Flashback by Justine Davis (reading e books .TXT) 📗

The restaurant was elegant, the wine smooth and heady, the steak done to absolute perfection. Yet it all paled beside Alex’s sudden anticipation of the night to come. She’d never been like this, never felt like this with a man. She didn’t know if that was good or bad, only that as strongly as her gut had warned her to go cautiously before, it was now screaming this was right.

Very right.

She tried to make herself concentrate on the incredible amount of data they’d accumulated, hoping that somehow the solution would suddenly pop up and become obvious.

“I hereby declare a moratorium on work talk,” Justin declared, as if he’d again read her mind.

“It’s not work,” she reminded him. “At least, not official work.”

“Splitting hairs that are already split, Agent Forsythe,” he said with mock sternness, gesturing at her with his wineglass.

She couldn’t help but chuckle at him. “So what shall we talk about? The weather? Politics? Religion?”

“Going to get hotter…dirty…and lapsed. You?”

The chuckle became a laugh. “At least it’s not humid…dirty’s too nice a word…and intermittent,” she said, and got a laugh in return.

He looked at her for a moment then, a long silent moment that made her blood start to heat.

“It’s about that pink elephant,” he said softly, a wry smile curving his lips.

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “The one we’re not supposed to notice or think about? Yeah. Takes up a lot of room, doesn’t it?”

“Heart and mind,” he said. “But let’s drop it there, or I’m going to insult the chef by dragging you out of here in the middle of your dinner.”

There was little conversation after that, and Alex wryly noted they were both eating rather quickly. When they were finished, Justin paid quickly—and tipped generously, she noticed—and they walked out into the balmy evening air.

When they reached his bureau car, the stereotypical black four-door sedan, he walked her to the passenger door, opened it and turned to her. He gripped her shoulders. Started to pull her to him. She read his intent in his eyes, and her lips parted in anticipation.

“No,” he said suddenly.

She blinked.

“If I start now, I’ll be in agony all the way home. Let’s go.”

“Fast,” she said, feeling breathless.

“You can bet on it,” he muttered, as he walked around to the driver’s side.

Alex was trying not to think, but her body seemed to have taken charge in that department. She managed not to look at her watch every block, but barely. She rolled down her window, thinking the air in her face might help. That wouldn’t be possible in another couple months, it would be far too warm not to have the air-conditioning on.

The fresh air helped. But after a few moments she began to realize that she was hearing something odd. A very light, irregular tapping sound that seemed tied to the roughness of the road.

She glanced at Justin. He was sitting behind the wheel with his head cocked slightly, as if listening.

“You hear it, too?”

“I’m hearing something,” he said. “Very faint, but it’s there. Like a wire’s loose or something.”

He pulled off the street at the next opportunity, which happened to be the driveway of a large office complex. He left the car running but set the brake. Her instincts were yelling, and she suspected his were, too. She slung her purse over her shoulder and got out at the same time he did.

She looked over her side of the car. Saw nothing unusual. Bent to peer underneath. Saw something white dangling from the undercarriage. Plastic. Wide. Familiar.

A zip tie. Holding something—

She jerked upright.

“Bomb!

Chapter 13

Alex whirled, dived at Justin. He didn’t question, he just reacted. He caught her around the waist and they swung backward together. The impetus drove them toward, and then behind the large Dumpster that appeared to be awaiting emptying.

She barely had time to catch her breath before the world tilted. An explosion of sound and light and concussion hammered at her eyes and ears. And moments later the awful smell of an evil kind of smoke scoured at her nose.

She didn’t have to look around the corner of their improvised metal barricade to know that but for their highly trained instincts and quick reactions they would both be dead.

“Are you all right?”

Justin’s voice was brusque, controlled, but she heard the undertone of worry and liked it.

“I’m fine. You?”

“Intact,” he said as he got to his feet and held down a hand to help her up.

They stepped out from behind the shelter of the Dumpster. The car was engulfed in flames shooting fifteen feet in the air, and the smell of burning vinyl and carpet thick and choking.

And probably toxic, Alex thought as she coughed.

“What did you see?”

Alex turned to look at him. In the staccato, rapid-fire manner of an official report, she told him.

“White, heavy-duty zip-tie—the end of it was what was tapping against the undercarriage—holding a wrapped package to the frame. Digital timer on the outside, three wires going into the package.”

He sucked in a breath and his lips tightened.

“If he’d used a lighter weight tie that I wouldn’t have heard, if he hadn’t been just that little bit sloppy and had trimmed the loose end…” she began, emotion creeping into her voice now.

“And if you hadn’t rolled down your window in the first place,” he said, his expression grim as he put into words what they both knew; they’d been damned lucky.

Sirens sounded in the distance, and they both knew they were in for some explaining.

Alex’s gaze locked with his, saw that he was thinking, as was she, of what would not be happening in the next few hours.

It was going to be a very long night.

“Do you have any idea how much paperwork having a bureau car blow up on you causes?”

To get home they’d borrowed another vehicle from the small pool available. It was an older one, scheduled for retirement soon, and it showed. At the slightest bump, something