Rapid Fire Read Free Page B

just doing my job.”
     
    Then the
time ran out. Her watch beeped the end of the promised ten minutes. They braced
for an explosion.
     
    Nothing
happened.
     
    Seconds
ticked by. Then minutes. Still nothing.
     
    Maya’s
brain sped up. Her thoughts quickened to a blur, but it was Sawyer who said,
“Think it’s another dud?”
     
    During
the Museum Murder investigation, Cassie’s house had been rigged with a gas leak
and a detonator that hadn’t triggered. Sawyer later determined that it had
never been intended to blow. It’d been a fake, designed to confuse them. Scare
them.
     
    Could
this be the same?
     
    “It would
fit with the Mastermind’s pattern,” Maya said quietly. “Hell, there might not
even be a device. He probably got off on phoning in a threat and watching us
scramble.”
     
    She told
herself not to be ashamed by the false alarm. There was no way she could have
known, no way she could have chanced ignoring the call.
     
    But
still, she squirmed at the sidelong glances of her former coworkers and the
stranger in the dark glasses.
     
    Sawyer
gestured to his team. “We’ll suit up and search the property to make sure.
It’ll take a few hours.”
     
    “With all
due respect,” Maya said, “I’d suggest you check the vehicles first. The
tourists are pretty edgy to leave.”
     
    “With all
due respect,” the chief said, “you should go with them. The media will be here
any minute. If they catch wind that you’re involved with this bomb scare, the
next thing we know, it’ll be splashed across the six o’clock news. Suspended
cop receives bomb tip. Film at eleven. Hell, they’ll want to know why you
received the call. Is it because you’re the last Forensics Department cop to be
targeted? Or maybe it’s completely unrelated. Maybe this is about the Henkes
trial next week. Lord knows, you’ve ticked off more than a few people with
that.”
     
    His words
dug at Maya’s suspicions, at the places she hadn’t yet managed to armor. “That
would make it completely related,” she snapped. “Why do you think I was here in
the first place? Henkes is—”
     
    “He’s
right,” Alissa interrupted, though her voice was laced with apology when she
said, “You should go. Leave your cell phone with us for analysis. Tucker and I
will swing by your place later to get a full statement.”
     
    Ouch.
Maya fought the wince, crossed her arms and nodded tightly. “Of course. I’m
sorry.” She forced the words through a throat gone tight with resentment.
     
    Was this
what she’d been reduced to? Waiting at home for her friends to drop by with a
crumb of information?
     
    When
nobody argued, she swallowed the anger and pushed through the group. Her path
brought her between Alissa and the stranger.
     
    Alissa
touched Maya’s arm and mouthed, “I’m sorry. We’ll talk later.”
     
    The
stranger just looked down at her through his shaded lenses with an intensity
that set off warning bells.
     
    Maya had
the wild, uncharacteristic urge to reach up and pull those glasses down so she
could see his eyes. But wild urges were self-destructive. She knew that much
from experience. So she sniffed and pushed past him, bumping his arm with hers
to let him know she wasn’t intimidated.
     
    Damned if
he didn’t flinch.
     
     
     
    THE FLASH
CAME THE MOMENT she touched him.
     
    Blood.
Death. Violence. Heat. Thorne held himself rigid and weathered the sensations,
which were part memory, part anticipation. He gritted his teeth and forced
himself not to show the whiplash of mental flame, of pain.
     
    Hell, he
thought when she was gone and the images faded, what was that?
     
    It was a
stupid question. He knew precisely what it had been. But why here? Why now? It
had been years since his last vision, years since the doctors had assured him the
flashes were nothing more than random synapse firings, courtesy of the drugs
he’d been given during his captivity on Mason Falk’s mountain.
     
    Years
since