by Lisa Gardner
She moved away wordlessly, and he heard her fumbling around in the back of his Mustang. She eased the flashlight into his waiting hand just a moment later. “C.J., you get yourself blown up and I will kill you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He studied the bomb. “All right, sweetheart, what we have here is a solid block of C-4.”
“C-4?” She sounded chilled. “Please, let’s just call the police.”
“It’s okay, Tamara. C-4 is pretty stable, so there’s no immediate danger. As my sergeant liked to say, you can set the damn stuff on fire, just don’t try to stomp out the flames.” C.J. parted the black and red wires. The next thing he knew, Tamara was beneath the car right beside him.
“Tell me,” she said.
He studied her for a moment. He hadn’t lied to her—as long as the car was stationary and they didn’t have an earthquake, both of them would be fine. And he could tell by her gaze she wouldn’t be put off. She was an intelligent person, a rational person, and this was the way she fought her fear—through knowledge.
“Okay.” He outlined the brick of plastic explosive with his fingernail. Beneath the brown wrapping, it was white. “This is C-4, a pretty stable explosive. But this is what they’ve done. . . . They’ve wired it here”—he pointed to the black and red wires—“connecting it to the engine. When you start your car, the sparks will carry down and catch this brown paper on fire.” He rubbed it between his thumb and index finger. The pads on his hand came away damp. “Some kind of accelerant. Probably lighter fluid. Yeah, this is strictly a Mickey Mouse bomb, could’ve been assembled by a twelve-year-old. Probably with a little bit of information downloaded from the good old World Wide Web. I can handle this.”
“I don’t understand. The lighter fluid helps it catch on fire, but you said that wouldn’t set it off.”
“It won’t. Not just the fire. But look here, where they’ve placed it. Right in your shocks. Now glance at your tire.”
“It’s low,” she supplied. “I didn’t see that before.”
“Yeah. The first time you hit a big bump with that tire, the shocks compress the burning brick and—”
“Kaboom.”
“Kaboom,” C.J. agreed.
Tamara shut her eyes. Her throat worked. “What do we do?”
“We take it out.”
“Just pull it out?”
“Just pull it out. I’m going to clip the wires first, then we’ll gently ease it out. It’s not that tricky—don’t be scared. This stuff can even handle a small fall.”
C.J. clipped the wires with his Swiss Army knife. Then, flat on his back, acutely aware of Tamara lying beside him on the pavement, he drew out the wrapped brick. “Why don’t you crawl out,” he suggested softly, “and I’ll hand it to you? Will that be all right?”
“Just don’t drop it?”
“Oh, it’s probably not the best idea.”
She licked her lips, her gaze going from the explosive to him. Then her jaw tightened and a hard glint shone in her eyes. “I can do it.”
“Let’s just get this thing out of here. I’m beginning to lose that fresh feeling.”
She pushed herself out from beneath the car. He waited until she was balanced; then he passed the explosive to her. His hands were shaking a little. He knew C-4 was stable—that’s what made it so popular as an explosive. But the knowledge of what kind of damage that brick could do was still sobering. Tamara’s hands were also trembling. She accepted the wrapped brick with the same intense care people used when handling newborn infants.
She stood quietly, though, without a trace of hysterics. He admired that. He didn’t know many women—many people—who would discover a car bomb, then crawl under the car to help dismantle it.
They stood in the middle of the parking lot with their precious package, neither of them moving.
“Okay,” C.J. said after a moment. “Let’s walk to the edge of the parking lot, to the dirt, and set it down. Do you want me to take it?”
“I don’t think we should pass it back and forth.”
“Tamara, it’s stable. Unless you throw it down and jump on it, we’re fine. Its power was catching you off guard when you went over a bump. It’s over.”
“Let’s just take it over to the dirt and set it down.” She walked very carefully, each foot placed slowly in front of the other, as if she were on a tightrope. He let her go, not saying a word because he didn’t want to distract her. A minute later, she was placing the C-4 in the dirt. When she straightened, her hands glistened with the greasy residue of the accelerant.
“Come inside. We’ll wash up and call Sheriff Brody.”
“No.”
“Tamara, whatever’s on your hands is not a good thing.” He turned without further discussion and led the way inside.
At the bar’s industrial-size metal sink, they both rinsed their hands. Tamara scrubbed hers with the intense ferocity of Lady Macbeth. When they were red and swollen, he pulled them from the hot, scouring water.
“Enough.”
Tamara looked at him. She was trying to play it tough, but he could see her fear.
“We’ll move you out of your hotel. You’ll stay with me.
“No. I won’t put you in jeopardy.”
“Tamara . . . I think that ship may have already sailed.”
She backed away, drying her hands briskly with paper towels. “I’ll return to New York. Now. Right now. I’m almost packed.”
“Do you really think that will make a difference?”
“I’ll go to the Brennan war room, say Lombardi’s really needs me back for a new client, and I have a lot of work to do.”
“You saw someone ten years ago, Tamara, and you’ve started following up on it. These days, you are a liability to that person whether you’re here, in New York or Timbuktu.”
“I didn’t see that much.”
“But obviously he doesn’t know that.”
Her hands suddenly pounded against the sink. “Dammit, I don’t even know who it is!”
C.J. remained silent, and after a moment, she crumpled.
“But how can it be the senator?” she cried softly. “I can’t find any trace of a red car. Any evidence against him.”
“You saw his face.”
“I was dazed and disoriented.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
“I was ready to drop it. I was ready to go home.”
“He didn’t know that.” C.J. placed his hands on her shoulders. “Think about it, Tamara. Ten years ago, the man was involved in an accident. He had the resources to cover it up. Frankly, he covered it up so well it actually incriminates him—only people with a lot of power and influence can disappear as easily as the driver of that red sports car did. For years, he’s probably wondered what you were going to do about it. He was probably even keeping you under tabs. But you were in New York, right?”
She nodded.
“You were going through rehab, then getting a job, launching a career. You were all the way across the country, and you didn’t seem to be thinking about the accident at all.”
“I needed to get on with my life.”
“He begins to relax. Thinks you didn’t remember him, or maybe you didn’t get a good-enough look. He moves on with his life, too.”
“Then suddenly I’m back in Sedona.”
“Yeah, the man is planning on running for president of the United States, and he discovers not only have you decided to return to Sedona, but you’re asking about the accident. After all these years, you’re asking all the questions that keep him awake at night.”
“He panics.”
“Damn right. He can’t exactly call you up and ask you how much you know.”
“But, C.J., I don’t have any proof! Even if I ranted and raved at the top of my lungs, I would be just a hysterical woman chasing phantoms. There’s absolutely nothing that ties the accident to the senator.”
“That you know of yet.”
Tamara was shaking her
head. She broke out of his grip, walked back a few steps, then rubbed her temples. She was pale and thin. Her week in Sedona had taken a bigger toll on her than the senator could have imagined.
She wrapped her arms tightly around her waist. The shadows beneath her eyes seemed to have grown darker. “I’m going away.”
“Dammit, it’s not safe for you to be alone. Stay at my place tonight. Get some rest. I’ll dispose of the C-4, call the sheriff, and we’ll pick a new game plan in the morning.”
“No. I don’t want you involved. I don’t want the cops involved. This whole thing, it’s too crazy. Too far-fetched—”
“De Nile ain’t just a river, sweetheart.”
“Dammit, I am a public relations executive! I go to meetings. I repackage garbage truck drivers into sanitation engineers. I tell mattress warehouses that they are selling sweet dreams and good sex. I . . . I write press releases and I stay up way too late most nights trying to think of events, celebrations, gags, so my clients can get more press! I don’t exist in the center of some twisted, horrible political cover-up. And I will not depend on you. I will not need you! And I will not drag you into this!”
“What scares you more, Tamara? Being the center of a ‘twisted, horrible political cover-up’ or possibly needing me?”
She stabbed her finger at him, her face drawn and fearful. “You call the sheriff, C.J., you tell him someone stuck a bomb beneath my car, and by the way, we think it was the fine, upstanding Senator George Brennan, and you see how fast they throw me in the loony bin.”
“We have the bomb. We have a package of C-4 sitting in my parking lot right now. Plus, I have a pile of slashed tires. That’s evidence, Tamara. Someone is doing something.”
“They won’t believe it,” she insisted. “Ten years ago, when the trail was fresh and the senator didn’t have half the clout he has now, the police didn’t believe me. They’ll accuse me of planting the bomb myself or slashing your tires myself. They will!”
“Dammit, Tamara, Sheriff Brody knows me. We’ve worked together—”
“Can you swear I didn’t plant the bomb, C.J.? Were you with me all night? Can you swear I wasn’t the one who slashed your tires?”
“Why are you so convinced they’ll focus on you?”
“Because a pale, sleep-deprived woman who’s in Sedona under false pretenses makes a much better suspect than a U.S. senator. I’ve been around the block. I am not an idiot!”
“Tamara—”
But she was already whirling away from him. He could see it all on her face. She was scared, confused and overwhelmed. Worse, she’d worked herself into a state of thinking no one would believe her, no one could help her. Dammit, he believed her. He wanted to help her. She was already stalking toward the door.
“You can’t stay by yourself!” he yelled behind her. “It’s not safe.”
She didn’t miss a step. “Are you kidding? It’s the only way to be safe.”
She headed straight into the parking lot, inspected her car for more booby traps and climbed inside. Minutes later, she was pulling out in a cloud of red dirt and dust. No apologies, no goodbye.
C.J. turned abruptly. He gave in to the anger and frustration, the feeling of helplessness he hated more than anything, and slammed his fist into the bar. The blow popped three of his knuckles, scuffed up his bar and made absolutely no difference.
• • •
Tamara didn’t know what she was doing. She drove too fast, feeling exposed and vulnerable beneath the vast Arizona sky. She swore eyes were upon her, the whole world staring at her, watching her. The rising slabs of red sandstone were no longer majestic or grand. Now they were bloodred boulders, ringing her in, pushing ever closer. She would be trapped once more on the dusty, arid soil of Sedona, with only the crickets to hear her cries.
She grabbed her suitcase from her hotel, checked out and began driving again. She didn’t want anyone to know where she was going. Not Patty, not C.J., not anyone. She would do this alone, one hundred percent alone. It was the only way to ever be safe.
Her hands were shaking when she checked into the new hotel under a false name. It took her four tries to count out cash for the night because her fingers wouldn’t cooperate. She felt out of sync, outside herself. Maybe she was finally having a nervous breakdown.
At three in the afternoon, she entered her new hotel room. She pulled all the shades. She locked the chain lock and the bolt lock. She left her suitcase in the middle of the tiny, pastel-colored room and curled up in a corner chair with her gun on her lap. The beige carpet spread out around her like a sandy sea. The desert mauve-and-green trim seemed cartoonish and overdone, while the swirling pink-and-red patterned comforter made her ill.
She squeezed her eyes shut and clutched her gun against her chest. Her.22 didn’t bring her comfort, though. It felt lighter than she remembered. Not quite right. Nothing seemed right.
She rocked back and forth, and the unbridled emotions hit her like a storm.
She wanted her mother. She wanted to curl up in her mother’s arms the way she used to when she was a child. She wanted to wrap her arms around her mother’s neck, inhale the soothing scent of gardenias and cry out all her troubles. She wanted to feel loved again. She wanted to feel safe.
You left me, you left me. I needed you. I cried your name and you died out there, dammit. Why didn’t you fight harder for me? Why didn’t you cling to life the way I did? How could you just leave me like that? Why?
She pressed her hands against her temples, trying to push the thoughts away. She was angry. No, she was scared. No, she was composed. No, she was a little girl, lost and horribly, horribly lonely. She missed her family.
Oh, God, she missed her family. How could they die on her? How could they leave her like that?
Why had God let them? Why had God taken them and left her behind? Why couldn’t she have gone with them?
I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. I hate all of you.
But she didn’t hate them. Somehow her shoulders were shaking, her chest heaving. For the second time in a matter of hours she was sobbing and she didn’t understand why. She never cried. Crying got you nowhere. Crying changed nothing.
You had to hold yourself up at the parallel bars and endure the pain if you wanted to learn how to walk again.
She sobbed. She curled up in a ball, her forehead pressed against the gun on her lap, and she cried until she had no more tears. Then she slept.
But her dreams took her to the Arizona roadside. She floated above the car wreckage, looking down with curious dispassion. Her father, slumped over the compressed wheel, only his hair visible. Her mother, flung half-out of the car. Tammy and Shawn, thrown out of the back but pinned by the wreckage. Shawn holding Tammy’s hand. Her mother reaching for them both even though moving made her moan with pain.
Her mother’s fingers, inching toward her in the red, Arizona dust.
Then the wreckage was gone. The scene flashed back to four healthy people laughing in the car.
“Look at the moon, Dad. Look at the moon.”
“Robert, look out!”
The nightmare faded to black. She hovered in a void with no images, just the sound of crickets and the weight of her own guilt.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
“Don’t be.” Suddenly Senator Brennan was behind her, his conservative gray suit skewed, blood staining his tie. “It was all my fault, little girl. Isn’t that what you want to hear?”
He smiled at her kindly. Then he raised his arm and hurtled the brick of C-4.
• • •
Tamara bolted awake. It was only four fifteen in the afternoon. She’d slept for twenty minutes. Her eyes felt grainy and dry. Her throat was so sore it hurt to breathe. Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling on her lap.
She moved without thinking, reaching over and picking up the phone. Her fingers began to dial C.J.’s number.
Then she caught herself and snatched her hand back as if she’d been bu
rned.
Call him, a little voice pleaded. You need help. He will help you. You can trust him.
And then what? the rest of her cried. You drag him into your problems, you learn to depend on him, and then the senator, or whoever it is, gets him, too? One more person to care about. One more person to lose. No. She wouldn’t do it.
She would take care of herself. She’d let herself go, cried too much, gotten lost in the labyrinth of self-pity. No more. She was stronger than this.
She got up. She took a long hot shower, hoping to relax her bunched neck. She ordered a large pizza with fresh vegetables and a tossed salad, and forced herself to eat. She drank a whole glass of orange juice for the vitamins. Then she slipped outside and swam fifty laps in the hotel’s pool, making her body function long after it would’ve given out.
When she returned to her room, she fell instantly into a light slumber, gaining precious hours of rest.
By five a.m., she was feeling calm, grounded, composed.
Maybe it had been the senator all along. Who else would have the power to watch her? Who else would have the resources to find out about C.J.’s father? Who else would have so much to lose that he would contemplate murder?
If that was the case, she was in a vulnerable position. She couldn’t hide forever, and yet she couldn’t come forward. She’d found no evidence tying the senator to that night ten years ago. She had only her hazy memory, and if something happened to her . . .
She made her decision. By the dim light of the bedside lamp, she wrote out everything she remembered from ten years ago. She stated why she thought the senator might be involved. She recorded what happened with her brake lines, the scorpion, the bomb beneath her car.
There wasn’t enough information to stand up in court, but if something happened to her, at least it would raise the right questions. Maybe it would be enough to get an ambitious journalist or D.A. digging.
Maybe it would give C.J. a lead to get the senator once and for all.
