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Chapter 16
A few hours later,Bart knew something was wrong before he rolled over and discovered the bed was cold where he’d expected to find Hannah’s warm, supple body.
That warrior’s instinct he’d relied on during his time with Army Special Operations brought him instantly awake and he listened to the quiet for clues.
He reached for his watch on the nightstand. Not quite five and the bed was cold. Which meant she’d left some time ago.
Dammit.
Diesel engines rumbled from the trucks parked by drivers sleeping over. The typical, familiar drone didn’t settle him. Normal sounds or not, his gut told him something was desperately wrong.
Pushing up on an elbow, he checked her side of the bed and swore softly when he saw her phone was gone too.
He dressed in the dark and safely navigated around the only creaky floorboard. He would not tip off anyone who might bewatching his apartment over the truck stop, for either side of the law.
Someone was waiting on the other side of this door, he could feel the trap about to spring, but he also knew Hannah needed him whether she accepted it or not.
“We know you’re awake. Come on out, your wife is waiting.”
He knew that god-forsaken voice, knew it meant the trap had sprung. The only option left was offense. He flicked the safety off the .357 he kept in his nightstand and reached for the knob on the bedroom door. He heard a muffled shriek, then the unmistakablesnickof a tripwire.
There wasn’t even time to swear as the explosion threw him back across the bedroom.
***
Hannah screamed against the bandana Kellerman had used to gag her. To hell with mission protocol and the stoic, unflappable agent routine. To hell with her curiosity about how he’d managed to fool everyone in the chain of command. Those answers would come. For now, she wanted vengeance for the way he’d murdered Bart.
The smoke stung her eyes and the chemicals in the air clogged her lungs. Still, she screamed. Tears ran down her face, a mix of her heartbreak, fury, and the god-forsaken bomb they’d used to blow up her husband.
There was no automatic disclaimer to that thought in her mind now. No mental amendment that their attachment was temporary or purely a result of the operation.
Bart was fit and big as a bear, but not even he could have survived that assault without body armor. Kellerman had blown up her husband, leaving both Kyle and the baby she carried fatherless.
She wouldnotlet that go unpunished.
She jerked against the ties binding her to the chair at her elbows, wrists, and ankles.
Kellerman leaned close, his hot breath almost worse than the vile smoke. “You see? You are nothing to me, Agent Thalberg or Mrs. Bartholomew or whatever name it is you want to go by. I’m in control and it will stay that way. Enjoy this honor of dying with your man. It’s sure to make a splash in the press, especially when they blame the two of you for the mobile meth invasion.”
She threw her head forward and head-butted him square in his arrogant nose.
He swore and she smiled. Let him ramble, she would not go down here. She would escape and see the truth was told. She would not let Bart be remembered as anything but a hero.
Kellerman swiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand, then used her shirt to clean it off. “Nothing, you whore. Your ashes will be scattered in the wind while I sun myself on an island beach.”
He turned for the door and she gave a primal scream.
The gag kept her from closing her mouth against the smoke and heat swiftly consuming Bart’s home. Flames raced out from the detonators Kellerman had placed at the door. Hannah leaned to the side until she fell over, chair and all, grateful for the clearer air near the floor.
She tried to roll or scoot away from the flames, but it was nearly impossible to do much of anything, bound as she was to the metal framed kitchen chair. Determined to thwart the bastard, she refused to give up, stretching her legs against the plastic zip ties, willing one of them to slip free of the chair leg so she could get some leverage.
There was no point in waiting for help. The truck stop was only close to the interstate. Even if someone sleeping over in theparking lot called it in, the volunteer fire department wouldn’t be able to assemble in time to save her.
She twisted again, trying to gain another inch to the front door. The thin line of light from the fixture outside became her beacon, if she could just get there.
A sound from the direction of the bedroom drew her attention back to the hall. She watched the flames ripple across the walls and stared as a dark, bulky shape leaped through the hole that had once been the bedroom door, like the devil late to his own party.
It was her imagination. Had to be. Somehow, even near the floor, she’d inhaled too much smoke and was hallucinating, seeing what her heart wanted to see rather than the harsh reality of her fate. That shape coming closer couldn’t be Bart.
