Detonated by Seduction (Highland County Heroes Book 4) Read online

  As he pulled up, he saw one corner of the building was missing a cone shaped section, narrow at the bottom and wide at the top. Many of the bricks along the edges were crumbled. Someone had brought in mobile, large-animal fencing and set up a perimeter around the area to keep people out, or at least give the pretense of keeping people out. A squad from Blackjack was stationed near the area, to stop people from walking right into the school from the blast opening.

  He got out of his Suburban and made his way to the squad. “Evening.” He pulled his badge and flashed it.

  The man nodded and moved to the side to let him in.

  “I’m assuming someone already cleared the area?” He hadn’t been called in time to do any removal, but if someone was just standing there and there was no one else around, he assumed such was the case. Always prudent to ask though.

  “That’s correct. The chief called a team from Ft. Watterson to come out and do a sweep. The area has been cleared. Apparently, there was only the one device that went off.”

  “Where can I find it?” He would need to see if it matched those from the Ax case from a year before. If not, it didn’t mean it wasn’t him. He’d had a long time to develop something new. However, if it was vastly different, then he would seriously question whether it was possible for Ax to have returned. He almost hoped it was. SAC Spenser was right. Ax needed to be brought in and Santinas didn’t need another high-profile criminal.

  “It’s in the evidence lockers at the fire department. Theirs are more solid than ours, and less used.”

  Though it was unlikely for a used bomb to have any potential energy left, he wasn’t going to correct the man. Some types of explosives were still fully capable, even after portions were already detonated. It wasn’t the police’s job to know bombs, that was his specialty. He’d rather they be safe than sorry. Alex nodded and took off his sunglasses, tucking his hands in his pockets to avoid accidentally touching anything as he went inside.

  Though the floor was a mess, there was little other damage than the wall. The biggest blackened area was right in the corner, but it was odd that the cone was not the other way around. With the blast being on the floor, it should have burst outward, creating a rounded hole in that area with little to no damage near the ceiling. He searched along the fissure in the walls for clues as to why it had come down the way it did, but nothing really jumped out at him.

  He left the blast zone and headed for the fence once again. A young boy of maybe fifteen stood leaning against it, staring at the gym. His face was pale, though it looked like he was normally tan after a summer of sun.

  “You a student here?” Alex climbed over the fence, then stood next to the student, leaning next to him. Educating teens was one his favorite parts of the job, they often spoke their minds without a filter, which helped him. Maybe he would tell Alex what had happened, maybe he’d at least be able to help the kid cope.

  “Yeah. Ninth grade. I was supposed to start playing varsity football this Friday. They canceled practice after they canceled school. The senior tight-end pulled a muscle in his thigh last week and he’s out for the season. So, they asked me. Now this.” His voice trailed off and he shook his head, then rubbed his top lip with a heavy sigh. “You think we’ll be able to go back to school tomorrow? I worked hard to get my grades up so I could play.”

  It had been long enough now that high school was a distant memory, but he could remember maintaining his grades so he could play sports. Until he’d realized his passion for fighting fires, nothing quite compared to Friday night lights.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, hoping to distract the kid from his question. He couldn’t give him an answer, couldn’t relieve his worry in any way.

  “Boyd. I worked my ass off to get to play. Most kids my age don’t make varsity. This isn’t fair.”

  “I’m sure they’ll find some way to get classes and everything else started back up as soon as possible.” Though that was a platitude. He didn’t know anything for sure.

  “I just want to know if I’m going to get to play Friday.”

  “I don’t know. It’s not really up to me. The superintendent has to decide if it’s safe. I can’t tell you what I think because I haven’t done any investigation yet.”

  The boy rolled his eyes. “Neither has the super. I hope you catch who did this. No way all the old people in this town will ever pay to repair it. Whoever did it should be forced to not only pay for it, but replace it. Brick by brick.” He shook his head as he walked away.

  Alex knew the kid’s fear. If there were no sports, there was nothing to do, no excuses to stay away from people. Sports were a kid’s legitimate defense to his friends to stay clean. Without them, he would either have to make his own stand, or submit to pressure.

  Gage pulled up, parked, and got out of his truck. He looked just as he always did with his military haircut and smidge of beard, more like a shadow than anything, immaculate clothing, and not a smudge on his truck. He and Gage were alike in many ways.

  “Melody doesn’t make you shave that off?”

  Gage scratched his face. “Nope, she seems to like it.” He held out his hand for a quick shake. “Been a long time. You should keep in touch more.”

  He’d thought about it, but keeping in touch meant he might accidentally see Olivia again. While that was a pleasant idea in theory, in practice, it would be all wrong. “I’ve been busy.”

  “Well, be less busy. Once every couple months you can come stay with us. Relax for a change.”

  He never relaxed, there was no reason to. If he was at home, he read about or thought about cases. “I thought you worked six out of seven days. You have no room to talk. You don’t relax either.”

  “My bosses got together and merged my shifts a bit. Since I spend a lot of time for both jobs sitting and waiting to be called. They worked out a system. If I’m on the bus and a fire call comes in, I’m allowed to answer it on the second alarm if there are no injuries reported. If they need me there on the bus, then I can’t work the fire. Though, that usually only matters in vehicle fire situations. We haven’t had another house fire since last summer.”

  He spread his feet apart and crossed his arms loosely over his stomach. “It keeps me from having to be on call six days a week. I get an extra day off a week now.”

  “You two married yet?” Gage and Melody had been together for as long as he’d known them, though not always in the healthiest way.

  “Planning. She moved out of Livy’s apartment and in with me about a month ago.”

  He resisted the urge to ask about Olivia again, no matter how much he wanted to know. “You said there was a note?”

  Gage narrowed his eyes, then stepped forward, reaching for his back pocket. “You know, Melody tells me everything. Livy is kind of hung up on you.”

  That was one thing he hadn’t needed to hear. “The note?”

  Gage shook his head and pulled up a photo on his phone, then handed it over. Ax had sent text messages at the end, usually rife with aggressive words. A note was so strange at a bombing.

  This isn’t the only one. I guess you’ll need to sweep the town free of the riff-raff to find the others.

  “What do you think it means, other than the obvious?” Alex handed Gage back his phone. The town wasn’t safe, at all, until they figured out who this was and what he was after.

  “Well, if this is Ax again, he could mean me and Melody, he could mean the people in Devastation Circle, or he could mean anyone holding back a gym. Melody said he wanted the resort for that purpose, but she was always certain he was working for DemaCrane to get people to move out so the resort could be built.”

  Ax had targeted homes in a wide circular area DemaCrane had slotted for demolition so they could build their resort. The people living there didn’t want to sell and the city of Blackjack, the county seat, wasn’t making them. “Let’s assume you and Melody were only targets because you got in the way of his main objective. In that case, we must forget about the second set of bombings and only look at the first two.”

  “In that case, barring Melody’s input, he wants the gym. But why target the school? It’s nowhere near Devastation Circle. And, why bomb the gym? It makes no sense, not even illogically.”

  “If this is Ax, he wants to get our attention. Did you see the device? Was it similar to those before?” Alex asked.

  “Not even close. This looks to be C4 with a detonator. Not much left to analyze.”

  It could still be Ax, but the muscle head didn’t really seem all that smart, unless he’d found someone to work with. “You got to see what was going on during the scene. Tell me what you think.”

  “If this is Ax, he spent time overseas, who knows were. I don’t know how he smuggled C4 in, but if it was packed well enough, he could’ve brought it home in a suitcase. It’s pretty stable,” Gage said.

  “True, but it’s kind of a stretch going from buckets filled with kerosene that have home-soldered detonators to C4.” He had to remain the voice of reason. It wasn’t that Gage wasn’t intelligent, or couldn’t investigate—far from it—he just couldn’t allow the investigation to be hampered by narrowing it down too soon. “I know you want to get Ax after what he did to your town and to Melody, so do I. It’s possible he’s in on this, who knows at this point. Right now, he’s the only name on our suspect list. But let’s not be too hasty about focusing solely on him. Let’s take a look at that school and see if we can figure out what is going on with that blast site. I know you can shape C4 to direct a blast, but this is counter to everything I’ve learned.” The only way to explain it would be if there were actually two devices and the one on the floor of the gym was little more than a decoy. But why intentionally make the blast look different? That was new.

/>   Gage followed him into the gym and they both put on gloves. There was still rubble laying all around, but much of it had been picked through by the earlier investigators looking for more explosive material. “Who’s coming in here to clean this up? Has it been scheduled?”

  “Not yet. The superintendent wanted to talk with you first. School has already been canceled for tomorrow pending your investigation.”

  Good, not only would he get a full day to really look around, he wouldn’t have to worry about seeing Olivia accidentally. He glanced up to the roof where the widest part of the gaping hole was. “Any way up there to get a better look?”

  “You think that’s a good idea? It’s probably not stable.” Gage looked skeptical. He couldn’t blame him. Alex didn’t want to climb around up there either and potentially fall the height of the gym to the ground.

  “I don’t think we have a choice.”

  “I’ll get my safety gear. I’ve got some carabiners and rope in my truck along with some picks. I’m not going up there without protective gear.” Gage ran out of the building and came back in a minute with everything needed for basic mountain climbing.

  “Tell me why you have this stuff in your truck?” Gage had never mentioned he was an enthusiast.

  “We used them in training a few weeks ago. I had nowhere to keep them in my house so they stayed in the back of my pickup.”

  Alex stared at him for a moment. Neither man liked any sort of mess in his truck, nor home. “And you were okay with that?”

  “Yeah,” Gage shrugged. “I’ll find a place for it once Melody and I figure out a place for everything else. We’re working on it. It wasn’t easy merging everything from two places into one. Good thing I had it my truck anyway, we needed it.”

  Alex thought about his own truck, and house. He never randomly had things with him, couldn’t think of a time when it mattered. Until today.

  “Let’s suit up and check out that roof. Then we can go home. By the way, can I stay with you? I drove by The Inn…and just couldn’t make reservations.”

  Gage laughed as he strung together the clamps and rope. “Of course. Melody already assumed you would.”

  Chapter Three

  Ever since Melody had moved out of Livy’s apartment, and in with Gage, Livy had moved their nightly evening get-togethers to Gage’s. He hadn’t said anything to her to make her feel unwelcome, and wasn’t even there much of the time. His house was comfortable and large, though there was a rule that everything had to be picked up before Gage got home, for his own sanity.

  Though Livy always provided the drinks for the evening, Melody didn’t partake, hadn’t since she’d gotten sick from it about a year before. Gage drank occasionally, but Melody just didn’t like it. Livy had agreed to give up sleeping with men at that time to support Melody in her objective to win Gage. Melody had been trying to show Gage she was serious about his career and she wasn’t a quick fix. It had been a trying year, but Livy was ready to relax again, have fun again. Especially now that Melody and Gage were engaged.

  Livy ran her finger along the rim of her beer can, unsure of how to broach the topic of Alex without sounding desperate. “I’ve been thinking, if Alex wanted to see me, he’d have called sometime this year. I’ve never let a rejection bother me so much, but I think it’s time to move on.” Especially since he would be in town with the bombing and she’d rather he saw her with some other guy, not alone and waiting for him like a devoted groupie.

  “I thought you’d continued to stay away from other men because you were worried about accidentally sleeping with a parent of a student. I didn’t realize you were still hoping for Alex. He’s in town. You could just…you know…ask him. He might be willing.” Melody did a little shimmy and it almost made Livy laugh, but she held it in.

  “You forget my motto.” Livy took a deep drink of her beer to wash away the burning taste of defeat. Alex was the one that got away. She would love to sink into him, taste him, but he was forbidden. The good boy to her bad apple. It would never work.

  “No, it hasn’t been long enough for me to forget. ‘Never fuck a man you want to see again.’ But do you really think he’s more than once material?” Melody sat on the other couch and curled her feet under her.

  “More than once? If I thought it would be possible, I’d have that man every day and twice on Sundays.” Just thinking about him forced her to cross her legs. He got to her in ways no other man had. She wasn’t just attracted to his body, she wanted him for how he made her feel— important, beautiful, smart, capable. Those feelings were more addicting than any alcohol she’d ever had.

  “So, if he means that much to you, what will you do? You won’t be able to get him out of your system if it’s been a year and you still think about him. Though, I don’t understand why. He was only with you for one night. One night where you claim to have done nothing.” Melody quirked her lip and raised an eyebrow. She’d been skeptical and who could blame her? Livy had been with any and every man she’d wanted for the entire time they’d known each other. Why change now?

  That one night had been wonderful. The first night, ever, that she’d spent with a man and not had sex. At first, she’d been hung over and sick, but because she had such a high tolerance, it had worn off and they’d talked until the next morning. She hadn’t even really tried to seduce him because they got so close, shared so much that was deeper. It had been so good to just talk to him. She’d never had that with any man. He wanted to hear her, not just strip her down and take what she offered.

  “Of course, avoiding one of my students’ fathers is a valid concern. Though their parents are much older than me, I am drawn to older men usually. I’m just tired of coming here every night, drinking the same drinks, telling the same stories.” The bottle didn’t quite drown out the voice in her head that she was too much fun. That she was getting too old to be acting the party girl. Maybe there wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to do that.

  “Yeah, and there’s the issue that if you sleep with a bunch of men, the town is small enough that the school will hear about it. You could lose your job. At the very least, you will lose the respect of your students and it’s hard enough to keep them interested and civil.”

  Melody was only a para, but she’d learned quickly that the boys, without any solid guidance, were the most difficult to manage. They had a bunch of pent-up energy and nowhere to direct it since they spent so much time on devices. The girls had vastly different issues, usually revolving around the building or dissolving of friend groups.

  “It’s just…” she hadn’t told Melody yet about her brother. She hadn’t told anyone because most people in town didn’t even know she had a brother. He had been even worse than her, a party-boy, a drunk, a serial womanizer. But now, all that had changed. “William is getting married.”

  Melody’s eyes widened and she stared at Livy for a moment. “Wait, you mean, your brother? That William?” She leaned forward and her feet popped out from under her and landed on the floor, her mouth falling open slightly. “You only mentioned him to me a couple times and one of them was to tell me you were going to drive home to Vegas to help bail him out of jail because your parents refused.”

  “That’s him.” She was shocked Melody even remembered. Her brother was pretty much a low-life, but he’d finally gotten his mess straightened out about a year before. He’d met a woman in AA and now they were getting married. “He’s getting married and I’m still alone.”

  “He lives in Vegas where there are a lot more people to pick from.” Melody’s eyebrows raised as she tilted her head down, in her usual do-you-think-I’m-stupid glare.

  “True, but he’s also pond scum. Yet, he’s found love. If you think I’ve been with a lot of people, he probably set some record.” At least, he’d always been seen with many different women. Livy had even thought he might be a pimp, which was ludicrous, but possible with her brother’s moral compass. How could he get married before her? It just wasn’t fair. She, at least, had a career, had done a decent job of keeping her vices from town busy-bodies, and that was saying something in a town that small.