“Jake,” she said.
“What? I get it, the road was curvy.”
She opened her eyes again, but the good-natured humor he expected to see there was apparently wishful thinking on his part. Her expression was neutral, but her glare was sharp and forbidding. “We’re not going there,” she said without heat.
“I, uh—” Ducking his head, he stared at the map he’d folded back into a neat rectangle. He bit his bottom lip as he took a moment to adjust to the knowledge that Cassidy Walker was not as happy to see him again as he was to see her. “No. Right. Of course.” He drew in a deep breath. “Sorry.”
“A blanket apology?”
“I’m not…” He frowned as he tried to figure out what she thought he needed to be sorry for in addition to broaching the subject of their past but then shook it off. “Sure,” he conceded with a decisive nod. “Sorry for everything.”
She gave a soft snort when she laughed. “Your sincerity is overwhelming.”
“Yeah, well, consider it a blanket, too,” he shot back.
Desperate to focus on a slightly less-volatile topic, he chose to talk incendiary devices. “I’ve got teams checking the areas around some of the bigger rides—the swings, the spinner, the pirate ship,” he said as he unfolded the map. “I’ve also got people sweeping the food court area and the Hall of Industry.” He turned the map and stared hard at the building where local businesses could come to hawk their services trade-show style. “I was thinking the petting zoo area would be good,” he ventured.
“Don’t forget the stages,” she interrupted. “The main pavilion next to the Hall of Industry. There’s a smaller setup across from the cattle barn.”
“Have you thought any more about the number twelve?”
She huffed a laugh. “Don’t you mean have I thought about anything other than the number twelve?”
“Are the buildings numbered? I mean, aside from the designations on the signs, is there any kind of internal numbering system?”
She opened her eyes and studied him for a long, searching minute. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then clamped down on her bottom lip as she shook her head.
“What if I count twelve buildings in from the gate?” he suggested.
Her brow furrowed as she considered the suggestion. “Which gate?”
He shrugged. “I guess we’ll start with the north since whoever is doing this started there.”
“Permanent structures only?”
“Gotta start somewhere.”
Without even glancing at the map, she started to tick them off on her fingers. “Box Office. Main Stage. Diner. Industry. Arts. Cattle 1. Cattle 2. Barton. Cattle 3. Cattle 4. Bud’s Burgers. The Arkansas Building…” She stopped.
He pulled the marker from his back pocket and circled the Arkansas Building on the map. “Okay. And if we go south to north?”
“Equestrian Center. Rabbits. Goats and Sheep. Poultry. Horses. Arkansas. Horse 2. Swine Barn. Bud’s. Cattle 4. Cattle 3. Barton Coliseum,” she recited.
“We’ve swept Barton,” he reminded her.
“Then Cattle 2, I guess.” She shook her head as if they’d already set out on a hopeless quest. “There are a lot of other barns and outbuildings in there.”
“But these are the ones most people would know, right?”
“Right.”
“Then we’ll start with them.” He rose and took up Max’s lead. “I have one of your radios on me. If you hear anything else, you—”
He was cut off midsentence by the police radio clipped to his vest. “Got a hot potato,” one of the other members of the combined tactical team reported.
Colonel Aronson returned the call. “Team and location?”
Jake and Cassidy listened attentively as the information was exchanged. “Brusk and Hollins, LRPD. We have a visual on an IED planted beneath the pirate ship, sir.”
