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Stay away. The cops were all over it. Her folks had mountains of money. If anybody ever had her ass covered, it was Princess Liv.
The something’s-not-right feeling was swelling, bigger and badder. Fire ants in his head. Itching and twitching. What had T-Rex said? Burning in the fire of his passion?Our union will be explosive.
He’d stared at the twisted wreckage at the bottom of Hagen’s Canyon for hours, before they’d climbed down and hauled him away.
Our union will be explosive.Repeated in his head, pounding like a jackhammer. His brother’s body had been charred black. Carbonized.
“Hey! How’d it go?”
Sean jerked as if he’d been stung by a bee, but it was just Miles, coming out of the computer store, his eyes big with curiosity. “Did you see that girl? What did she say? Was she surprised to see you?”
Sean couldn’t speak for the pressure building inside him. He doubled over, pressed his hand against the sucking crater in his torso.
“Jeez. Are you OK?” Miles grabbed his shoulder. “Are you sick?”
He was going to hurl his coffee and sweet roll, right into the potted geraniums in front of Endicott Falls Fine Antiques and Collectibles. Oh, man, what a way to repair his social image.
Our union will be explosive.
He peered back through the haze of smoke. His eye fastened onto Liv’s graceful form. Blair Madden marched beside her, chest flung out.
Liv’s car. Burning. Explosive.
They split to walk around the battered pickup. That wasn’t a trophy vehicle a pompous dick like Madden would drive. Must be Liv’s.
Click.It fell into place. His panic released, like a coiled spring.
He took off towards that pickup like he had rocket launchers under his feet. He barely recognized that howling voice as his own. Time warped, like in combat. People flinched away as he pounded by. Madden goggled at him behind the windshield. Liv’s eyes were huge.
“Get away from that car!” he bellowed. “Getback!”
Liv froze, one foot already inside.
Madden locked his door, lunged across the seat, grabbed Liv’s wrist to yank her in, the cretin.Fuck.Sean shattered the driver’s side window with a flying kick. He unlocked the door, wrenched Madden out.
The guy grunted as he hit the hot asphalt. Liv backed away ’til she hit the glass display window of Trinket Trove Gift Emporium.
“Get away!” he yelled, waving his arms at her and everyone else he could see. “Back! Farther!Now, goddamnit!”
Everyone obeyed. Nobody wanted to be near the howling psycho.
The keys were in the ignition. He popped the hood. Any movement could trip the bomb, but he had to take that risk upon himself. Nobody was going to believe him. He knew that from bitter experience.
He wasn’t even sure he believed it himself, but hell. He had no choice but to trust an impulse strong enough to make him practically blow chunks all over the spit-shined Endicott Falls shopping district.
He scanned the Toyota’s engine for bomb designs he was familiar with, but there were infinite variations, endless new strategies, and he’d never tinkered with the guts of an aging Toyota. He wouldn’t recognize a wire out of place if it bit him in the ass. He stared at it, stomach churning. He dropped to the ground, shimmied under the pickup on his back. Switched on the penlight on his keychain. Peered around.
A thrill of confirmation jolted his nerves. A wire wrapped around the drive train. Old classic. Easy to spot if you were looking for it, but why look? He poked around delicately. There it was. A wad of plastic explosives, molded between the gas tank and the truck body. If Madden had driven a few inches, the turning driveshaft would’ve pulled the trip, and ka-boom. He let out a jerky sigh. Tension drained out of him.
The smell of sunbaked asphalt tickled his nose. Scratches on his back began to sting. He stared at the destruction clinging to the belly of the truck, like a malignant growth. So close.
He wiggled out from under the Toyota. It took some eye-rubbing to recognize Officer Tom Roarke. The man had put on weight in fifteen years, but the hostility in his face was immutable.
Sean hardly blamed him. Punching an officer of the law in the face and restraining him with his own cuffs was a very undesirable course of action. Even in his wilder days, Sean had known that.
And all for nothing, in the end. He’d been too late to save Kev.
“Mr. McCloud, would you like to explain to me what you’re doing vandalizing Ms. Endicott’s car?” Roarke’s voice was as harsh as gravel.
