Her eyes shot to the rearview mirror every two seconds, but no one else was there. Not the CIA. Not Marcus.
A shard of grief stabbed through her at the thought. If she hadn’t failed him, he wouldn’t have had to come after her. Everything had gone terribly wrong.
This was al Lana’s fault. Kara could torture her for lifetimes and it would never be enough to make up for what Marcus had done. Never.
No more playing. It was time for Lana to die.
The art auction was at two. The youth center would be packed. Lana would be there. So would her doting, supportive family. One cal to the cel phone attached to the bomb Kara had planted and Lana would be shredded into so many bits they’d never find them al.
It was better than she deserved.
Caleb’s phone vibrated against his hip, and he had to dig through the grassy layers of a hula skirt to find it. When he saw the caler ID list a private number, he excused himself from the girls who were using him as a mannequin and stepped out of the tent.
“Stone here.”
“We searched the place where Kara was living. I think we’ve got a situation,” said Monroe.
“What kind?”
Monroe was silent for so long Caleb thought he wasn’t going to respond. Finaly, he said, “The kind Miles Gentry might cause.”
A bomb. Miles Gentry was an expert in explosives, which was why Caleb had taken the man’s place—he knew his way around a detonator.
The sun beat down on Caleb’s black hair, but al he felt was cold.
“What did you find?” asked Caleb.
“Not much. Tools. But the place was so clean otherwise, they stood out. We’ve got men and dogs on the way to help you sniff out any problems.”
“I understand.” Caleb’s mind whirled through what he needed to do to deal with the threat. He wanted to find Lana, but there wasn’t time, and everyone here was in as much danger as she was. Al these kids were in danger. “But on the way isn’t good enough. I’m not waiting.”
“Be careful,” said Monroe.
“Yes, sir.”
Caleb hung up the phone and ducked back into the tent, where Grant was being painted by a group of little girls.
“Gotta go, Kent,” he told Grant.
Grant looked up, and Caleb could see that he knew this was business. He didn’t ask any questions, just extracted himself from the girls, grabbing a handful of wet wipes to clean his face.
“We need to clear the entire area. Round up the men. Set up a perimeter. Have everyone spread out, and disperse the crowd as quickly and quietly as possible. I’l clear the youth center.”
“I’m on it,” responded Grant, and he took off at a jog.
Caleb ran for the youth center and Lana.
He entered the building and spotted her standing near the podium. His heart started a heavy, hot pounding. God, he loved her. He didn’t want to leave her even for a day.
How the hel was he going to live a lifetime without her?
There was time to worry about that later, if he was lucky. Now he needed to get everyone out of the building.
As if sensing his gaze, she looked up, and al the color drained from her face. She came toward him, meeting him along the center aisle of chairs that had been blocked off for the auction. A crowd circled the outer edge of the seating, but they were separated from that crowd, as alone as they were going to get.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him, her voice shaking.
“We need to clear the building. There may be an explosive device in here.”
“A bomb? Oh, God, no! The kids! We’ve got to get them out of here. It’s not saf—”
Caleb clamped a hand over her mouth as people began to turn and stare. “Listen to me. I’m going to deal with this. I need you to stay calm and do exactly what I say. Do you understand?”
Lana gave a shaky nod.
“Good. Now, I need a microphone.”
Lana ran to the podium, where the auctioneer’s microphone was ready and waiting. Caleb was right on her heels.
Lana flipped the microphone on with a shaking finger and handed it over to Caleb. “Can I please have your attention?” His voice was even and calm, without a hint of the panicky fear that was racing through him.
“The kids have been working hard with me on something for the past few days, and I thought al of you would like a little demonstration. Kids, are you with me?”
A scattering of young cheers went up, and parents smiled in anticipation.
Caleb pressed a button on his watch. “Okay, kids, your record is sixty-eight seconds. Let’s see how much your folks slow you down. Go!”
Immediately, kids started making blaring noises like car horns or alarm clocks and headed for the door, puling their parents behind them.
Lana gave Caleb a questioning look.
“Fire dril,” he explained. “The kids added the noise on their own. I just taught them to get out of the building in an orderly manner. After what happened at your parents’
house, I thought it might come in handy if there was ever a fire here.”
“Thank God you’re such a Boy Scout.”
“I want you out of here, too. Get behind the perimeter the men set and stay there. I can’t afford to split my attention right now.”
Lana didn’t argue, but before she went, she puled him down and gave him a brief kiss. She handed him a set of keys that opened al the doors in the building. “Stay safe.”
He gave her a feral warrior’s smile. “Promise me more of that sweet mouth and there’s nothing that wil take me down.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Disarming the bomb wasn’t going to be the hard part for someone who was as good with explosives as Caleb. Finding it was another story.
Caleb would have given his right arm for a dog trained at sniffing out explosives right now. His sense of smel was good, but not that good, and the bomb squad hadn’t arrived yet.
The only consolation he had was that he was alone in the building and the crowd was clear and out of danger. Grant and the other men had seen to that. If Caleb messed up, he would be the only one paying the price, which was about as good as a situation like this could get.
He started at the rear door, figuring the private office area was a more likely location to leave something someone didn’t want noticed. There was no way to know if opening a door would trigger the device, but he sure as hel couldn’t see through them. Slowly, one by one, he opened each office with the keys Lana had given him. He started sweating on the first door. By the third, he was drenched.
But his hands remained steady, and that was the important part.
The offices were smal and most were empty, making them easy to search. One of the rooms had been converted into an employee lounge, though it was hardly bigger than the offices. The faint scent of coffee clung to the wals. He opened each of the three cabinets over the counter, as wel as the one under the sink, and found nothing but coffee, filters, dishes, and cleaning supplies. There was a large metal supply cabinet next to the refrigerator that he didn’t remember seeing before, but he’d been in here only once, to get some ice for one of the kids who twisted his ankle.
Caleb approached the cabinet cautiously. He could see gouges in the vinyl flooring where the cabinet had been scraped across it. The gouges hadn’t had time to colect any dirt. It definitely had been moved recently.
He picked up a chair and used the metal leg to push the lever that opened the door. Nothing happened. The door inched open, but nothing exploded. Which was a good thing.
Caleb definitely wanted al his fingers intact when this mess was over. He liked the way Lana’s skin felt under his hands too much to give up even a little of that tactile sensation.
He leaned close and peered inside the cabinet. He could see only one side, but it looked empty. Again, using the chair, Caleb nudged the cabinet door open. Again, nothing exploded.
He could see inside the cabinet easily now, and it was, indeed, empty.
He turned to go to the next office when the refrigerator kicked on and the stench of urine and fear was pushed up to his nose. He paused, sniffing the air to figure out where the smel was coming from.
He moved to where the scent was stronger. It was coming from behind the cabinet.
Caleb leaned over until he could see behind the cabinet and found a door. The handle had been removed so the cabinet wouldn’t stick out from the wal—so that the cabinet would completely obscure the door.
Bingo.
He checked for any triggering devices connected to the cabinet, and when he found none, he carefuly picked it up and moved it out of the way. The door behind it was painted the same plain white as the wals. An empty buletin board hung crookedly from a nail in the door.
The hole where the door handle should have been had been taped over with a strip of duct tape. Caleb puled out his smal multi-tool and used the knife to poke a tiny hole in the tape so he could see inside. The storage room, or whatever it was, was dark inside. Of course.
With a deep breath to steady his nerves, Caleb slowly puled the tape away from the hole. The sticky sound was too loud in his ears, and he realized he’d slid into adrenaline-induced hyper-awareness. Everything slowed down and stretched out, giving him more time to react. He prayed he wouldn’t need it.
A muffled, frantic noise came from the other side of the door. Someone was in there.
Caleb forced himself to stay steady and keep his movements controled. Now was not the time to get hasty. “I’m coming,” he told whoever was in there in a calm voice.
“Just hold on.”
The person didn’t quiet. Instead he grew more frantic, and Caleb could tel now that it was a man from the deep, panicked grunts.
“Is there a bomb in there with you?” asked Caleb.
A broken sob from the man confirmed his suspicions.
“Okay. I can deal with that. No problem.” His voice was as steady as his hands. His pulse, on the other hand, was fast and hard. He didn’t want to die here, not when there was stil a chance he could have a life with Lana. She wasn’t convinced they should be together yet, but she’d trusted him enough to tel him about Kara. That had to count for something. He wanted to stick around long enough to find out what that something was.
Caleb slid a finger through the hole and felt around for any sort of triggering device. His movements were necessarily slow, but he wanted nothing more than to blast through this door and get this guy out of harm’s way. When he felt nothing, he poked the leg of a chair through the hole and used it to pul the door open.
Stil no explosion. Thank God.
The room was dark, but the light spiling in from the employee lounge was bright enough to see by. The bomb was hidden near the gas line going into the kitchen, where the explosion would result in a nice, big fire. It was attached to a cel phone, which wasn’t good. Caleb had seen setups like this before, and unless the phone was a decoy, one cal would set the thing off.
Opposite the bomb sat Oran, bound and gagged, and living proof that karma existed. Tears streamed down his face, and his pants were dark where he’d wet himself.
Caleb was man enough to pretend not to notice.
He crouched beside Oran, checking him for any connection to the bomb.
“I thought you were supposed to be at your engagement party today,” said Caleb conversationaly, as if they had al the time in the world. The last thing he needed was for Oran to panic and blow them both to hel.