throat again. “Actually, we do. He’s Fullerton’s half brother, Kurt Sonntag. Same mother, different fathers. He got sloppy when he took McHenry. It was caught on camera. And we were able to match his prints from McHenry’s office with a partial from an earlier scene. He wasn’t an EOD, like Fullerton, probably because the army wouldn’t take him. He didn’t pass the psych eval. But he’s knowledgeable about explosives. As a kid, he was a fireworks fanatic who graduated to making his own explosives.”

  “We thought everything pointed to Fullerton earlier,” Rafe said. “What makes you sure we’re not making another mistake? Maybe Sonntag is another fall guy, working with the bomber, like the guy who took Mindy.”

  Darby’s hand jerked, but Rafe’s fingers tightened around hers. His thumb traced a slow circle on her wrist, as if trying to soothe her.

  “Fullerton got out of prison a year ago,” Rafe continued. “If Sonntag is the bomber, if he wants revenge for his brother’s conviction and suicide, why wait so long?”

  Darby saw the regret on Buresh’s face, in the stiff lines of his body, the way he wouldn’t look Rafe in the eyes. She studied the faces of the handful of detectives sitting at the table. None of them would look at Rafe.

  What were they hiding?

  Buresh took a deep breath. “Sonntag is a career criminal. He got out of prison a few weeks after Fullerton’s suicide. He began his revenge a year ago. Then he fled to a neighboring county and got picked up for a petty crime, spent eleven months in lockup. When he got out, he came back here.”

  Rafe stared at him, his jaw working, as if he were trying to figure everything out. “You said he began his revenge a year ago. What did you mean?”

  Buresh opened the folder in front of him and pulled out a black-and-white photograph. He set it on the table, and pushed it toward Rafe. “This is Sonntag’s mug shot.” He picked up another picture and set it down beside the first. “And this is a snapshot taken from the P.I.’s office. They’re the same guy. Sonntag is our bomber.”

  Rafe stared down at the pictures without moving. His thumb stilled on Darby’s wrist.

  Buresh pulled a third picture from the folder. He put it over the top of the mug shot. “And this is the picture you gave me a year ago, from the security system at your house the night of the home invasion.”

  Darby’s mouth dropped open in shock.

  Sonntag, the bomber, was the man who’d killed Rafe’s wife.

  * * *

  DARBY HAD TRIED EVERYTHING she could think of to get Rafe to talk to her. But other than one- or two-word responses, he hadn’t said anything for the past hour. Instead, while the other detectives and Buresh were out trying to locate McHenry in time to save him,
and had issued a BOLO for Sonntag, Rafe refused to leave the police station. He’d wanted to help find Sonntag, but since Buresh wouldn’t let him, Rafe was now in Buresh’s office, typing like a madman on his laptop, trying to figure out on his own where Sonntag might be.

  The phone on Buresh’s desk rang, startling Darby. She’d been half dozing in the chair, watching Rafe type on his computer. He picked up the phone and listened for a minute, then he warned whoever was on the phone to be extra careful on this one. He hung up and looked at Darby.

  “They’ve spotted both Sonntag and the P.I. in an abandoned hotel scheduled for demolition, about forty-five minutes west of town. The P.I. has a bomb strapped to his chest and Sonntag is sitting next to him in a chair. Everyone’s on the way there. Looks like it could be a hostage standoff.”

  Relief flooded through Darby. “It’s over then. For us, at least. I mean, they’ve found him. He can’t get away, right? This is good news.”

  He shook his head, looking unconvinced.

  “It’s not good news?”

  “It’s too easy. It doesn’t feel right.”

  “You said they saw him. Is Buresh there?”

  “Buresh is there.”

  “He knows what Sonntag looks like. Don’t you trust him?”

  Rafe tapped his hands on the desk. “I don’t trust Sonntag. The bastard killed my wife, and he’s been playing games with us. I just don’t see him being stupid enough to let himself get caught like this.”

  “He got caught breaking and entering. He’s obviously not that smart.”

  “I read the case file on the B and E a few minutes ago.” He motioned toward his laptop. “Sonntag was tight with his brother. He was still grieving, high on alcohol and drugs when he broke into that home. That’s the only reason he got caught.” He shoved back from his desk. “Come on, we’re leaving. If this is a decoy, some way to get the station to empty out, I don’t want you caught in the middle. I’m taking you back to the cabin.”

  * * *

  TEN MILES OUT OF TOWN, Rafe cursed and wheeled the car around in the middle of the road.

  Darby grabbed the middle console and armrest to steady herself. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve got a feeling.”

  “A feeling? About what?”

  He floored the gas to get around a car, dodging back into his lane when a semi honked its horn, narrowly missing them.

  “What are you doing?” Darby cried out, when Rafe floored the gas again, whipping around two cars this time before yanking the wheel to avoid another car.

  “He was giving us clues and we didn’t even realize it. Remember those pictures? The ones of Jake, you and me? What did they all have in common?”

  “The courtroom? You’re going to the courthouse?”

  “No, it’s Sunday. The courthouse wouldn’t be open. That’s not where he’s going.”

  “Where who’s going?”

  “Sonntag.”

  “He’s not going anywhere. He’s at a hotel west of town. Surrounded by police, remember?”

  He yanked the wheel, heading down a narrow dirt road with oak trees hanging over it, blocking out most of the sunlight. “Think about it. When Sonntag took the A.D.A. to that warehouse, he tied him to a chair, strapped a bomb to him and left. When he put that bomb on Jake, he took off. He doesn’t stick around to get caught or to blow himself up.”

  Darby nodded, agreeing with him, and starting to see where he was going with this. “So, the hotel is a decoy, somehow. They think Sonntag is there with the P.I., but he isn’t.”

  “Right. He staged the scene to trick the cops, to get them out of town so he could go after the most important victim on his list, the one person ultimately responsible for sending his brother away. The one person in common with everyone else in those photographs.”

  Darby blinked. “Judge Thompson.”

  “Exactly. And in a town this small, everyone in law enforcement knows where Thompson can be found on a Sunday afternoon when the weather is sunny and clear and the wind isn’t up.”

  He drove in silence for a while, racing so fast down the narrow, twisting road that Darby had to shut her eyes to keep from becoming a shaking mass of nerves.

  He turned the wheel again and raced into a parking lot, passing the startled valets. He didn’t stop at the clubhouse. He didn’t even slow down when the car reached the green. He kept on going, right onto the pristine, manicured lawns of the Tournament Players Club golf course at Sawgrass.

  * * *

  DARBY BRACED HER HAND against the dashboard as the car bucked and slid on the soft grass. “What if you’re wrong? What if the hotel isn’t a decoy?”

  Rafe glanced over at her. “Then I’m going to be in big trouble.”

  “How are you going to find Judge Thompson out here?”

  “Just look for a man in a bright orange shirt with purple-and-yellow-striped pants.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Nope. He’s as predictable as Renee and her Thursday suits. Which means he should be right around the fifth or sixth hole about now.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  He gave her a droll look. “Everyone knows about Thompson’s golf habit.”

  “I didn’t.”

  He shrugged.

  “There!” Darby yelled, pointing up the hill. “Is that him?

  An older man in a bright orange shirt was racing down the fairway in a golf cart, coming toward them. He was driving so fast people were diving out of his way. A young teenager was riding with him. And from the look on his face as he held on to the golf cart, he was terrified.

  Rafe pulled the car to a stop on the path and jumped out to intercept Thompson. Darby hopped out and ran after him.

  The judge slammed the brakes, making the cart slide sideways, narrowly avoiding Rafe.

  Rafe put his hand out as if to steady the older man. “Are you okay, sir?”

  Thompson swatted his hand away. “I’m fine, Detective Morgan. Especially now that I’ve found you.”

  Rafe exchanged a startled glance with Darby. “You were looking for me, sir?”

  Thompson nodded. “I was at the fifth hole when this young man found me.” He waved toward the scared-looking teenager still sitting in the golf cart, his hands wrapped around the railing on the side of his seat. His collared shirt bore the TPC logo.

  “That young man gave me an envelope that a courier delivered to the clubhouse. As soon as I opened it, I knew I needed to call you.” He leaned into the backseat of the golf cart and held out a large manila envelope toward Rafe.

  “Just a minute, sir.” Rafe pulled his ever-present pair of latex gloves out of his pocket.

  He took the envelope and opened it. When he reached inside, instead of a timer, he pulled out a cell phone with a note taped to the back.

  Judge Thompson leaned close to Darby. “The note says to give the cell phone to Detective Rafe Morgan immediately, that a life is at stake. Then it says something like ‘an eye for an eye.’ That’s why I was going to the clubhouse to call him.”

  She nodded and watched as Rafe reached back into the envelope. Darby expected him to pull out a picture of Judge Thompson. But when Rafe pulled out the picture, his face went white. Darby rushed to his side. Her stomach sank when she saw the handsome face smiling up at her from the photograph.

  Nick Morgan, Rafe’s brother.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Get out. You can’t go with me. It’s too dangerous.” Rafe idled his car in front of the country club, glaring at Darby sitting in the passenger’s seat. “Go inside with Judge Thompson. The club security will keep watch over both of you until the police arrive.”

  “What if this is a trick, to split us up?” Darby asked. “Then the bomber grabs me, and you have to choose between saving Nick or saving me. I saw that ending in Batman. It didn’t end so well for the girl.”

  Rafe cursed and shoved the car into Drive. He took off, fishtailing out of the parking lot. He headed back
down County Road 210, the same two-lane back road they’d taken from St. Augustine. He reached into his shirt pocket for his cell phone.

  “I’ll make the call,” Darby said. “Focus on the road. Who do you want me to call?”

  “Buresh. He’s the first contact. Put him on speaker.”

  When Buresh was on the phone, Darby held it out between her and Rafe so they could both hear.

  “Rafe, I was just about to call you. Sonntag wasn’t in the hotel. It was a setup, a damn cardboard cutout like they have at movie premiers.”

  “What about McHenry?” Rafe asked.

  “Dead long before we showed up.”

  “Then it was a diversion. To get all the cops out of town.”

  “Where are you?” Buresh asked.

  “Ponte Vedra. I’ve got another envelope and a photograph of my brother Nick.”

  Buresh’s gasp was audible through the phone.

  “He also left a note,” Rafe said. “‘An eye for an eye,’ which I pretty much read to mean he wants to kill my brother since he blames me for killing his. Get the guys digging fast on this. I want to know every location in Ponte Vedra that has anything to do with Sonntag’s brother.”

  “You really think he’ll lead you to Nick? This could all be a trick.”

  “He wanted me in Ponte Vedra, but he didn’t count on me getting here so fast. I was here before the envelope arrived by courier that was supposed to get me here. I’m counting on that extra time to help me get the drop on him. Now get me an address. Fast!”

  Darby ended the call for him.

  “What do you think the other phone is for?” Darby asked, pointing to the one sitting in the console, the phone he’d pulled out of the envelope.

  “It might be Nick’s phone, or it might be a burn phone to trigger the bomb detonator. I don’t know yet. Just don’t touch it.”

  Rafe’s phone rang, startling both of them. Darby looked at the screen.

  “It’s Buresh already.” She pressed Speaker and held the phone between them.

  “What have you got?” Rafe asked.

  “Two possibles. Fullerton had a house off A1A, but that’s pretty close to us here. I can get a guy out there in fifteen minutes.”