Questioning the Heiress. Delores Fossen
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lights flared on as they walked through, and those lights gave him a too-good view of his hostess’s backside. In that short black skirt, it was hard not to notice that particular part of her anatomy. Ditto for her long legs, which looked even longer because of the three-inch heels she was wearing. She was no waif, that was for sure. Caroline Stallings had a woman’s body with plenty of curves.
“The garage is through here,” she explained, and she reached for a door.
Egan caught on to her arm and pulled her behind him.
There was renewed alarm in her eyes. “You think the intruder could still be around?”
“No. But I don’t want you to take any unnecessary chances. I want you alive and well because if you ever get your memory back, we might finally be able to figure out who’s behind these killings.”
She made a noncommittal sound. “And that’s why you set up the appointment for the day after tomorrow for me to see the psychiatrist. The one who specializes in recovering lost memories from traumatic incidents. She wants to try some new drug on me.”
Egan didn’t think it was his imagination that Caroline was upset about that. Probably because it threw off her daily massage schedule or something. But he didn’t care one bit about inconveniencing her. He only wanted the truth about what’d really happened the night of that hit-and-run.
“The psychiatrist also wants me to keep a journal of my dreams,” she added. “I was up at three in the morning writing down things that I’m sure won’t make a bit of sense to her. I just don’t think this’ll do any good.”
“You never know,” he mumbled. “It might be the key to the truth.” But even a long shot like this was a move in the right direction.
He preceded her into the garage. The lights were still on, and there were two cars parked inside. A vintage white Mercedes convertible, top up, beaded with rainwater, and a 1966 candy-apple-red Mustang with a coat of dust on it. What Egan didn’t see were any signs of the person who’d left those tracks in her bedroom.
“The box thing is in the Mercedes,” she volunteered, stepping ahead of Egan. She, too, made vigilant glances all around them. But the vigilance didn’t seem necessary because no one jumped out at them, and no one was lurking between the vehicles.
She opened the passenger’s door and pointed to the object on the floor. Yep. It was a small black box all right, and it had strips of black duct tape dangling off the sides.
“Like I said, I think it’s an eavesdropping device,” she commented.
And she reached for it.
Her fingers were less than an inch away when Egan practically tackled her so he could snag her wrist. In theory, it was a good idea because he didn’t want her to smear any prints that might be on the box. But that snagged wrist and his forward momentum sent them sprawling onto the passenger’s seat.
Caroline landed face-first. He landed with his face in her peach-scented, shoulder-length hair. And another part of him, a brainless part of him, hit against her firm butt. Egan grunted from the contact.
Her body nearly distracted him from hearing the tiny, soft sounds.
Clicks.
But Egan shook his head, mentally amending that. Not clicks.
Ticks.
The sounds were synchronized. One right behind the other. Marking off time.
Or rather counting it down.
Hell.
“Get out of here!” he shouted, dragging Caroline from the seat. “It’s a bomb.”
Before Egan Caldwell’s words even registered in Caroline’s head, he already had hold of her and was running toward the door with her in tow.
Mercy, was that black box really a bomb?
She’d heard the ticking sound, of course. Not while she’d been in the car earlier when the engine was running. But now—when Egan and she had tumbled onto the seat. She seriously doubted that an eavesdropping device would have a timer on it.
The adrenaline jolted through her, and Caroline somehow managed to run in her unsensible business heels. Probably thanks to Egan. He had a death grip on her left wrist and practically plowed them through the door that led to a narrow mudroom and then the solarium on the back of her house.
“Evacuate now—there’s a bomb in the garage!” he shouted. Which, in turn, caused more shouts from the cops and the security guards.
All of them began to run. Egan didn’t stop, either. He hauled her through the kitchen, then the living room, and they exited through the front door, on the opposite side of the house from the garage. The cops were ahead of them. The two civilian guards, behind.
The rain was coming down harder now and lashed at them like razors. So did the blinding blue strobe lights from the police cruiser parked at the end of her cobblestone drive. It didn’t hinder Egan. He barreled down the front porch steps with her and made a beeline to the driveway, getting her even farther away from the garage.
“Call the bomb squad,” Egan shouted over his shoulder to one of the guards who was sprinting along behind them. He glanced around through the rain and the night until his attention landed on the other guard. “Keep everyone away from the house.”
Because the place might blow up.
That “bottom line” realization sent Caroline’s heart to her knees. Someone might get hurt. Also, her house might soon be destroyed, and there was apparently nothing she could do to stop it.
But who had done this?
A car bomb certainly seemed like overkill for an overly zealous competitor in the antiques business. Sweet heaven. Had the intruder also been the one to plant that bomb? And if so, why?
Of course, she couldn’t discount the four previous murders. All people she’d known. All of them involved in some way with the City Board, of which she was a member.
Was she now the killer’s next target?
Her legs and thighs began to cramp from the exertion. She wasn’t much of a runner, and the heels didn’t help. Caroline was wheezing for breath and her heart was hammering in her chest by the time they made it to the end of her drive.
Egan stopped, finally, and pulled her in front of him. Actually, he put her against the wet stone pylon that held the open wrought-iron gate in place. He got right behind her, pushing her face-first against the stones.
“Don’t look back,” he warned. “And shelter your eyes just in case that damn thing goes off.”
That’s when she realized he was sheltering her. It wasn’t personal; Caroline was sure of that. She’d seen the disdain in his eyes. Sgt. Egan Caldwell was merely doing his job, and right now, she was the job.
“You really think the bomb’s about to explode?” Caroline asked.
“It’s a possibility, but I don’t believe the device is large enough to create a blast that’ll reach us here. At least, I hope not,” he added in a mumble.
But the officers apparently didn’t believe that because one of them began to sprint in the direction of her nearest neighbor. “I’ll have them evacuate,” the Hispanic cop relayed to Egan.
Mercy. Now her neighbor and best friend, Taylor Landis, was perhaps in danger.
Caroline wiped her hand over her face to sling off some of the rainwater. She wished she could do the same to the adrenaline and fear because it was starting to overwhelm her. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“If