by K. C. Archer
But there was only so much Teddy could take. “I’m heading back.”
Jillian tore her gaze away from Eli. “Oh. Don’t you want to stay for a drink?”
“Nah, I’m good.” She hesitated. Glanced around the bar. Everything seemed okay, but . . . “Listen, you guys. Lay low, okay? Just to be safe.”
“What do you mean?” Eli asked.
“I mean, just tone down the HEAT stuff until we’re sure whoever broke in to your apartment isn’t coming back.”
Eli gave her a condescending smile. “Risk equals reward, Teddy. If any social justice movement worried about the consequences of their actions—”
“Just chill for a couple of weeks, Eli. Then you can go back to fixing the world.”
Jillian squeezed his hand. “Please, Eli? Teddy’s right. I want to make sure you’re safe.”
Teddy swore she could actually see Eli’s ego inflate. “I guess I could do that,” he said.
Good enough. Teddy left the Cantina and hiked back to campus. She slipped back into Harris Hall and found the party in full swing. She scanned the room for her friends. Her gaze landed on Pyro. Teddy felt a smile curve her lips. If he took just one step toward her, she was certain they could finally put their stupid argument behind them. Instead, Pyro turned to say something to Clint. Clint nodded, glanced at Teddy, and stepped away.
“What was that about?” she asked when she reached Pyro’s side.
He ignored her question, asking one of his own. “How’s Eli?”
She felt her eyes widen in surprise. “How did you—”
“Give me a break.”
“And you told Clint?”
His gaze darkened. “Of course not. When he saw you two leave, he figured it out on his own. Jillian’s not exactly subtle. And Clint’s not stupid.” He pursed his lips, shook his head. “The things you civilians think you can get away with.”
“And you cops got it all figured out, huh?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“What’s going to happen to Jillian?” she asked. “Is Clint going to expel her for leaving campus without permission?”
“No. She was smart. She didn’t actually leave campus. Technically, it’s not a probation violation. As long as Jillian shows up to class tomorrow on time, I think he’ll let it slide.”
“You’re kidding. I thought—”
“That Clint was an asshole? Who didn’t understand that Jillian made a stupid mistake, following her heart rather than her head, but didn’t mean to do any harm? Who, in fact, was probably trying to protect her?” He cocked his head.
Teddy felt her cheeks heat. Yeah, that was exactly what she thought.
He stretched one arm past her shoulder, bracing himself on the wall behind her. Leaned closer. “You’re confused about cops, Teddy. With a few really shitty exceptions, we aren’t the bad guys.”
She liked having Pyro close again. She liked the sound of his voice, the heat of his gaze, and the smell of his skin. Liked talking things over with him. Liked the sexy way the eyeliner framed his dark eyes. She’d missed him, she realized. Maybe as much as Jillian had missed Eli. She could let it slide, what he had said about her mother.
“So I’m thinking,” she ventured slowly, “I’ve got my room to myself tonight.”
“You must be psychic,” he said. “I was just thinking that same thing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
EARLY NOVEMBER PASSED IN A blur. Teddy and Henry turned in their casework and received high marks from Dunn. No word came from Yates, which was kind of a relief, as it allowed Teddy to focus on her courses.
With only two days until Thanksgiving break, Teddy went on an extra-long jog to get one last look at the island before she headed back to Vegas to see her family. By the time she finished and took a quick shower, she was running late and had to make a mad dash across campus to reach Wessner’s class on time.
She’d barely slipped into her seat when Wessner instructed everyone to take out their notebooks. Wessner tucked her straight hair behind her ears and wrote Ordnance Bombs on the whiteboard in precise letters. Next to it, she wrote IEDs, then drew a vertical line separating the two. She turned to face the class. “Who can tell me what an IED is?”
“Improvised explosive device,” Pyro called out.
Teddy couldn’t help but smile. Dunn’s psychometry class had been a struggle for Pyro. But bombs were definitely in his wheelhouse, and this was a unit he’d been looking forward to exploring.
Wessner continued, “Can anyone tell me what an ordnance bomb is?”
Kate Atkins’s hand shot up. “Ordnance refers to anything that originates from the military. So an ordnance bomb is professional—military-grade.”
“Very good.” Wessner turned to write the answers on the appropriate sides of the whiteboard. Under Ordnance Bombs, she wrote Military, and in the IED column, she wrote Terrorists.
Wessner turned on the smartboard projector and took the class through a series of PowerPoint slides showing materials used to make IEDs, including fuses, timers, dynamite, plastic explosives, drain cleaner, rust remover, pool sanitizer, and model engine fuel. Bombs were a sexy topic, and Teddy noticed that she and Pyro weren’t the only enraptured students. Everyone was glued to the images.
Teddy looked back at the screen, waiting to see a picture of C-4, the chemical used in the bomb her mother had detonated in New York in 1998. But it wasn’t listed there.
When Wessner turned to the class and asked if there were any questions, Teddy raised her hand. “What about C-4?” she asked after Wessner called on her. “Isn’t that sometimes used in IEDs?”
“C-4 is a military-grade plastic explosive,” Wessner explained. “So you’d rarely see it in an improvised explosive. It’s simply not easily available to the public.”
Teddy met Pyro’s eyes, and a look passed between them. She knew they were connecting the same dots. If C-4 wasn’t readily available to the public, did the Patriot Corps have some kind of hidden source within the military—a connection with access to powerful explosives?
Wessner moved on to protocol, explaining that Secret Service agents had specific rules to follow in the event that a suspected explosive device was found in a public setting. “Who can tell me the first thing an agent would be expected to do?” she asked.
Once again, Kate’s hand shot up. Wessner ignored her and glanced around the room. Liz Cook said, “Um . . . first I would determine if it was really a bomb?”
“You sure you’d want to waste those precious seconds?”
Liz just shrugged. Meanwhile, Kate’s hand went even straighter and higher. Teddy worried she might dislocate a shoulder. She felt a warm glow of satisfaction when Wessner ignored her once again. “Mr. Costa?” she inquired.
“Evacuate,” he said. “Get everyone the hell out of the area as quickly as possible.”
“That’s correct,” Wessner said. “Your first instinct must always be to clear the area. Don’t forget that.” She paused and gazed significantly around the room, driving the point home.
“But today,” she continued, “I want to talk about defusing a bomb. A step you take only if there’s no way to evacuate, no time to get the bomb squad called in.”
She clicked to an image of a simple homemade bomb. She broke down the graphic, distinguishing it by weapon type, delivery mechanism, and trigger mechanism. Then she explained how to recognize the main components and how to handle them. Which, in a word, was carefully.
“Once you do that, you have to sever the wire connecting the detonator to the rest of the device. That will render it inert. Sounds simple enough, right?”
The remark drew a few uneasy titters throughout the room.
She continued, “The problem, of course, is that IEDs don’t come with instruction manuals, and when there are multiple wires, tilt sensors, and even fake detonators, it takes a trained eye to determine which one to cut. Now, pay attention, because a mistake here can result in catastrophic loss of life, including yo
ur protectee and other innocent civilians.”
Teddy couldn’t help noticing that the agent’s life wasn’t part of the equation. Meat shields, indeed.
The rest of the lecture focused on detonator connections as Wessner took them through a series of slides showing at least sixty different homemade bombs. With each graphic, she explained how to figure out which wire was the one that could disconnect the detonator from the explosive. Teddy—along with everyone else in the room—took copious notes. It was dizzying and far too much to remember. She glanced over at Kate’s desk and saw twice as many notes that were at least four times neater, complete with diagrams. It looked like a textbook. Who took notes like that? Sheesh. The woman was a machine.
“We’re going to have a hands-on exercise where you will work to disarm a simulated IED. There’s a special incentive to finish the exercise first. The winning team will get real-world field experience providing protection to some VIPs—our own Hollis Whitfield and his grandson, who are hosting a party at their home in Tiburon. They will need a protection detail at the event, as an animal rights group has recently targeted them with threats and harassment.”
Teddy went cold and then hot. Animal rights group? HEAT, of course. Eli. He’d promised her that he’d back off Whitfield and Hyle Pharmaceuticals. It was bad enough that he had broken into a lab.
But maybe Wessner was exaggerating. Maybe it was Hyle Pharmaceuticals that had received the threats, not Whitfield himself. Teddy chewed her lip and decided that if Whitfield was in danger, he would be requesting professional protection, not trainees.
To test her theory, she raised her hand and asked, “Why us? Why not actual law enforcement?”
“Mr. Whitfield has refused official protection,” Wessner said. “As many public figures are apt to do, unfortunately.”
“Why?”
“First, he doesn’t deem the threat credible. He doesn’t believe harassment will escalate into violence. Second, he doesn’t want to draw negative publicity to his business, or attract further attention to the group that is harassing him. We reached a compromise. Dean Corbett convinced him to allow students to act as a protection detail the day of the event, as a fieldwork exercise.”
Teddy turned toward where Jillian was sitting and tried to catch her eye. But her friend’s head was down. There was no way Teddy could discern what—if anything—her roommate knew about this. Not without invading her thoughts telepathically, that is. She resolved to find out later and refocused her attention on the lecture.
“You’ll work in teams of two,” Wessner said, and began to pair people with the student sitting next to them. That meant Pyro was working with Jillian. And Teddy and Kate were working together. Okay, not a love match. But if she wanted to win this damned thing, Kate was the teammate to have.
Wessner walked around the room, carefully setting a simulated IED in front of each team. The one Teddy and Kate faced looked like two metal canisters with an old-style cell phone affixed to the top with black electrical tape. The phone, which was clearly the detonating device, had three wires leading from it—they were all blue.
Wessner gave each team one wire cutter. “This isn’t a movie. This isn’t which color wire to cut. You think someone building a bomb is going to color-code for your convenience? They want the bomb to go off. Your job is to make sure it doesn’t.” She set a timer in front of the room and said, “Begin.”
The room fell into a hush of teams whispering. After a few moments, Dara and Ben’s voices began to rise.
“Not that one, you idiot,” Dara said.
“Trust me,” Ben said. “I got this.”
Teddy tried to ignore them; she and Kate inspected the wires on their bomb as carefully as possible. Suddenly, Dara cried out, and Teddy looked over to see her covered in red paint. Ben was also splattered. Wessner had rigged the bombs with paint to simulate blood.
Ava erupted in a fit of laughter, and Teddy wondered if her high school class had voted her Least Likely to Grow Up. Wessner frowned. “Not funny, Ms. Laureau. That could have been the blood of innocent bystanders.”
“Concentrate, dammit,” Kate whispered to Teddy. “We can’t afford to make a mistake here. We need to disconnect the power source and remove the blasting caps.”
Teddy turned her attention back to their bomb and tried to tune out the other paint-splatter explosions erupting throughout the classroom. Recalling Wessner’s demonstration slides, Teddy followed the line of a blue wire that connected directly to the phone battery.
“That’s a dummy wire,” Kate said. “A trick.”
“Are you sure?” Teddy said.
“Of course I’m sure.”
“But how?”
“Because I know.” Kate shook her head as if Teddy were insufferably stupid. “Wessner didn’t say we couldn’t use our psychic powers to figure this out. And I’m claircognizant, remember? I just know which one it is. It’s the one on the left.” With that, Kate handed Teddy the wire cutters.
“You want me to cut it?” Teddy said. “Why not you?”
“I’m the one who figured out which wire it is. You have to do something valuable on this team.”
Teddy let out a sigh and hoped Kate wasn’t sabotaging her. She took the tool, opened the blades over the wire on the left, closed her eyes, and prayed. Then she squeezed.
She heard the distinct snip of the wire breaking and then . . . nothing. No bang. No paint. “Congratulations, Cannon and Atkins,” Wessner said. “You’re the winners of the challenge. That means you ladies will provide the security detail for Whitfield’s Thanksgiving party.”
Wait, what?
Wessner hadn’t said anything about the party being on Thanksgiving. What about her mother’s turkey? Aunt Vicky’s green bean casserole? What about goopy cranberry sauce and marshmallowy sweet potatoes and pecan pie for dessert? What about her chance to escape all the pressures of school and enjoy the company of her family? Gone. It had all disappeared faster than her father’s famous oyster stuffing.
Teddy was permitted to use Whitfield Institute’s front office phone to call her parents and tell them she wouldn’t be home for the holiday. She dreaded making the call. Knowing them, they probably had a list of things they wanted to do together to celebrate.
“Hey, Teddy, want some advice?”
She glanced at Dara, who’d accompanied her to the front office. One look at her unsympathetic expression—the kind that told Teddy she was about to deliver some tough love—and she had her answer. “No.”
“Get over yourself,” Dara continued, as if she hadn’t heard. “You’re studying for a career in law enforcement. Among special perks like getting shot at, writing reports in triplicate, and surrounding ourselves with lowlife criminals, we rarely get to spend the holidays with our families. The job comes first.”
“Thanks. Very helpful.”
Teddy went inside, shutting the office door in Dara’s face as she did.
* * *
As it turned out, it was good advice. Once Teddy explained where she’d be and why, her parents were more than just understanding—they were proud. Which meant that Teddy felt a little bit proud, too. She ended the call by promising to fly home for a visit as soon as her schedule permitted.
When she stepped out of the office, Dara was waiting for her. “Well? How’d it go?”
“Actually,” she replied, “not bad.”
Dara fell into step beside her as they headed back to the dorms. “Hey, why don’t Pyro and I stick around campus this weekend so you don’t have to eat tofurkey all by your lonesome?”
Teddy pulled herself together and forced a smile. Just because she was stuck on campus didn’t mean she wanted her friends to hang around. They had friends and family waiting at home, too. “Nah, I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely. Besides, I’ve got my good buddy Kate Atkins to keep me company. What could possibly go wrong?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
TEDDY DUCKED
JUST IN TIME to avoid being whacked in the head by the thick manila envelope sailing across her dorm room. Kate’s scornful voice followed. “What the hell, Cannon? You didn’t even bother to open the dossier I left for you to review. That intel came from Wessner, you know.”
Teddy rolled her eyes. It was a party, after all, not a protest. She didn’t need a dossier to tell her what she’d find at Whitfield’s home: a bunch of über-wealthy friends and family members, dressed in ridiculously formal clothing, when everybody knew elastic waists were the only way to go on Thanksgiving. Including Whitfield’s grandson, likely a horrifically spoiled thirteen-year-old kid with an Xbox controller semipermanently affixed to his hand.
The truth was, Teddy had given the dossier a cursory glance. There was a note about HEAT, which had recently pressured Hyle to shut down its lab through a lengthy petition. She and Kate had only Wessner’s word to go on about the threat, because there was nothing specific in the file about who had made it and what he or she had said.
The thing that interested her about Whitfield was his connection to Dr. Eversley. And Eversley wasn’t on the guest list included in the dossier. Nor were any of the board members of Hyle Pharmaceuticals. Which meant this was going to be a boring social event. Teddy’s only hope of gaining any meaningful insight on what was happening at Hyle would be if she left the party to snoop through Whitfield’s personal papers. An action she hadn’t entirely ruled out.
She gave her hair a final comb-through, then stood and cast a longing glance at her combat boots, which lay sprawled on the floor near her closet.
“You’re kidding, right?” Kate’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Would it hurt you to try to be a little professional?”
A second eye roll was too much even for Teddy, so she simply slipped her feet into Dara’s navy pumps. As Teddy’s wardrobe lacked anything that might be considered professional, Dara had outfitted her for the occasion: a navy silk blouse and matching navy dress pants, a skinny silver belt cinched around her waist. Glitzy enough for the party, but something she could move fast in if she had to. As they weren’t authorized to carry weapons, she didn’t have to worry about concealing a holster.
