Ricochet

The room cooled back to studied indifference or outright hostility as Cassie swaggered up to the front, chipped shoulder firmly in place. “Lizzie’s clothing is next on my list for examination, but a preliminary scan suggests we won’t get much. Between the wet and the dirt from the tunnel, it’s going to be tough to tell the trace evidence from the rest. The explosive-device fragments have been forwarded to an FBI expert.” She didn’t acknowledge Trouper and she certainly didn’t look happy about the interdepartmental cooperation as she continued, “and the skeleton has gone to the ME for examination. A preliminary scan indicates that we exhumed a complete skeleton, with a couple of the smaller bones missing. No cause of death was immediately apparent.” She shrugged. “We’ll know more in a day or so.”

Chief Parry frowned. “How quickly can you get the skull to Wyatt for facial reconstruction?”

“She’ll have it first thing tomorrow.”

“Good. See that she does.” Parry waved Cassie back to her seat and called another officer to report.

The rest of the meeting amounted to a whole lot of negatives. The suspects questioned to date all had solid alibis, including Lizzie’s neighbor, Bradford Croft, whose name had dinged on the sex offender registry, making him an immediate suspect. A few other names were kicked around, including a longtime local named Michael Swopes, who had a string of low-level juvenile priors, and had done custom cabinet work for the families of the first and third kidnap victims.

It was near 10:00 p.m. when Parry closed the meeting. “Okay, people. Night shift, you know what you’re doing. Day shift, go home and get some rest.” His eyes slid to Alissa. “You all look like you could use it.”

No kidding, she thought. The aches of the day sang through her body and left her nearly limp. But she forced herself to her feet and headed for the door. Cassie and Maya stayed behind to talk to Captain Parry, but Alissa couldn’t bear to wait for them. She wanted food, aspirin and her bed, not necessarily in that order.

She was so tired that she wasn’t even surprised to see Tucker waiting for her out in the hallway. “You want a ride home?” he asked.

A ride home, a shoulder to lean on. Hell, even just a hug. Yeah, she could use all that. And because she wanted it so badly, she shook her head. “I’m fine.” When he fell into step beside her, she slanted him a look. “I said I’m fine, Tucker. Shift’s over. You don’t have to play nice with me anymore on Chief’s orders.”

They exited out to the shadowed parking lot, where the number of personal cars sitting beneath the sodium lights attested to the big case. The cop shop wouldn’t sleep until the girls were home—safe, God willing—and the kidnapper was in custody.

Tucker growled low in his throat. “Don’t be a pain. You’re all done in and I don’t think you should be driving.” He waved to his SUV. “Get in. I’ll pick you up in the morning.”

She turned to face him, noting how the bare lighting threw his hard-cut features into stark relief and darkened his eyes to jet. When he stepped closer—too close—she felt a tug of nerves. “Look. I appreciate the concern, but I’m fine. I don’t need a babysitter, okay?”

They stared at each other for a beat before he dipped his head. At first, she had the insane notion that he was going to kiss her. At the thought heat blazed through her body, a raging, unwise, uncaring inferno that recalled the flash and flame they’d created together once before.

Then she realized he was only nodding. “I got it.” His voice rasped on the words, as though he was restraining a curse, or something else.

He stepped back, and she felt as if they’d just ended an embrace, though they hadn’t touched. Her lips were tender and swollen as though they had kissed. Her body revved and begged as though they had done even more than that.

He lifted an eyebrow. “You going or not? If you fall asleep on your feet in the middle of the parking lot, I’ll be obliged to drive you home.”

“I’m going.” She spun blindly and nearly tripped over her own feet as she hurried to her VW, painfully aware of her own thoughts, and painfully certain he’d read them in her face. Why else had his eyes been dark, his expression cloaked with a fierceness that bordered on passion?

She fumbled for her keys and unlocked her car, only then noticing a single sheet of paper trapped beneath the wiper blade. Thinking it was a menu, or a flier for the grunge club down the street, she grabbed for it.

The block-lettered words took a moment to register.

You’re getting warmer.

She heard a click and saw a curl of plastic-coated wire beneath her wiper blade. She turned to run and scream a warning, but her feet moved in slow motion and her voice failed her.

She heard another click. A dull whump! of detonation.

Something hit her from behind, driving her to the ground and pressing her flat.

And the night erupted in searing, choking flames.

Chapter Four

Tucker hit the pavement between two parked cars on his knees and elbows and tried not to squash Alissa flat. Then the world exploded, and flat was the only option.

He gritted his teeth and clung to her, curled around her as the wall of concussion slammed into him and left him limp. The heated air crisped his clothes and skin, and the roar of explosion nearly deafened him.

The windows blew out of the nearby cars. Chips of glass slashed down on the back of his neck, into his hair, and his left leg burned like hell.

Adrenaline hammered through him, fear for himself, for her. Secondary detonations sounded and he braced for added heat before he realized that nearby car tires were blowing out, overpressurized by expanding air.

Then the main explosion rolled over and passed. The heat dimmed slightly, the roaring receded, and other sounds took over. Crackling flames. Shouts.

He felt the burn of hot cloth across his back and legs, the body of the woman beneath him, and the knowledge battered at his brain.

Someone had tried to kill her. The trap hadn’t been anonymous this time, hadn’t been baited with a kidnapped girl that any one of them would have gone after. Alissa’s car had been rigged to blow, which meant one of two things—either the kidnapper had watched them in the canyon and seen the explosion and the escape…or Alissa had an enemy of her own.

Aware of the fading heat and the low-throated roar of hand-held fire extinguishers, of shouts and approaching footsteps, Tucker levered himself to the side. His body parts all worked the way they were supposed to, and even the burning pain in his calf was fading to manageable levels. He reached out to touch Alissa, but she moved before he could rouse her. She rolled to her side, facing him.

Her eyes were stark in her pale face, which was cast orangey-red by the flicker of nearby flames. Shock hadn’t set in yet, or if it had, she was holding it at bay with force of will.

Her lips trembled, then shaped three words. “We’re getting warmer.” His first insane thought was that she was trying to joke about nearly having been killed. Then she shifted to sit up, swaying, and shoved a crumpled piece of paper at him. “The bastard sends his greetings.”

Tucker sat up and grabbed the paper, automatically handling it by the edges, though there was little hope of getting usable evidence from it.

You’re getting warmer.

Tucker cursed as their suspicions were confirmed. The kidnapper was playing a game with the cops. But to what end?

“Here they are!” Mendoza’s voice shouted. Footsteps thundered toward the narrow gap between two cars, where Tucker and Alissa had taken shelter from the blast.

Cassie and Maya were at the front of the group, panicky and frantic looking. But instead of letting them fuss over Alissa, Tucker climbed stiffly to his feet and offered her a hand. The bulk of his body blocked the space between the two cars, creating a small, intimate area for just the two of them.

Surprise showed in her tired, shadowed eyes, and she put her hand in his. The shimmer of contact was a slow, sexy burn he didn’t know how to handle, any more than he knew how to deal with the bright sizzle of anger and fear he felt at the situation, at the bastard who’d tried to kill her twice that day.

He pulled Alissa gently to her feet, giving her time to veto the move if she was hurt. But the glint in her eye and the set to her delicate, feminine jaw told him that, like him, she had little intention of admitting to an injury.

It surprised him to realize they had something in common, after all.

Then he got a second shock when her eyes softened to nearly the openness they’d held that night at the bar, when she’d looked at him like a woman looks at a man when she likes what she sees. She tightened her fingers on his hand. “Thank you.” She glanced over his shoulder and must have seen the growing crowd beyond their small space, because she flushed and dropped his hand. But then she looked back into his eyes as though steeling herself for a difficult conversation. “I owe you one. Two, really. One for digging me out earlier, and one for just now when…” She faltered, swallowed and then continued, “If you hadn’t knocked me down, I would’ve been toast. Literally. So, thanks.”

Nearby, a fire truck’s wail increased, then quit when the vehicle rolled into the parking lot and stopped beside the charred remains of her VW.

Tucker eased away and tucked his scraped hands into his pockets, which were still warm. If he’d learned anything about Alissa Wyatt in the time she’d been at the BCCPD, it was that she didn’t bend easily, didn’t apologize easily and didn’t want to owe anybody anything, except perhaps, her two closest friends.

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