Burned (Vanessa Pierson series Book 2) Read Free Page B

she missed whatever it was. Jack passed her and jumped aboard the boat. Vanessa was almost to the boat when the man in black leather reached out, yanking her on board.
    She’d held it together through the chaotic aftermath of the bombing, but now she felt something break loose inside. She spun around,thrusting her face toward his, sputtering, “Son of a bitch, don’t touch me!” She lurched toward him, but Jack grabbed her before she connected.
    She heard Jack’s hoarse admonition to stop, but she stood inches from the man and her fear and rage had let loose and she was yelling, “Who the hell do you think you are?”
    His deep-set dark eyes locked on hers, thick, dark bristles of a day-old beard shading his face, and he barked back in accented English, “I’m the son of a bitch getting you out of here before something else blows up.”
    Now Jack restrained her as the man jumped off the boat with a shouted order to the pilot:
“Allez-y!”
    As the boat took off with engines roaring and a rush of spray, Jack put his mouth to her ear so she could hear his exclamation. “Jesus, you almost whacked Marcel Fournier, the head of DCRI Ops!”
    She opened her mouth, but any words she might have conjured failed against the roar of wind. She grasped Jack’s arm and squeezed her eyes shut. The pain inside her skull had intensified over the past minutes. Had she hit the ground hard enough to do damage? Didn’t matter, she’d live. She had to push her thoughts away from the bomber’s victims; right now her feelings would only distract her from her job—stopping another attack, and then getting the bastards who were responsible.
    They were speeding upriver in the direction of the safe house. The world momentarily reduced to the walls encasing the Seine, the boat’s driving force creating a spray that mixed with spitting rain until they were soaked through and numb.
    Vanessa shivered in the Paris gloom, and her fingers brushed the blood on her clothes. Her ops training and her field experience had done nothing to lessen the horror of the bombing. And the events of the past months threatened to overwhelm her now, so she focused on questions to help her regain some semblance of control.
    Would the girl survive? How many others injured? How many dead?
    Who was behind the bombing? Iran? Bhoot?
    Those questions would be answered soon enough.
    One question haunted her and refused to go away even for a few moments.
    Did Farid betray me?

5
     
    The jet boat bounced roughly to the dock at Quai Voltaire.
    A silent driver behind the wheel of an idling black Mercedes waited just above Port des Saints-Pères; he would take them the few blocks from the Seine to the French service safe house on Boulevard Saint-Germain in the Sixième.
    Jack slid into the back, and as Vanessa followed, she heard him sniff twice. She smelled it, too: The cocoa leather interior of the Mercedes held the faint tang of cigar smoke.
    She took systematic inventory—of herself, of Jack. He had a large bruise darkening his left wrist, small abrasions freckling his face and hands, and she’d noticed him limping off the boat although he answered with a shrug when she asked about it. His clothes were filthy and bloodstained, as were hers. On herself, she found bruises and cuts on her elbows and forearms; her knees ached where she’d hit hard ground, and her cheeks and chin felt raw when she ran her fingers gingerly over her face. She worked to deny the headache, the pulsing shards of pain.
    One image seemed permanently lodged in her consciousness: the bomber’s unflinching eyes staring through her in that last moment before detonation. An image she could never erase. Good, because she never wanted to forget. Those images were part of what motivated her to keep going, even when she was beyond exhaustion. They were part of what made her capable of doing her job.
    Her breath came with a shudder and she forced her thoughts away and out—staring at the almost deserted