by Rachel Lee
Alex was having a problem with this. “If Jack’s not the one he’s going to want to convince, then what? How can this possibly be useful? We ought to clear him publicly and save his family from all the grief.”
Darcy chewed her lip and he could almost see the wheels spinning in her head. “Okay,” she said. “You’re the psychologist, not me. But suppose Jack goes out there and denies the bombing himself without any heavy-duty backup. What are people going to do?”
He didn’t think she was being perfectly clear, but he was getting a sense of what she was trying to drive at. Something. Useful. How?
He stared off into the distance, muttering a mantra he’d used often in his work. “No man is an island.” It was true. Somehow, some way, someone always knew something. The idea was to kick it out of obscurity and put their attention on it.
“Let me think about this. Jack, we’ll call your parents and settle them down, but this idea of Agent Eccles’s... I’m not sure it would do any good.”
“I just want to help,” Jack said again. “If I have to look guilty for a while, that’s fine as long as my dad isn’t going to ground me and give me all the worst chores to do my every waking moment.”
Serious as all this was, Alex couldn’t smother a grin. “I’ll make sure they understand you’re being helpful and we need you.”
“Okay, then.” Jack looked from him to Darcy then to Sarah. “I did want to help,” he repeated, but not with as much confidence.
“You’ll be safe,” Darcy said. “He’s not going to have anything to do with you if you just keep denying any involvement. But his ego may force him to brag to someone he trusts. Once you start doing that...”
This was clearly something Jack understood. “Yeah. If more than one person knows, everyone is going to know eventually. I get it. Look at the mess I’m in. Someone gabbed.”
Sarah spoke. “We’re going to find out who, I promise.”
Jack shrugged. “Could have been a neighbor, I guess. You guys sure came out to the ranch with enough vehicles to make someone wonder what was going on. Right after the bomb...” The young man shrugged. “Small leap, I guess.”
Darcy smiled at him. “You hang in there, Jack. Don’t ever let yourself believe you can’t follow your dreams. I mean it.”
Sarah walked Jack back to his battered Chevy that was more covered in rust preventer than paint.
Darcy looked at Alex. “Who’s calling his parents?”
“I will. They know me.” He faced her, making sure no one could hear. “I hope you’re right.”
“You’re the psychologist. Would the bomber have any reason to speak to Jack?”
Alex blew a long breath between his lips. “In theory, no. But what if he gets the mistaken idea Jack is taking credit?”
“God,” she said.
Her next words slammed him hard. They hurt.
“You live in an ugly world, Alex. Why on earth would anyone think Jack would want credit for this?”
His back stiffened. He waited a minute to take charge of his roiling, angry emotions before he spoke again. “I know aberrant psychology, Darcy. What in God’s name makes you believe this bomber might think like a sane person?”
Then he turned and strode to his car. Enough. Absolutely enough. He had plenty to deal with, including Jack’s family and his own resurging nightmares. He didn’t need to deal with that woman’s judgment.
And now he had to worry about Jack. He should have put his foot down. Immediately.
But Jack wouldn’t have listened. That boy wanted to help. He’d got into a whole peck of trouble because he wanted to help, and now he’d get into more. He’d choose to fulfill his dream of being an ATF agent if only for a week or two as a shill.
Damn, Darcy. Didn’t she understand?
He didn’t get all the way into town before he pulled over and leaned back, seeking more internal calm, seeking the steel behind which he had once shielded himself. The effort didn’t much help. He couldn’t risk letting Jack become another victim.
Then he slammed the car into gear again and headed for the sheriff’s office. If there was one man in this town that Alex had come to fully respect in his few years here, it was Gage Dalton. Another former Fed. A guy who’d dealt with the ugly side, too.
* * *
Darcy stared after Alex’s departing back, able to read his disgust in every step. Maybe he was right. Maybe she was exposing Jack. But somehow she couldn’t believe the bomber would approach him in any way, not if Jack persistently denied he’d had any part in the bombing. No reason for the bad guy to show any interest in him. If he talked, it’d be to a buddy, not a falsely accused kid who claimed no responsibility.
Alex must be going over the edge. His nightmares must be returning. She felt badly for him, but what could she do about it? Her first duty was her job.
Still feeling uneasy, she turned to go back inside, deciding to take a look at the shop room for damaged PVC, then walk through the debris again. Somewhere there had to be evidence of the container, of the detonator. Maybe not a lot but some. Enough to start piecing together a solid picture of the device.
Often enough, finding out those details would lead to a suspect or two. It was as Locard’s exchange principle said, “The perpetrator will always leave something at a crime scene, and will always take something from it.” That held true for bombers, too. The problem for the investigator was to find those things and make links.
She needed to start putting the pieces together. And she needed to stop thinking so much about Alex.
* * *
Alex stopped at the diner to pick up some strong coffee for himself and Gage. He knew the reputation of the coffee at the sheriff’s office: awful. It was usually made by the lead dispatcher, Velma, a woman as old as the hills, who ignored the no-smoking laws as if they were meant for others. She also made famously bad coffee, which deputies drank only to avoid offending her. No one wanted to get on Velma’s bad side, he gathered. He also gathered that no one could figure out how she made such lousy coffee. The department had been suggesting a commercial drip coffee maker for years, but according to Gage, Velma always objected.
It was one of those stories he loved about this place. Maude, who ran the diner, was a dragon; and the police dispatcher, who loved all her deputies like her own children, violated the law openly and made the worst coffee ever.
Velma was apparently out to lunch when he entered because she wasn’t there to cast a dark eye on his two foam cups of coffee. Her substitute merely grinned and winked. She was new. Theresa, he thought. He wondered what it was like to work with Velma, then moved on as he passed down the hall to Gage’s office.
The sheriff was in, as he usually was, studying a computer screen while eating a sandwich off a big piece of butcher paper. Must have got it at the diner. He accepted the coffee with a smile.
“Thanks. So how’s the ATF doing?”
“Working.” Alex sat in the chair across the desk. “You know something about bombs and the underside, Gage.”
Gage’s hand instinctively lifted to the shiny skin graft that covered most of one side of his face. When he’d been an undercover agent for the DEA, his targets had found his home address. The bomb intended for him had also taken out Gage’s first wife and small children. Gage had suffered serious burns and back damage that left him in constant pain and limping, but he never complained.
“I know something,” Gage said. “Mostly about what it’s like to be the target of a bomber. As for knowing the underside...mostly drug types, Alex. You know that. Not like the people you dealt with.”
“Not usually,” Alex agreed. “But I still want your opinion on something. Or maybe your help. You know Jackson Castor?”
“I do now.” Gage reached for his sandwich again. “Mind?”
“Don’t stop eating on my account.”
But Gage didn’t immediately take another bite. “The kid got too curious, set off alarms as I understand, and we cleared him last night.”
“I wish it were that simple.” Pulling the tab back on the lid of his own coffee, he sampled it cautiously. Hot. “Jack came round, looking for some help this morning. It seems gossip is going around because his ranch was searched last night.”
Gage sat up a little straighter, wincing as he did so. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
“But I guess it did. Anyway, he came out to see if Darcy could help quell the rumors because of his family. She decided not to. She decided to ask Jack to work for her.”
“Okay, this is sounding convoluted and I already don’t like it. Jack’s underage. Why do I think we’re headed for trouble?”
“I can’t say for sure we are, Gage. I’ll explain and you tell me if you think I’m going over-the-top.”
“Fair enough.” Gage resumed eating, pausing to sip coffee while he listened to Alex’s rendition of events, Darcy’s reasoning and Alex’s concerns.
“And that’s it. So am I overreacting?” Alex asked.
“A colleague of mine became involved with the sister of a drug lord and got her pregnant. When the bastard found out my colleague was DEA, he killed his own sister. I’m hardly inclined to quickly dismiss anything as overreaction. Let me think.”
Well, that was a chilling enough description, Alex thought. Maybe he ought to share that one with Darcy. He couldn’t believe that she was so convinced no harm could befall Jack. But then she was thinking as a rational person.
Unfortunately, Alex knew all too well that not everyone was rational. Or even remotely sane sometimes.
He sat sipping his coffee while Gage ate and drifted away in his thoughts. All the while, he felt his own nerves tightening again, as if they were being wound around a screw. If anything happened to Jack, he didn’t think he’d be able to live with himself. Especially if he could have prevented it.
“Okay,” Gage said finally. He sighed, rolled up the remains of his sandwich in the paper and tossed it into the trash can. “I don’t like it. I can see why it’s got you so unhappy. But I don’t think Agent Eccles is completely offtrack, either.”
Alex kept silent, prepared to listen. The only reason Darcy’s comment about the ugly world he lived in had hurt was because it was true. He was too ready to assume the worst, a tendency he’d been battling since he left the bureau. Usually, with his teaching job, he was able to suppress it.
Today had wakened his alerts with shrieking alarms.
“My guess is,” Gage continued, “that nobody knows enough about the perp to even guess what kind of person he is. You’re worried about the worst type, and Darcy’s worried about the ordinary type of jackass, and neither of you have enough to guide you yet.”
“That would be true,” Alex agreed. “But it seems safer to me to assume a bomber is the worst type, not just some idiot who wanted a big bang.”
Gage nodded. “Safer, yes. Useful? Maybe not as much. Jack got himself all wound up in this, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.” Alex rubbed his chin impatiently. “The thing is, he’s a total naïf. All he knows is what he’s read online, and who can say how accurate it was?”
“But Darcy’s dealt with bombers before. She knows that not all of them are careless about who they kill. Take the Unabomber. He had a specifically selected group of targets and he was very careful not to hurt others. At least he tried not to. Then you’ve got McVeigh. He didn’t care about the day care center at Oklahoma City. That’s quite a variety of psychologies, I think you’d agree.”
“Of course.” It wasn’t as if the sickos he’d chased with the BSU had all come out of the same mold. “Okay. So what you’re saying is that I don’t know enough to intervene.”
Gage smiled faintly. “What I’m saying is that either one of you could be right at this point. Darcy needs some way to link the perp to the bomb. You don’t want to see anyone get hurt. Me, I’m going to have my department keep an eye on Jack. Discreetly.”
Alex started to relax. “That leaves us with the problem of who talked about the search last night.”
“I’d bet a year’s pay it wasn’t one of my people, but I’ll be careful. We’ll probably find it was some nosy neighbor who drove by last night and saw the activity. Anyway, I’ve got a dozen or so people I’d trust with my life, not all of them in the department. I’ll have them nose around.”
“Thanks, Gage. Maybe all my klaxons are blaring for no reason.”
Gage frowned faintly. “I wouldn’t say no reason, Alex. You’ve dealt with things Darcy can’t even imagine and you know it. Maybe the two of you can find a way to balance one another. Regardless, she strikes me as a straight arrow, not a cold fish at all, and if you see something that truly worries you, she’ll listen.”
“Probably.” What little he knew of her from the past few days hadn’t made him believe she’d steam ahead at any cost. She just didn’t see there could be a real cost here. And she might be right.
“All right,” he said eventually. “I’ll tamp down my reaction and between you and me maybe we can stop any trouble for Jack before it happens.”
“Right.” Gage sighed, leaning back. “There’s going to be another bomb, you know.”
“We’re talking about it. Too much like a trial run.”
“But what do you know about bombers?”
“Not a whole lot. Not my area. I believe most seem to have a target of some kind.”
“A high school shop hardly seems like a target. Does it?”
* * *
Darcy had gathered some pieces of bent, burned, twisted metal and, after marking their locations on the grid, she put them to one side. A deputy came over. “Something specific you want?”
She looked up and realized she saw a strongly Native American face, a tall broad-shouldered man with dark gray-streaked hair. “I’ve seen you around.”
He half smiled. “I’m hard to miss. Micah Parish. Sarah Ironheart is my sister-in-law. Anyway, you seem to have focused in on something.”
“Yes.” She squatted, placing another piece of twisted metal by the others. “I’m trying to figure out what kind of container held this bomb. There had to have been a container. I was thinking maybe PVC, but I checked the shop and saw that some of their water pipes to the sinks had shattered during the explosion. Then I saw this. Remind you of anything?”
He pulled on one of the requisite rubber gloves and picked up a larger piece of the metal. “Pretty sturdy,” he remarked. “It could contain something heavy.”
“That’s what I was thinking. But there’s hardly enough left. Can’t even guess what color it might have been. It’s so twisted I’m not sure that’s a corner, there.”
“So help you find some more?”
“Please. I’m still looking out for pieces of the detonator, too.”
“Well, I know a little about that. Former Green Beret. I built a few improvised bombs in my day. I’ll start looking.”
“Thank you.” She gave him a warm smile. What a find!
By late afternoon, she hadn’t seen Alex again. Much as she had tried to ignore it, she realized she had been needlessly harsh with him. Maybe even cruel. His work had been important, essential. Yes, it had obviously been ugly. He’d said as much himself. But to accuse him of living in an ugly world?
What had come over her? She wasn’t usually a thoughtless person. At least she hoped she wasn’t.
She looked around the gymnasium. A few firefighters and deputies were helping with a search for slender pieces of wire and anything else that seemed like it might belong to something besides the school. She wasn’t alone with this search.
But she was missing Alex. A ridiculous feeling, she supposed. Yeah, he was great to bounce ideas off, and he had some insights that were useful, but this was
so far from what he was trained to do she was probably doing as well with the volunteers. In terms of work, that was.
But what she had said to him... Hell. It had been unkind and was probably untrue. She’d been so eager to glean information she hadn’t listened to a man who probably had a better view of what went on inside the human head than she did. Far better.
If she were to be honest with herself, unless they were dealing with some young prankster, they were dealing with someone with a twisted mind. How could the bomber be certain no one would be hurt by that bomb? There were no guarantees.
She remembered a case from Denver years ago where a couple of children had found an unexploded homemade bomb under a Dumpster. When they caught the perps, some stupid twentysomethings, they learned that the bomb had never been intended to cause harm. They’d just wanted to have a thrill. Instead a young boy had died.
So yeah, it happened. But usually with a stick or two of dynamite. Not with ANFO.
The ANFO was a real hang-up. It was a far cry from someone finding a couple of sticks of dynamite and seeking a thrill. The time and effort that went into it was a clear case of serious intent.
So she should have listened to Alex. At least taken his concerns into account. It seemed incomprehensible to her that the bomber would do anything to Jack when he denied all responsibility. It seemed far more likely the bomber would tell a friend somewhere, “Hey, I did that.” Or say nothing at all. Jack should be safe.
But Alex wasn’t sure of that. Why had she been so quick to dismiss him?
Because she was tired. At last she admitted it. Alex was right about pushing herself too hard. Trying to prove something? That she could finish this task as quickly as a whole team? Absurd. But the fact remained, being a woman had often made her feel at a disadvantage among so many male colleagues.
Glancing at her watch, she realized that it was almost supper time. After five. She hadn’t stopped once since this morning except to eat a bacon sandwich Alex had left for her.
