Then who? Cece wanted to ask. Who would do this? And who would try to kill her, too? And Blain? Honestly, it was the attempt on their lives that convinced Cece the perp wasn’t a driver. She doubted a driver would hold a grudge against an FBI agent. That didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. And obviously this was a dead end.
“Well, we’ve taken up enough of your time,” Cece said, standing.
“Oh, no. You two aren’t going anywhere. You’re having dinner with me.”
Dinner? With Randy Newell’s widow? Funny how these people she’d seen on TV went from being celebrities to ordinary people in seconds.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Blain and I are considered targets.”
“Don’t you have people keeping an eye on you?”
“Yes, but—”
“Well, invite them, too.”
“I don’t think—”
The squawk of the radio filled the room, the noise making everyone who heard it wince. And then her cellphone rang. Cece stiffened. Anytime her radio and cellphone went off at the same time, it wasn’t good.
“Bravo twenty-four.” She cut the radio off midstream and answered her cellphone. “Agent Blackwell,” she said, shooting Bryce and Rebecca a strained smile as she got up from the couch.
“Agent Blackwell, Agent Ashton here.”
As if she didn’t know that from her caller ID.
“We have a situation.”
Cece tensed, and thankfully, Agent Ashton didn’t make her ask what had happened. “Two hours ago, Atlanta Motor Speedway suffered an attack.”
Cece wished she hadn’t left the couch. Her knees felt suddenly weak.
“What kind of attack?”
“One of the grandstands is gone.”
“Gone?”
“Demolished. By a bomb.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
AGENT ASHTON ORDERED a meeting later that day, something that didn’t surprise Cece at all. What surprised her was that Blain insisted on going with her, and that he looked disappointed when she told him no. He compromised by insisting she drive the Chiquita Bananamobile, so she agreed, only to have him suddenly clutch her to him and kiss her so thoroughly that she was certain the surveillance team outside had to have seen. Jeesh, she’d be lucky to have a job by the end of the week. And damn it, he wasn’t supposed to be kissing her. She’d told him that, too, for all the good it had done. He simply insisted that he wasn’t about to give up.
And so as she drove to her appointment with Agent Ashton, Cece let her thoughts roam—in between checking her mirror to make sure no one was following her, and wondering where the investigation was leading…and what exactly to do about Blain. What if someone did lob something at her? What if she didn’t survive? What if Blain got hurt? What if she got hurt while on the job…or worse, died? Granted, if she died, she got the better part of the bargain. It was Blain who would suffer…Blain who would get the knock on the door.
Stop!
She wasn’t going there, she firmly told herself. They weren’t a couple. Not now. Not ever.
So Cece forced herself to focus. She had a meeting to get to and a killer on the loose.
Not a killer, exactly, she thought, checking her mirrors once more while she changed lanes. Granted, Randy Newell had been murdered, but nobody since. And that struck Cece as odd. Usually, a killer got more bold as the death toll mounted. And that was something niggling at the back of her mind—for a killer, he was pretty inept. Why deliver flowers to a room when you could use a gun? And for that matter, why not make sure someone was inside Blain’s car before blowing it up? And the grandstand that had been blown up today—it’d been empty, too, and small. Why blow it up during practice? Why not wait until the thing was full?
Something felt off. Something felt really off.
It bothered her the whole way downtown. Cece’s mind kept spinning and spinning, shooting out one thing after another, only to discard the reasoning a second later. She was missing something—something vital, something right at the edge of her awareness, but which she couldn’t reel in to save her life. Damn it.
When she arrived at the Charlotte field office, Agent Ashton didn’t make her wait to see him, thankfully. She showed her badge to the gal at the front desk and was practically run to the private conference room. Agent Ashton arrived moments later, looking worse for wear after his harried day dashing between Charlotte and Atlanta. And within seconds it became apparent to Cece why she’d been shown to the conference room, and not his private office. The conference room had a TV and VCR.
Uh-oh.
He popped in a tape, stepped back from the tiny screen, crossed his arms and watched.
Cece’s face materialized on the screen, an angry face, one that turned toward the camera and said—
No…
“If you want some explosive footage, just keep your cameras trained on the grandstands.”
Damn. Damn, damn, damn. She hadn’t been summoned to Charlotte to be welcomed into the investigative fold. She’d been brought in for a butt-whuppin’.
“And so the real story,” the newscaster said, a man whose face looked as grim as Agent Ashton’s as it stared into the camera, “is whether or not the FBI had knowledge that a bomb had been planted.”
She was toast.
The look in Agent Ashton’s eyes confirmed it. Frankly, he looked like he wanted to bump her off himself, especially judging by the way he stabbed the off button on the TV, the VCR still whirring in its wake.
“Agent Blackwell,” he said in a calm, even voice, one that managed to convey all his disgust, all his anger, all his revulsion. “I have spent the last four hours fielding calls from the media.” He let his words sink in, as he stared at her, unblinking.
Bet he played a hell of an I-can-keep-my-eyes-open-longer-than-you game.
“I’ve also spent time on the phone with Director Roberts.”
Director? Uh-oh.
“He’s not pleased.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
And when all he did was continue to stare at her, she swallowed, saying, “Do I still have a job?”
Agent Ashton took a moment to answer, and Cece thought it might be because he didn’t trust himself to speak.
“As of right now, you’re on paid administrative leave.”
Suspended. Crap. Shit. Damn.
“Pending a full investigation of your inability to keep your mouth shut.”
She deserved that. She knew she did.
“What about Sanders?” she asked.
“We’ll take over his protection. You’ve been released from the case. You’re free to go back to San Francisco.”
Released from the case.
“And frankly, I’d leave on the earliest flight.”
She tensed, licked her lips, wondered if she should slip off without a whimper or try and plead her case. She decided on a combination of the two.
“Agent Ashton, I accept full blame for what I did. I was…angry—” at you “—but that’s no excuse. I should have controlled my temper.”
He didn’t say anything, just crossed his arms. “I need your badge,” he said.
“But I’ve had some thoughts about the case—”
“Keep them to yourself.”
“But I—”
“Your badge, Agent Blackwell.”
“This is ridiculous. Granted,” Cece plunged onward, “I accept full responsibility for speaking to the press, but I can still help with the case. As a matter of fact, I don’t think the perp wants to kill anybody—”
“Not another word,” Agent Ashton said, his lips framed by brackets of displeasure. He turned for the door, but not before shooting her one last look of extreme and total scorn? fury? before leaving the room.
Cece just sat there. Okay, she’d blown it. Really, truly, honestly blown it. But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t at least hear her out. Yeah, he was angry at her, but what if she really did know something that might help the case? Not that sh
e did, but she might, and if she’d been allowed to sound it out, maybe Agent Ashton could have helped her piece it together.
She inhaled deeply, suddenly more depressed than she’d ever been in her life. To think, all that worry about getting canned because of her relationship with Blain, and in the end it was her own big mouth that had done it.
She reluctantly removed her badge from around her neck. For a second the polished metal blurred before her eyes, but she blinked the tears away. This wasn’t permanent. Once the review board heard her side of the story, they’d reinstate her.
She hoped.
And so she left, slinking out of the Charlotte office like a beaten dog heading toward the doghouse. By the time she reached Blain’s Hummer, she felt even more depressed. For the first time in her career, she’d be meeting with a review board.
And it was while contemplating her future that it hit her.
Actually, it was the brief thought that her mom would have been so disappointed.
Mom.
HE’D WAITED UP FOR HER, something that made Cece’s heart do a little flip. She’d never had a man wait up for her before.
But she stifled the emotions he aroused, just as she stopped him from pulling her into his arms, though she longed, absolutely longed to sink into him, to take a deep breath, to tell him everything that had happened.
Instead she said, “Blain, I need to talk to you.”
He stopped a couple of inches away from her, and the look in his eyes as he anxiously scanned her face made her heart tumble some more.
“What happened?”
She shook her head slightly, indicating with her chin the surveillance team outside. “Not here,” she mouthed, giving him what must have been a weak smile before turning away and heading toward the back of the house.
The sun had gone to bed for the evening, Carolina humidity cooling the air in a way that clung to her skin as she stepped outside. A bug light zzzzzapped to her left, and Cece found herself thinking she felt an awful lot like that bug. One wrong turn and zzzzap, on administrative leave.
“Cece, what happened?” he asked again, and this time he didn’t give her a chance to protest as he pulled her into his arms. And that was one of the things she loved about Blain. He took charge. Cece had had a lifetime of being in charge—sometimes she got tired of it. Like now.
His big hands came around her, his palm cradling the back of her head, and she loved it. She loved how warm and secure she felt when he did that. She wished for just a moment that this was any other night and that she could enjoy the way the moonlight poured over the landscape, the crickets chirping their evening song.
But they had a killer to catch. And she had no business letting Blain touch her.
She drew back. “Blain, I need to ask you a question.”
In the darkness, she saw his concern fade to consternation. “What kind of question?”
“Two years ago Randy was involved in a wreck, one that took a driver’s life.”
Nothing like talking about murder to kill a romantic moment. Cece watched as Blain stiffened, then crossed his arms as if trying to ward off the coming discussion.
“Yeah, Curt Tanner.”
The Wonder Kid. That’s what people used to call him. A kid with more talent than anyone had seen in a long, long time. He’d been Rookie of the Year his first year of Cup racing. The next year he’d won the championship. From there it’d been one winning season after another, until Randy Newell had pitched him into a wall.
“It was ruled an accident, though, wasn’t it?”
Blain nodded, his eyes dark. Or maybe it was the reflection off the surface of the lake—Cece didn’t know. All she knew was that suddenly it felt cold outside. She shivered.
“But Curt’s family didn’t believe that, did they?”
Blain shrugged. “There was some talk of the nudge that sent Curt into the wall being intentional—but it was just racing. The talk died down as fast as it’d started.”
Cece absently shook her head as she stared out at the dark waters of the lake.
“What’s this all about?” Blain asked.
She met his gaze again, wondering how much to tell him. She decided to tell him everything. “Something hit me while driving to my meeting with Agent Ashton. Actually, it’s bothered me for a while now. The explosion today just brought it all home.
“See, that alarm clock timer was so obvious. It never made sense, not when digital clocks are available. It was almost as if the killer wanted me to find the bomb. Plus, there are better, easier and far more simpler ways to kill someone. A gun, for instance.”
He nodded, and she could tell by his expression that he’d thought the same thing.
“And then today—why the heck did our perpetrator blow up empty grandstands? If your intention is to kill people, wouldn’t you wait until tonight’s race?”
“The newscasters think the detonation was an accident. I’ve been watching the reports all evening.”
She shook her head. “But see, that makes no sense. You blow up someone’s car while they’re driving in a race—in fact, you’re so organized, you’re able to remotely detonate the explosives when you realize the car is about to wreck, and yet you’re saying that same person ‘accidentally’ blew up the grandstands on the wrong day?”
“I’m not saying that. The newscasters are.”
“I know, I know. And I’m saying it makes no sense. Neither does using an alarm clock for a timer. I detected the thing with hours to spare.”
“Thank God.”
“My point is that the killer gave me that time, Blain. Just as he waited until I came out of that apartment complex before blowing up your car.”
“So you’re saying what? That he’s trying to scare us?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying, although I don’t think it was to scare us. I think it was meant more as an attention-getter.”
“Whose attention?”
“The press. And I know I’m right because we know for a fact that the perp alerted the press at least once before.”
“Why the hell would someone want the press’s attention?”
“To hurt racing.”
His brows darted toward his hairline.
“We always assumed the bad guy was some crazy who wanted to kill you and a few thousand fans. But what if that’s really not the killer’s goal? What if his aim is to scare people? That’s all. Just scare them away, thereby reducing ticket sales and sending the sport into a financial spiral.”
“I’ll be damned,” he said.
She smiled faintly. Now he was beginning to see. “There’s no doubt that Randy’s death was intentional, but that’s been the only death—his and nobody else’s, even though there’s been three times when the killer could have struck at you, or me, or even race fans.”
Blain’s mind reeled. Was she right? Could it be as simple as that?
“See, something else hit me, too. Actually, it’d been floating around in the back of my mind along with this other stuff, it just took something to trigger the memory.”
“What?” he asked, having to fight the urge to nudge a lock of hair out of her eyes. She was so focused she probably didn’t even see it there.
“I remember watching a special on Curt’s death. They interviewed his family, and I remember his mother saying how let down she felt by everyone involved with racing. No one seemed to care that her son had been all but murdered, and rather than a full-blown investigation, everything had been swept under the carpet.”
Curt’s mother had said that? “I know she was bitter,” he mused aloud. “Everyone knew it. Curt was her only child. When he died, everyone expected she’d be devastated. And she was. She grieved, looked for someone to blame.”
“She blamed Randy. What’s more, she was furious at how quickly her son was forgotten. One minute he was racing’s cover boy, the next he was yesterday’s news. I remember the fury in her eyes when she told the reporter about how nobody down in Daytona w
ould return her calls.”
“You think…” He left the thought unfinished.
But Cece was nodding. “I looked something up on the Internet on my way home.”
“On your way home?”
“I have Internet access through my mobile phone,” she said with a dismissive wave. “And here’s the thing. Curt’s family had money.”
“Yeah. I knew that.”
“But did you know where their wealth came from?”
He shook his head.
“Demolitions.”
It felt as if someone sat on Blain’s chest.
Cece nodded. “His great-grandfather was a wildcatter. Made a mint capping rogue wells. Curt’s grandfather expanded the business. He liked to blow up other things—old bridges, buildings, abandoned mines. And this is what clinched it for me. The grandfather’s only child was a daughter, Curt’s mother. She learned the business from Daddy.”
Blain shook his head. “Holy shit.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
BUT ONCE AGAIN Agent Ashton didn’t want to talk to her.
Well, that wasn’t precisely true, Cece admitted. Bob wasn’t answering his cellphone and Agent Ashton might well be off the clock. It was late on a Saturday night, after all. Getting someone on the phone became an exercise in frustration, and so Cece did the only thing she could do.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she called, stepping out of Blain’s front door.
“What the heck are you doing?” he asked, following her outside.
“Trying to get someone’s attention.”
“Can’t you just wait for Agent Ashton to return your call?”
“He’s not going to,” she worried aloud, halting at the edge of Blain’s driveway.
“Why the heck wouldn’t he?”
Okay, she hadn’t wanted to admit this to him, not yet, anyway, but she supposed there was no point in keeping it from him. “Because I got fired today.”
“Fired?”
She frowned, wondering if she should walk up the private drive and find the surveillance vehicle that was no doubt somewhere nearby. “Well,” she admitted, “not exactly fired. More like laid off.”
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