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He watched the recording first in real time. It was four minutes twenty-two seconds from start to finish.
She leaned across the center to watch with him. “There. I think I got his face.”
Later, Chris would zoom in. Now, he wanted to take it all in at once, just as it had happened to her.
“You kept filming after he left.” On the screen, she zoomed in tight on what had to be a pipe bomb.
“I wanted to see what he’d left under the window, but didn’t want to give up my hiding place until I was sure they were gone.”
“He thought you were in the bathroom. But my car wasn’t there, so he had to guess you were alone.”
“You weren’t the target. And yeah, I think the noise of the fan and light convinced him I was in that room.”
So the guy made sure that would be the first room destroyed.
Chris had killed for his country, but it was always a job. At least, it had been until last January, when he and his team found themselves under attack on American soil. On that op, he’d killed for his country—and for his teammates—but it had also been personal.
Now he watched the bomb go off. The camera wobbled when the bomb exploded, and there was a blur of branches, sky, and leaves. Diana groaned, then the bouncing image settled on the back of the house, now burning rubble. Watching it happen from her point of view triggered something fierce.
The feeling inside him was familiar—he was pumped and ready to do battle—but the anger and fervor for the fight was different. Primal.
Diana had been targeted.
She’d be dead if she hadn’t needed fresh air while he was off getting fucking groceries.
He set down the phone and cupped her face, then kissed her. His kiss was hard, but not angry. At least, the anger wasn’t directed at her.
She kissed him back equally fiercely.
He ended the kiss, then pressed his forehead to hers, breathing heavily. “I could have lost you.”
“I thought I’d lost you.” She gripped his shirt in a tight fist. “I want you. Now. Here.”
He raised his head and glanced around. If they weren’t parked in a public spot, he’d be figuring out how to bury himself deep inside her without the steering wheel digging into her back. “We can’t,” he whispered.
“Please? I need you,” she rasped.
“I want you too. But we need to get moving. We need a new vehicle.”
“Why a new vehicle?”
“My best guess is this one’s being tracked.”
“But when would the vehicle have been tagged?”
He shrugged. “Last week? In Little Creek? Last night? Who knows.”
“They could have been tracking us all this time? But why didn’t they come after me until today?”
“Maybe our return to the DC area worried them.” He kissed her again, fast and fierce. “I’m going to look for a tracker in the undercarriage.” He cursed himself for not doing that immediately after he’d pulled over. He wasn’t thinking like a special forces operator, and that was a problem.
He found it within minutes. He considered attaching it to another vehicle, but discarded the idea. These people were killers. He couldn’t count on them to confirm they had the right target in their sights.
He should just destroy it, but he also wanted to see if there was a way to use it as bait.
He climbed into the vehicle and set it on the dashboard.
“Is that it?”
