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He pinched his elbows together, trying to get a view down the front of the vest, but it was too dark inside the cabin of the truck. He was still wearing the device. He hadn’t gone through a whole lot of bomb training, but he knew any movement on his part—any shift in his weight—could set it off. Giving the bastard who’d ambushed him exactly what he wanted—Baker dead.
A flare burst from the scene behind him, and a thousand tons of grief and rage and loss knotted in the spot where his heart used to reside. He hadn’t been there for his sister when she’d needed him the most. He wasn’t going to sit here and lose Jocelyn, too.
Baker knew every inch of this truck. The Ghost had most likely stripped out the weapons and obviously had gotten hold of his keys, but the bastard wouldn’t have been able to search every hiding place. Baker just had to figure out a way to get to them.
He tried to bring one foot up to leverage against the dashboard, but there was no room between him and the seat. Tugging one hand toward the center console, he jerked his wrist as hard as he dared. But the cuff wouldn’t break. There was only one way out of here, and it would come with a lot of pain.
“You can do this.” He had to. For Jocelyn. He’d sworn that day in the barn that he would see this through to the end, but he couldn’t do that without his partner. No matter how incredibly frustrating her positivity and enthusiasm and outlook on life was, Jocelyn had somehow buried beneath his armor and taken over. They’d survived together. That meant more to him than anything else he’d known with his own deputies. Baker threaded one hand into the smallest opening on the steering wheel, grabbed hold of it with the other and set his head against the faux leather. “You can do this.”
Taking a bracing breath, he pulled his wrist against the steering wheel frame with everything he had. The crunch of bone drilled straight through him just before the pain struck. His scream filled the cabin and triggered a high-pitched ringing in his ears. Every muscle in his body tensed to take the pressure off, but it didn’t do a bit of good. Baker threw his head back against the headrest. “Damn it!”
The cuff slipped over his hand. Lightning and tears struck behind his eyelids as he drove his broken hand between the driver’s side door and seat. The panel came away easily, and he pulled a backup set of truck keys from the hidden space. Along with a handcuff key. Exhaustion and pain closed in fast, demanding he shut down, but Baker wasn’t going to stop.
Not until he knew Jocelyn was safe.
He made quick work of the second cuff and shoved the truck key into the ignition. The speedometer wavered in his vision, and he felt himself lean forward as the metric dashboard lit up. He paused just before the engine caught. What were the chances De Leon hadn’t rigged the vehicle to blow as a backup plan?
Baker released his hold on the keys and stumbled from the truck. He couldn’t risk it. Cacti and several acres of dry, cracked earth were all that stood between him and his partner. He took that first step. The device packed into his vest registered a beep. Then again as he took another step. Every foot he added between him and the truck seemed to anger whatever was packed against his ribs.
He clawed at the Velcro securing him inside the heavy material, but the damn thing wouldn’t release. Warning shot through him. His entire nervous system focused on getting out of the too-tight armor while valuable seconds ticked away.
The house was crumbling a mere eighth of a mile away, and he couldn’t hear any kind of emergency response echoing through the canyon below. He was all Jocelyn had. His own life be damned.
Baker pumped his legs as fast as they’d allow. His wrist was swelling twice its normal size, but he couldn’t think about that. “I’m coming, Joce. Just hang on.”
The flames were the only source of light a thousand feet above Alpine Valley. It would be impossible to miss them. Backup was coming. He had to believe that. He shoved through the front gate barely hanging by its hinges and up the now rippled paved path to where the front door used to sit. Jocelyn had been right from the beginning. They’d walked straight into a trap at his insistence, and now she was going to pay the price.
Just as his sister had.
The beeping coming from his vest kept in rhythm with his racing heart rate. Any second now, it would stop, but he’d do whatever it took to find Jocelyn before then.
The floor shook beneath him as the house fought to stay in one piece. Smoke fled up through the new hole in the ceiling, leaving nothing but an emptiness Baker couldn’t shake. “Jocelyn!”
He forced himself to slow enough to pick out a response through the crackling flames licking up walls still standing, but he got nothing. He shouldn’t have left her. They’d agreed to stick together because they hadn’t known what they were walking into, but uncovering the link between Marc De Leon and the Ghost was the first real lead he’d had in months. It’d consumed him and wouldn’t let go.
Now he knew the truth. He’d had the man who’d killed Linley within reach all this time.
Baker lunged back as a beam swung free from the ceiling and crashed into its supporting wall two feet ahead. Embers exploded from the impact and sizzled against his skin.
This place was falling apart at the seams, and unless they got out of here right now, they were going down with it. He shook his head to keep himself in the present. “Come on, woman. Whereareyou? Jocelyn!”
Another tremor rolled through the house.
Only this time, it didn’t feel like it was from the walls coming down on themselves. Baker backed up a step, staring at the floor. A myriad of cracks spidered across the tiles. Most likely from the impact of the bomb, but his gut said that last quake was from something else. Something far more dangerous.
His vest hadn’t given up screaming at him to get back to the truck, but the incessant beeping had become background noise to everything else going on around him. He took another step backward toward where he’d come in, watching one crack spread wider at his feet. The compound sat at the edge of a cliff overlooking Alpine Valley. This place wasn’t just coming down on itself...
It was about to slide right into the canyon.
Panic welded to each of his nerve endings. He searched the rubble within arm’s reach, then shot forward to clear as many rooms as he could. The living room, dining room, kitchen, patio—
He caught sight of the pool outside, nearly falling in as desperation to find something—anything—that told him Jocelyn was still alive took hold. That he hadn’t condemned her to the same fate as his sister. But it was too dark, and the device’s beeping had reached an alarming rate. He couldn’t do a damn thing for Jocelyn if he suddenly became spaghetti. “The water.”
The devices used in the Chief Trevino’s murder and at the station had been triggered by pagers. If he could disrupt the signal, he might have a chance. Baker took a deep breath and launched himself into the pool feet first. The Kevlar dragged him straight to the bottom, and it took everything he had to claw back to the surface.
The beeping had stopped. Relief flooded through him. Whatever receiver De Leon had utilized to trigger the device had failed. Latching on to the side of the pool, he hauled himself to the lip. A footprint gleamed from a few feet away. Bare. No more than a size seven or eight. Jocelyn’s?
A crack splintered through the cement in front of him.
