“Okay, get on the phone and let’s get the cops out here.” He rubbed a hand down his face. “Bomb squad too.”
“Definitely.” She studied the car again. “I’m going to use my landline. I’m not taking a chance on using my cell. Cut yours off too, will you?”
He did. “I want to keep an eye on the vehicle. I know it’s late and unlikely anyone would be coming to your home, but I don’t want anyone coming close to that car. And if you’ve got curious neighbors—”
“Do it from inside the front door. You’re a sitting duck out here in the open.”
He shot her a stiff smile. “That was the plan I had too.”
“Sorry, adrenaline is a little high right now.”
“I know.”
She ran in and Daniel followed behind her. Once behind the protection of the door, he watched the car. The fact that the car hadn’t blown up when he’d started checking it comforted him. Slightly. He heard Katie on the phone in the kitchen. Heard her report the bomb.
When she hung up, she turned back to face him. “They’re on the way. Told them to be discreet so they’re coming in with no lights or sirens. They’ll start evacuating the neighbors.” From the window, she looked at the car. “Physically, it’s a relatively small bomb, but I don’t know what’s in it or what kind of reach it will have. Or if someone’s going to push a button and have it go off if I approach it again.” She paused. “Although I’m guessing since it didn’t explode while we were checking, we might be all right.”
“You’re a mind reader.”
“How’s that?”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
She rubbed her forehead. “You know what else I’m thinking?”
“What?”
“Why did he have that bomb on him?”
Daniel frowned. “He didn’t follow me. He was here before I got here.”
“Which means he originally intended to put the bomb somewhere on my property?”
The implications hit him. “Which means you’re now a target as well.”
She huffed a small breath. “Maybe. Or he was planning on putting that bomb on your vehicle at some point anyway and just took advantage of the opportunity?”
He shook his head. “Carrying a bomb around hoping for the opportunity? How stupid is that?”
“Some people are just stupid.”
“Don’t I know it.” He shrugged. “The only one with the answer to all the questions isn’t available to ask.” He scowled, then looked at the neighbors on either side. “You have a good amount of distance between your property and theirs, but still . . . you think we should evacuate them now?”
She hesitated. “Not yet. I don’t want to leave you alone and we can’t take a chance someone will come on the property. Generally, we’d want at least five hundred feet between us and that bomb, but I won’t leave it and take a chance someone wants to be a night owl on a stroll.” She shot him a wry look. “And I don’t suppose it would do me any good to order you away from it.” He snorted and she rolled her eyes. “That’s what I thought. We’ll let the experts handle the evacuation.”
“Thought you were the expert.”
Her jaw tightened. “Not anymore.”
They stood in silence just inside her front door. Waiting.
The first cruiser rolled up approximately six minutes later, followed by a large truck that stopped behind it. It helped to have a bomb squad close by. There had been times when she’d had to wait an hour or more. Katie opened the door and walked onto the front porch. When the driver exited the vehicle, she flashed her badge and pointed to the SUV. “On the chassis, under the driver’s seat.”
He turned and consulted with someone inside the large truck. Then he turned back to her while more police cruisers pulled up and were motioned to a stop well away from Daniel’s car. “We’re going to park across the street and work it from there. You can get in and be safe while we take care of this.”
Katie and Daniel climbed into the back of the truck and the driver made his way slowly down the street. “There’s not a great spot that’s far enough away but close enough to do what we need to do,” Katie heard him say.
“Do your best,” was the response from the man seated next to him.
The best they could do was about a football field in length away from the bomb. The man in the passenger seat turned and his eyes found Katie’s. “Now we can take care of the introductions.”
“I’m Katie Singleton.” She flashed her badge and he nodded. “This is Daniel Matthews, my client. It’s his vehicle with the device strapped to it.”
“I’m Jack Sinclair, lead on this.” Jack held out a hand and she shook it.
“Do you mind filling me in?” she said.
“Who are you with?”
Katie held his gaze. “The mayor.”
“Ah yes, Elite Guardians, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
He nodded. “Heard of you.” He shot her a smile. “All good things. So, you found the bomb?”
“My client and I did.”
“Good job.” He spoke into the radio he held and looked up at her. “We’ve got uniformed police officers setting up a perimeter and going door to door to evacuate the homes. No telling what’s in that bomb and how far it’ll send debris.”
Katie nodded. She knew a few curious onlookers would ignore the order and could only hope that the bomb didn’t go off. Daniel sat next to her, eyes glued on the screens. Floodlights illuminated Daniel’s vehicle.
The team worked quickly getting the robot prepped and on the way. Within seconds it was rolling toward Daniel’s SUV. Katie watched the bomb squad member at the controls expertly maneuver the robot.
It stopped next to the SUV and a camera slid out to disappear underneath. Pictures immediately popped up on one screen, and another member started his analysis of them. The camera withdrew. Next, the operator clicked and sent another order to the robot. “All right, Rocky,” he murmured. “Time for the X-rays.” The robot seemed to follow the order as the X-ray machine slid under. The computer screens lit up with other pictures and Katie got her first look at the inside of the bomb.
“C4,” she whispered.
Jack raised a brow in her direction. “Looks like.”
“It’s enough to turn that vehicle into its own bomb. It’ll send pieces all over the place.”
“Indeed.”
“And it’s rigged to go off when he opens the driver’s door, isn’t it?” she said.
The man raised a brow again, higher this time. “Yes. How’d you know?”
“I’ve had some training and I saw the wires leading from it to the bottom of the door when we found it. So what are you going to do?”
“Unrig it.” He started to pull on the head-protection gear.
“C4 contains RDX,” Daniel muttered. “Bet he used that in the other one too.”
Jack stopped, lowered the protective helmet. “Other one?” Jack’s gaze bounced between her and Daniel.
“This isn’t our first rodeo with an explosive,” Katie said. “The same person who did this might also be responsible for Daniel’s restaurant burning down.”
Jack drew in a deep breath. “Ah yes, I thought I recognized you.”
Daniel grimaced and kept his gaze on the action around his vehicle.
“Well, Rocky’s waiting on me.”
“Rocky’s not going to defuse it?”
Jack shook his head and climbed out the back of the van. He opened a storage compartment on the side and started pulling out gear. “Not this one. It’s going to take a steady pair of hands.”
Once he had all but his headgear on, Jack pointed to the computer. “Let me take a look at the X-rays one more time, Goose.”
Goose tapped a few keys. “It’s a cylinder-shaped device,” Jack said. “The detonator is right there at the top. Screws?”
“Yes.”
“Great.”
Katie knew what he was thinking. He wouldn’t be weari
ng the hand protection very long if he had to use a screwdriver. The robot was equipped with the ability to use a screwdriver, but the location of the device was such that it was going to take human intervention.
Jack pulled his head protection back on and headed toward Daniel’s SUV. Katie watched him from the safety of the van. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides. He strode confidently, but she knew what he was feeling. His heart was thudding inside his chest and sweat was probably running down his back and pooling in his armpits. She started to perspire just thinking about it. At least it wasn’t a hundred degrees outside.
Jack reached the vehicle and the tension in the bomb truck went up tenfold.
Katie stared at the screen. She could do it. She could defuse it as well as the man now kneeling at the side of the vehicle. She’d use a rolling board and slide herself under to get a good look at the device. She’d disrupt the detonator, remove the bomb, and place it into the total containment vessel. And all would be well.
Which was exactly what Jack Sinclair was doing.
Within minutes, he had the bomb released from the undercarriage of the vehicle. He slid out from under and motioned for the robot. The robot rolled over to Jack and he placed the device into the metal container. The robot then moved to the containment vessel and gently inserted the metal container in the black hole. The door closed and the bomb was sealed.
Katie let out a breath. Everyone in the truck cheered. She shot a glance at Daniel and saw him watching the containment vessel roll into the back of the large truck that had delivered it. Now it would be whisked away and detonated in a safe area.
Unfortunately, it didn’t look like she and Daniel had anything they could remotely consider a safe area. She kept her silence while law enforcement vacated the property. Now it was about four in the morning and Katie could feel an adrenaline crash headed her way.
“I’m done with this,” Daniel said. He stood staring at his bomb-free vehicle.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m done letting him come after you and me. It’s time to go on the offensive.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
“He wants me? Fine. I’m going to make it easy to get to me.” He shot her a glance. “And Riley doesn’t need to know about any of this. Got it?”
“I think that’s a mistake, Daniel.”
“Why?”
“She needs to know the danger—and she’ll have your head if she sees it on the news.” She pointed to a news van parked just beyond the police line.
Daniel groaned. “Great.”
[20]
Thursday
7:45 AM
Riley slid the hangar door open and walked to the front of the plane. She ran a hand down the side and closed her eyes, picturing herself headed for the clouds.
“You’re going to be late.”
She spun to find Daniel leaning against the back of the plane. “Just a little and Martin won’t care. In fact, he’s so preoccupied, he probably won’t even notice.”
Her uncle eyed her for a moment, then nodded to the plane. “You thinking of taking her up?”
“Yes. Maybe after school or on Saturday.”
“Why don’t you do Saturday? I’ll take her up and give her a test run, make sure everything’s ready for you.”
“You know I’ll do my own preflight check.”
He smiled. “I know. But I also know someone who’d like to go for a ride.”
“Let me guess. Katie?”
“Um-hmm.”
“Thought so.” She nodded. “Sure, I can wait until Saturday. That might actually work better. I have an essay I need to turn in by midnight tomorrow anyway.”
“I’ll see if Katie wants to go up this afternoon.”
“Cool. Was she all right last night?” He raised his brow and Riley rolled her eyes. “You left around 11:30 and didn’t come back in until around 4:00 this morning.”
He frowned. “What were you doing up so late?”
She shrugged.
“Riley?”
All smiles gone, she lifted weary eyes to his. “Look, Daniel, you took off in the middle of the night without telling me anything and you didn’t take anyone with you. Not a bodyguard, not a friend, no one. If someone wasn’t trying to kill you, I wouldn’t think twice about it. But someone is.”
“And you were worried.”
“Of course I was worried. You promised you wouldn’t do anything stupid.” Was he really that dense? If she hadn’t been tracking his phone with the app he’d provided so she could always find him, she would have been a basket case. But she’d watched the app that had put his location at Katie’s home and then she’d tracked his progress all the way back in the wee hours of the morning. “Why did you do that?”
“It wasn’t stupid, Riley. And I needed to talk to her.”
“It couldn’t have waited?”
He sighed. “I . . . don’t know if it could have waited or not. Maybe. I thought you were asleep and wouldn’t know whether I was there or not.”
“You thought wrong.” They fell silent for a moment. “You like her a lot, don’t you?” she asked.
Riley watched his face. He thought he was so good at hiding his feelings, and in some ways he was, but she had learned to read him pretty well over the last eighteen months.
He glanced back at the plane. “Yeah. I do.”
“You have a lot in common.”
This time he looked her in the eye. “What do you mean?”
She pressed her lips together, then blew out a small breath. “You’ve both lost a brother you cared about,” she said. He lifted a brow. “One day when we were eating lunch, I asked her if she had any brothers or sisters. She told me she had one of each but that her brother, Paul, had died. It seemed to make her really sad, so I didn’t ask her any more questions.”
“Yeah.”
“Also, you both have a lot of hurt in your past that you need to deal with. I think you’re probably good for each other in that you can help each other do that. Deal with it, I mean.” She waved a hand. “Ignore me. I’m not making any sense.”
He sighed and pulled her in for a hug. “Actually, you make more sense than most adults I know. Thanks.”
Surprised, she squeezed him around the middle. “Sure.” She paused.
“What?” he asked.
“What?” she countered.
“I can tell you want to say something else.”
She sighed and leaned back. “Forgive God. It’s not his fault.”
When he didn’t move or say anything, she figured maybe she’d pushed him too far. Then she felt a gentle kiss on her head. “I love you, Riley.”
“I love you too, Uncle Daniel. Which is why I want you to be safe. But we’ve already had that discussion.”
He cupped her face. “I really can take care of myself.”
“Yes, I know. In a face-to-face, hand-to-hand fight, I believe you can beat just about anyone, but if someone’s got a bead on your back, then you’re just as vulnerable as the next person.”
“Bead on my back?”
She grimaced. “Well, I’ve hung around you and your buddies enough to pick up the lingo. And you know what I mean.”
He nodded. “I know. But I’ll tell you, I won’t be bullied, Riles. I won’t take unnecessary chances, but I won’t be bullied—or run scared.” His jaw tightened, but he didn’t look away from her.
She held his gaze for a long while. “Something else happened last night, didn’t it?”
He hesitated and she thought he might be trying to decide what to say. He finally nodded. “Someone put a bomb under my car while I was at Katie’s house. That’s why I was so late getting home.”
She froze. Then nodded. She could see the anger in his eyes. Not at her, but at the person who was putting them through the craziness. “What are you going to do?”
“Fight back.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I need you to unde
rstand that sometimes staying safe isn’t always the best choice.”
She swallowed and glanced away. “I’m not sure I want to hear what you’re going to say.”
He placed a finger under her chin and forced her eyes to meet his again. “You know me, Riley. You’ve known me for a long time. Have I ever run away from a fight?”
“No, you never have. At least not that I know about.” She sighed. “You fight for what you believe in. You stand up for yourself and for those who can’t.” She stepped back and crossed her arms. “Believe it or not, I do understand. It’s not in your nature to allow yourself to be bullied. Or anyone else for that matter. I know you need to fight back, just do it smart. Make sure you have backup.”
“Yes. Smart. That’s the key, isn’t it? And I was smart last night, I promise. I know how to watch my back and I know how to take care of myself. You’ve got to trust me to do that.”
“That’s what she said,” Riley murmured.
“Who?”
“Haley.”
“She’s pretty smart, you should listen to her.” He glanced at his phone. “Now go before you’re too late. I look forward to the ride this weekend.”
“Could I invite a friend?”
He hesitated. “Maybe not this time.”
She heard the unspoken words. He didn’t want her to bring a friend, because in spite of his words of not being bullied, he wasn’t comfortable enough putting someone else in the line of fire. She got that. Didn’t like it, but got it. “Okay. And I’m going to grab pizza with Steve after school today.”
“Steve? Little Stevie Patterson from kindergarten?”
Riley resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Yes. Little Stevie. Only don’t call him that if you see him. Please?”
“Of course not.” He shot her a wounded look and she almost laughed. “I thought he was being a bit of a jerk.”
“Yes. He was.”
“He’s not being a jerk anymore?”
“No, at least not the last couple of times I’ve talked to him.” She pulled her hair up into a ponytail, slid the ever-present hair tie from her wrist, and wrapped it around the black strands. “I don’t know. I guess I’m going to find out.”
“Let me know if I need to beat him up.”
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