Delores Fossen - Questioning the Heiress

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 we have a vigilante killer on our hands, it doesn’t have to make sense,” he reminded her.

Yes. She’d heard that theory. Or rather the gossip. That Vincent Montoya might have been murdered by a vigilante who maybe wanted to tie up all loose ends of the hit-and-run.

“I can understand why a vigilante would go after Montoya,” she mumbled. “But why try to kill me?”

“You got an answer for that?” Egan asked.

Since that sounded like some kind of challenge, she looked back at him. She didn’t have to look far. He was there. Right over her soaking wet shoulder, and the overhead security light clearly showed his rain-streaked face.

Surly, beyond doubt.

Caroline tried not to let the next thought enter her mind, but she couldn’t stop it. Egan Caldwell was a goodlooking man. Okay, he wasn’t just good-looking.

He was hot.

Dark blond hair, partially hidden beneath that creamywhite Stetson. Eyes that were a brilliant, burning blue. He had just enough ruggedness to stop him from being a pretty boy and just enough pretty boy to smooth out some of that ruggedness.

And Caroline hated she’d noticed that about him.

“What are you waiting for me to say?” she snapped. “That this guy wants me dead because I saw or heard something the night of the hit-and-run?” She didn’t pause long enough for him to confirm it because Caroline could see the confirmation in those eyes. “Well, if that were true, why didn’t he come after me nine months ago? If this is truly some vigilante killer, then I should have been one of the first on his list.”

Egan stood there, staring at her, with the summer rain assaulting them and the sounds of chaos going on all around. The cruiser’s lights pulsed blue flashes over him. Flashes that were the same color as his eyes. “Maybe the killer hasn’t come after you before because you supposedly have no memories of the hit-and-run.”

Again, that wasn’t new information, either. “Nothing has changed about that. It’s not supposedly. ” Caroline froze and then eased around so that she was facing him. “But I have an appointment the day after tomorrow to see that psychiatrist to help me remember what happened.”

He nodded and snorted slightly as if annoyed that it’d taken her so long to figure it out. “Did you tell anyone about that appointment?”

Oh, mercy. “Yes. I was talking about it today when I had lunch at the Cantara Hills Country Club.” Actually, Caroline had verbally blasted the Rangers, Egan and Brody, for demanding the appointment. She’d already been through hours of therapy and had zero recollection of the time immediately before, during and following the accident. The dream log and the appointment seemed not only unnecessary but intrusive and a total waste of time—and hope.

“Who was there at this country club lunch?” Egan asked. He used his snarly Texas Rangers’ tone that was only marginally softened by his easy drawl. Words slid right off that drawl.