Jessica Andersen - Under the Microscope

Raine brushed his shoulder in passing. “Thank you.”

He wasn’t sure if she was thanking him for pushing her to safety during the first fury of the blast or for not arguing harder against her help. Either way, her touch poked at a raw, sore spot inside. He bared his teeth. “Don’t thank me yet. You were one of the last people in that office.”

She glanced up at the gaping hole where her space had been. “I know. I could’ve been-” She broke off and looked at him, eyes narrowing. “What are you suggesting, that I blew up my own office with Jeff and two computer techs in it?” Her voice rose as she spoke, until it cracked with airborne dust and stress, or maybe with fear. “Listen, you-” She pressed her lips together and tears made her eyes shimmer with sincerity, or maybe pure rage. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t have.” She looked down at the shattered mobile. A tear broke free and tracked through the dust on her cheek. “Never.”

It clicked in his brain then. The reason he knew she was telling the truth.

Only it wasn’t pretty.

“I believe you,” he said, damning the ache in his chest when she looked up and hope flickered in her eyes. “I believe that you didn’t set the bomb. And do you want to know why?”

Another tear joined the first. “Why?”

The ache snapped in his chest and died, and he heard himself say the words as though they’d come from someone else, someone standing far away.

“Because if you couldn’t bring yourself to have an abortion when you so clearly didn’t want your ex-husband’s child, I can’t see you killing people just to get what you want.” He straightened as he rose to tower over her. He hated that it gave him some measure of pleasure to say, “Even you aren’t that selfish, Raine.”

Then he turned and walked away, feeling like hell.

Raine told herself the wetness on her cheeks was spray from a broken pipe nearby as she tugged on a pile of debris, trying to free part of a cube wall without sending the rest crashing down on a middle-aged guy wearing the dark suit of an FDA agent and the scared expression of a man who’d seen his own life nearly end.

“Careful,” he said for the tenth time. “Careful there.” He tugged at his leg, which was pinned beneath the lower edge of the wall.

“I’ve got it.” Raine sniffed against more tears. Concentrate. She had to concentrate on what needed to be done right now.

There would be time for tears later. In private.

The wall gave suddenly, sending her staggering back, where she collided with an immovable male body.

She didn’t need to turn to know instantly who it was. Her senses were attuned to Max, damn them.

Damn him.

“Leave it,” he ordered with enough bite in his tone to have her bristling in return.

“I can do it.” She turned her back on him, hoping he’d go away. Far away. The sting of his logic was too fresh for her to deal with. Too true to brush off.

She hadn’t wanted Rory’s child, hadn’t wanted the responsibility of single motherhood. She’d even considered the alternative before deciding it wasn’t the right choice for her, practicalities aside. But what Max didn’t know, or chose not to remember, was that in those last few days before her miscarriage, in the days he’d been watching over her, her growing child had gone from being “the pregnancy” in her mind to being “the baby.” Her baby.

Damn him for not remembering that, and for using what had happened against her.

Now, he gripped her upper arms and urged her toward the doors, away from the destruction. “The professionals are here. Let them deal with it.”

She saw firefighters and a group of paramedics followed by beefy men carrying power tools. Even as they descended upon the wreck of her life, the building shifted with an ominous groan.

“Out.” Max sent her toward the door with an unceremonious shove. “Now.”

She half hoped he would stay behind, giving her a few moments without his too judgmental presence. Instead he remained close as she exited the office and followed a stream of evacuees from other floors, down the winding stairwell to the parking lot.

It was daylight. Sunny. Pretty. The sky was blue and patches of snow were melting. It looked like any other day. How could things seem so normal out here when the situation was so incredibly not normal?

“Raine.” Max touched her arm, voice subdued. “I’m sorry for what I said up there. I was out of line.”

“Yes, you were.” She lifted her chin, refusing to let the hurt show.

“I apologize.”

The honest regret in his eyes eased something deep inside her. She slanted him a look. “Does that mean you’re back to thinking I planned all this on my own?”

He grimaced. “I’m not-”

“Ms. Montgomery,” Detective Marcus interrupted, appearing at her side with Agent Bryce in tow. “I’d like to have a few words with you.”

Max ranged himself at her shoulder. “Detective,” he said. “You got here quickly.”

“I was in the neighborhood,” Marcus said, no hint of humor in his expression to acknowledge that he’d left the office no more than thirty minutes before it was destroyed. “I’d like you to come to the station.”

“So I’ve graduated to being questioned at the station,” Raine said, tears and smoke turning her voice husky. “That either means you believe I’m responsible for all this, or you think I’m a target.”

“I don’t think there’s any question of that, Ms. Montgomery,” the detective said, giving no hint which side of the fence he stood on. He gestured to a plain sedan. “If you’ll come with me?”

Though it bordered on leaning, Raine glanced up at Max. He nodded slightly. “Go ahead. I’ll follow in your car.”

Swallowing tears of fear and humiliation, she climbed into the sedan and sat in the back like a criminal.

Alone.

WHEN MAX ENTERED the police station later that afternoon, he was armed with more questions than answers.

Or rather, the answers he had were ones he didn’t like. Not one bit.

He followed the desk officer’s directions up a short flight of stairs to a wide hallway. Closed doors marched in rows on either side, fake wood panels that made the off-gray paint on the walls look dingy.

At the end of the hall, Raine sat on a stiff-looking wooden bench, looking gray herself, though not dingy. Her clothes were badly wrinkled and streaked with plaster dust, and her hair had mostly sagged from its habitual twist atop her head.

Max paused mid-stride as the sight of her reached inside him and grabbed at something. His heart, maybe, or even deeper than that. Damn her for being so beautiful, he thought. Damn him for being a sucker. He forced himself to keep walking when part of him wanted to head down the stairs and never look back. But that would be running away, and that was her routine, not his.

Never his.

“Have you been waiting long?” he asked, his voice coming out deeper than he’d intended.

She shook her head. “A few minutes. I was gathering my strength to call a cab.”

He scowled and snapped, “No cabs. No going out alone. Not until we figure out who’s after you, what they want and how we can stop them. Got it?”

He halfway expected her to leap up and get in his face, reminding him she was the boss, she was in charge. Instead, a worried pinch developed at the corners of her eyes. “So you do believe I’m not the villain here. What do you know that I don’t?”

He’d thought about shielding her from the information. Instead, he went with the blunt, naked truth. “Tori and Agent Bryce helped put together a head count of who should’ve been in the office. Everyone’s been accounted for except Jeff and the two techs. But there were only two bodies in your office.”