Safety Breach. Delores Fossen
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already be dead. Eric didn’t like leaving loose ends. It was the whole reason he was so angry with her. So, why had he issued just a warning and not finished her off? Maybe he wanted to torment her first. An easy kill might not be as much fun for him.
“What about my neighbors?” Gemma asked. “Were any of them hurt?”
Owen shook his head and made eye contact with his brother in the rearview mirror. “Were you able to get any details on the bomb?”
“They haven’t been able to find the detonator and until they do, they won’t be able to start figuring out who built it. Eric doesn’t have bomb-making experience. Or at least he didn’t a year ago, so he likely hired someone or spent some research time on the internet.”
Gemma had heard Kellan talking with the bomb squad, but she’d only heard his end of the conversation. Which hadn’t been much. Obviously, Kellan hadn’t liked that there hadn’t been much progress in the investigation. Then again, it’d only happened six hours ago, and the CSIs were still processing the scene.
Kellan’s phone rang again, something it’d been doing throughout the drive, and he mumbled some profanity when he saw the name on the screen. For a heart-stopping moment, Gemma thought it might be Eric, but then she saw her handler’s name on the screen. Amanda had already called once when they’d still been at the police station, and Kellan had let it go to voice mail, but he answered it now, and he put it on Speaker.
“Have you figured out who leaked Gemma’s location?” he greeted.
“No, but it wasn’t me,” Amanda answered without hesitation. However, she did sound as frustrated and annoyed as Kellan. “Where’s Gemma?” she snapped.
“She’s safe.” Kellan looked at her and put his index finger to his mouth in a stay-quiet gesture. “I need you to find the source of the leak and prove to me that you fixed it. Then I’ll give you Gemma’s location.”
“That’s not the way this works, cowboy,” Amanda argued. “I’m the one in charge here, not you.”
Gemma winced because she could feel Kellan bristling from the marshal’s cowboy label and sharp tone. Amanda had never been a warm and fuzzy kind of person, and she was even less so right now.
“Gemma’s in WITSEC,” Amanda went on, “and that puts this under the jurisdiction of the marshals.”
“Only if the marshals can protect her, and you’ve just proven that you can’t.” Kellan huffed. “Eric killed another woman last night and left a note for Gemma with her address. He’s coming after her, and I’d rather make sure that no one wearing a badge is feeding Eric info to help him do that.”
That silenced Amanda for a couple of seconds. “Is this about Rory?” Amanda came out and asked.
It was a question Gemma had expected. Rory was Marshal Rory Clawson, and Kellan’s then fellow deputy, Dusty Walters, had been investigating the marshal for the murder of a prostitute whose body had been found in Longview Ridge. Dusty hadn’t been able to find any evidence other than hearsay before Eric had gunned him down.
“Why would it be about Rory?” Kellan challenged.
“Because I figure you’re holding a grudge against Rory because you weren’t able to pin bogus charges on him. You still haven’t been able to pin those charges on him,” Amanda emphasized. “Or maybe you’ve got a wild notion that he aided Eric in some way.”
Kellan didn’t waste any time firing back. “Did he?”
Amanda made a dismissive sound. “This isn’t over. You will turn Gemma over to me,” the marshal added before she ended the call.
It sounded like a threat, and Gemma was certain they’d be hearing from her again soon. Maybe though, Amanda wouldn’t try to put her in a new WITSEC location until they had some answers about this latest attack.
“Do you trust her?” Kellan asked when he put his phone away.
Gemma opened her mouth to answer yes, but she stopped. The truth was, she didn’t know Amanda that well at all. They’d only met twice in the months that Amanda had been her handler.
“I don’t have any reason not to trust her,” Gemma settled for saying.
“Other than someone compromised your location, a location that only a handful of people knew, and Amanda was one of them.” Kellan paused, and then he huffed even louder than he had when he’d been talking to Amanda. “I just don’t want to make another mistake.”
Gemma could have said those same words to him. If she’d just lived up to her reputation of being a top-notch profiler, she could have stopped him.
“I owe you,” Kellan added a moment later.
That got her attention, and Gemma turned in the seat to face him. “You owe me?” she repeated.
Again, that was something she could have said to him. She’d been the one to mess up, not Kellan. But before she could press him on that, his phone rang again, and this time it wasn’t Amanda. It was Unknown Caller on the screen.
“Eric,” she whispered on a rise of breath.
Owen must have thought it was him, too. “I’ll try to trace it while he’s on the line.” Owen quickly handed his brother a small recorder, and Kellan clicked it on before he hit the answer button.
“So, I guess you’re both still alive and kicking?” Eric asked the moment he was on the line. “If Gemma had died, my little bird would have told me.”
“And who exactly is that little bird?” Kellan snapped.
“Someone in a very good seat for birds.” Eric chuckled.
Maybe a marshal or a cop. But Gemma tried not to react to that because this could be just another of Eric’s taunts. The word was probably already out that she’d survived, and he could have heard about it through any means from gossip to even a news report. Then again, maybe he knew she wasn’t dead because he’d had no intentions of killing—yet. Not until he’d made her suffer.
“Sorry, but I need to keep my bird’s name to myself for now,” Eric added a moment later. “Might need him...or her again.”
Kellan’s eyes narrowed. Obviously, he also hated these games that Eric loved to play. “I’m guessing you blew up Gemma’s house just in case there was any evidence left behind. That tells me you were actually in it.”
“I was,” Eric admitted, causing her skin to crawl. “It was fun to see how she’s living her life these days. So much security! You could practically feel the worry when you stepped into the house.”
Three bullets could do that, and it twisted away at her that just by hearing his voice, he could pull that old fear from her.
“I left that little microphone so I could talk to you,” Eric admitted.
“You mean so you could try to make us believe you were still inside,” Kellan snapped. “But you weren’t. No way would you have risked getting blown up, because you’re a coward.”
“Sticks and stones,” Eric joked, but there was just enough edge to his voice that made Gemma wonder if Kellan had hit a nerve.
At one time Eric had wanted to be an FBI agent. Or so he’d led her to believe. And maybe that was true. If so, that coward insult would have stung.
“Too bad you didn’t blow up her neighbor’s house where you had your hired thug shoot at us,” Kellan went on. “It wasn’t very smart of him to leave a spent shell casing behind. Sometimes there are fingerprints on those.”
It was a bluff. If the CSIs had indeed found something like that, they would have mentioned it in the calls Kellan had made to them. Still, it got a reaction from Eric.
Silence.
She doubted this would send Eric into a