“Don’t talk to her. Talk to me. Why did you blow up that bookstore?”
Keenan ignored the captain, keeping his attention on her, his voice silken and soft. “I don’t see the appeal myself, but he always did like the homely, freckled ones.”
“That’s me,” Maura taunted back, spreading her arms. “Homely, freckled, and he loves me. That must make you crazy.”
He didn’t respond, but her captain did. “O’Halloran, get out.”
She resisted for a moment, certain that if she could just talk to him a little longer, he would spill his guts. They always wanted to talk. Almost everyone who came in this room was dying to say exactly what they’d done and why.
“You must have loved him a lot,” Maura said, her gaze on him even as she stood up. “Like a brother, or maybe more. What was he? The only person who ever loved you?”
“O’Halloran. Out.”
Anger flared in Keenan’s eyes, but there was still an overconfidence there. Overconfidence and something else. “Nothing ever goes wrong for him,” he said, shaking his head. “Even you. You love him, don’t you? Even after all that he’s done.”
Maura nodded. “Yeah. I love him.”
“Good,” he said softly.
Captain Maynard blocked her view then, moving her toward the door bodily, and pushing her outside the interrogation room.
“Good,” she repeated, hurrying down the hall and back to her desk. “Good.”
Roland was sitting with Bert, reviewing everything they’d gotten off Keenan when they’d brought him in.
“Anything?” she asked, plopping into her chair, vaguely surprised when there was no characteristic squeak.
“That was fast,” Roland muttered. “I thought for sure you’d be in there at least ten minutes.”
“He had a wallet, a deck of cards, and a subway receipt in his pocket when they brought him in,” Bert reported, shoving a sheet of paper across his desk and onto hers.
Maura looked over the inventory list, frustrated. “We’re missing something. Didn’t he have a cell phone or something? He called Roland while we were still at the house.”
She rocked backward, thinking, annoyed when her chair didn’t squeak. “Bert, you WD-40’ed my chair, didn’t you?”
Bert shrugged. “If he did, he ditched it somewhere before he turned himself in. And I didn’t have time to touch your stupid chair, Maura.”
Roland shook his head. “I just don’t see why he would do that. Keenan would never deliberately surrender.”
Maura thought about that. Why would a man give up on a near lifetime of vengeance and just turn himself in? A life-changing experience? Something that made him see the pointlessness of it all?
Right.
“Maybe he’s dying,” Burt suggested. “Someone took a hit out on him, maybe.”
“Dying,” Maura repeated. If he were dying, and his best friend, the man who betrayed him, grew ever more powerful and successful as the years went by, what would he do? He had been pale and thin, now that she thought about it.
“Bert,” she said suddenly, a horrible thought occurring to her. “What was used to blow up the bookstore?”
“C-4, they believe. Won’t know for sure for a couple days.”
“Not dry-cleaning solvent.”
“I don’t think so. It was an explosion, not a fire.”
“So if he stole the solvent from the chemical company, where is it?”
Roland seemed to see where she was going, his eyes sharpening. “Bert, hand me that subway pass.”
Bert handed it over. Roland pulled out his phone.
“Nick, can you get access to Boston Metro? I need to know where a subway ticket was used last.” He read off the serial number on the back of the card to his friend and said, “Okay. Call me back when you have something.”
“He could have put those chemicals anywhere,” Maura said, running a hand through her hair. “Okay, think. What are his most likely targets?”
“Accendo,” Roland threw in.
“But you have security there all the time. And you checked recently. It’s not Accendo.”
“It’s not the children’s hospital, we have it monitored.”
“The marketplace. He hit that last year,” Bert suggested.
“Checked.” Maura leaned back and spun around. “Besides, it has to be something that would hurt Roland. I mean, just destroy him.”
“Maura,” Roland said abruptly. “There’s no way Keenan would subject himself to imprisonment again, not even if he was dying.”
Frowning, she used her foot to halt the spin in front of Roland. “So, you’re saying I’m wrong?”
His phone rang as he was about to answer. “You’re sure?” he said, standing up in alarm. “Okay, thanks.” He cut off the call.
“Maura, he last exited the subway at the South Boston station three blocks away. The chemicals are somewhere in this building.”
“But where—” She stopped herself. “The women’s locker room? When they videotaped me in the shower?”
“We have to get everyone out of here. Now.”
“Or.” She suddenly knew. “Oh shit.”
“What?”
Maura licked her lips, suddenly needing to resist the urge to stand up, sitting very gingerly in her father’s lucky chair. “Uh, would you mind looking under my chair?”
Frowning, Roland looked like he was about to drag her out of the chair bodily, but then he understood, his face paling.
Going to his knees, he looked up under her chair, his whole body freezing like a gazelle that had just spotted an enormous predator in his midst. Turning his head to the side to look her in the eye, he said, “There’s C-4 under your chair, and canisters of solvent under your desk.”
Bert groaned. “Oh, fuck.”
Nodding very slowly, Maura whispered, “Get out. Just get out and call the bomb squad.”
“I’ll get them and we’ll evacuate the building.” He hurried off while Roland stayed exactly where he was, his eyes locked on hers.
“There’s a pressure plate and a timer, love,” he said gently. “When you sat down, you armed the bomb. Getting up will set it off. So will waiting. There’s a five-minute limit. The bomb squad will never get here in time.”
Maura felt tears spring to her eyes, but she blinked them back, nodding. “Get out, then. Get out and promise me that you’ll take care of Maddie and my father.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Gritting her teeth, Maura reached up and grabbed him by the collar. “Shut up. You are. You are. I won’t let you be stupid. You can’t stay here. Go.”
“Maura, love,” he murmured, kissing her face, her cheeks. “One of these days, you’re going to have to start trusting me.”
EPILOGUE
“Cancer.” Roland tossed a document on the table in the center of the small crowd made up of Nick and Blake, Milton and Regina, and Maura, his beautiful, brave Maura. It had been three weeks since Keenan had been arrested and Roland had disarmed the bomb under her chair. He’d told her that he was being modest when he’d said he couldn’t disarm a bomb outside the Diner, but it was one of the skills he’d picked up in the CIA.
“Are you surprised?” Maura asked, not bothering to touch the papers. She’d told him last night that she’d spent quite enough of her life on Keenan Shy and that she wasn’t going to waste any more.
Roland didn’t know what he was. Surprised that his cousin was dying? No. But it didn’t make him happy. Even after all Keenan had done.
“No.” He sat down and relaxed, putting his arm over the back of Maura’s chair.
“So,” Blake teased, obviously changing the subject away from Keenan, “we couldn’t help but notice that the ring is still on Maura’s finger.”
Roland had known this was coming. His friends all had gleeful looks on their faces. “Yeah.”
“Soooo, does that mean what we think it means? Are you two getting married?”
“It means we got ma
rried, last night, actually.”
Milton’s mouth fell open. “But that’s not fair. I was supposed to be best man.”
“I didn’t want to wait,” Roland explained, taking Maura’s hand and kissing her knuckles, making sure to taste the delicate skin between with the tip of his tongue. “I’m under orders from my mother.”
“Your mother?” Blake repeated. “She said you had to get married?”
“No,” Roland replied, smiling broadly at his friends. “She said she wanted grandchildren.”
“Uh, Roland, you don’t have to get married to give her grandchildren,” Milton pointed out.
“Bite your tongue, man. Besides, I already have a new niece, a father-in-law, an ugly dog, a ferret, and a homeless teenage hacker in my house. I felt married. Besides, all those dependents are a tax deduction.”
“I’ll say this for you,” Nick raised his glass in a toast, “when you go, you go big. Congratulations, my friends.”
Roland lifted his glass in return.
As everyone drank to their marriage, Maura leaned over and whispered in his ear. “You’re going to pay for that ‘tax deduction’ comment, you know.”
He grinned. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Make sure to check out the rest of the Billionare Tricksters of Boston series by Nicole Camden!
The first in the Billionare Tricksters of Boston series by erotic romance sensation Nicole Camden, featuring sexy magicians and ladies whose desires tempt them ever deeper into a world they don’t quite understand. . .
The Lady Vanishes
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The heir apparent to a Boston gangland empire is torn between love for his family and desire to walk his own path and be with the woman he loves.
A French Whipping
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nicole Camden, author of the hit erotic e-serialization The Fetish Box and the popular short story “The Nekkid Truth” in Big Guns Out of Uniform, has returned to writing after a decade of teaching, dog rescuing, and other mayhem. She lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, her son, Connor, and two dogs.
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The Fetish Box, Part Two: What Escapes
The Fetish Box, Part Three: What Remains
The Fetish Queen, Part One: Reborn
The Fetish Queen, Part Two: Infamous
The Fetish Queen, Part Three: Cursed
BY NICOLE CAMDEN, WRITING AS DEIRDRE DORE
Strings of Fate
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Pocket Star Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Nicole Camden
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First Pocket Star Books ebook edition January 2016
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Cover image by Shutterstock
ISBN 978-1-4767-9598-0
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue
About the Author
Lie in the Moment Page 25
