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Lucy slid out of the driver’s seat, slamming her door and engaging the locks. Her cell phone buzzed in her back pocket, distracting her from the visual sweep she’d normally do as she started to walk, and her heart jumped.
Unknown caller.
She looked at the screen, tempted to let it go to voicemail. But it could be someone from Intelligence, calling from God knows where, with something important, so she lifted the phone to her ear as she started to walk.
“Hello?”
Silence filtered over the line. There were no other cars back here behind her building, no ambient street noise that would keep her from hearing whoever had called her, and she tried again, confused.
“Hello?”
The response came both through the phone and from a man who had appeared in front of her, his mouth a menacing line but his eyes glinting as if they were on fire.
“Hello, Lucy.”
Before she could make sense of who the man was or what he was holding in the hand that didn’t have a cell phone in it, a searing pain ripped through her body, forking outward from her chest to her limbs as if she’d been hit by lightning. Her legs promptly buckled, her mouth refusing to work as she crumpled downward, her head exploding and her vision giving way to a thousand bright lights for a split second before the whole world went black.
29
Sam had never been so happy to see his bed in his life. While he’d been happy as hell to be back on shift, and doubly so because Lucy had wanted to disclose their relationship to Captain Bridges and all the other first responders at Seventeen, the back-to-back-to-back calls that had all yielded a great, big nothingburger in terms of any sort of action had worn his energy reserves down to fumes. He’d been tempted to ask Lucy to come back to his place with him anyway, but he knew once he got her into bed, they wouldn’t sleep, and she’d looked completely spent. Plus, now that he was home, Sam realized how much he could use some shuteye, himself.
He went through the motions of heading into his building and up to his condo, locking the door behind himself and grabbing a big glass of water before aiming his feet at his bedroom. He considered taking a shower before collapsing beneath the covers, but he was honestly so damn tired that he didn’t think he could muster the energy.
So, when he got one boot off halfway to his bed and his cell phone rang? Yeah, the first word to pop into his head wasnothello. His heart kicked faster in his chest at the name on the caller ID, and he scooped the phone to his ear, sleep forgotten.
“Xander, what’s wrong?” Their debrief with Intelligence wasn’t until later today, and unexpected phone calls from anyone in Intelligence had the potential for very bad things.
“Faurier, good. I’m glad I caught you. Listen, this could be nothing, but we wanted you to know that there was a bomb threat called in about twenty minutes ago. The call was anonymous and run through voice distortion software, but the caller kept saying he had multiple explosive devices and was going to ‘burn everything to the ground’.”
Dread made a full claim on Sam’s gut. “Oh, shit. Where?”
“The old library building on Highland Avenue. It’s closed for renovations, and we were able to safely evacuate the workers, but it’s one of the busiest parts of the city, and the building is four stories. It’s going to take the bomb squad a while to get evacuations sorted out and sweep the place for devices, but we think this could be our guy.”
“Okay, but Malachi has never used explosive devices before,” Sam said, although, hell, he wouldn’t put it past the guy.
“It would be a hell of an escalation, but we can’t take any chances,” Xander said. “We’re already at the scene, and Capelli is reviewing street cam footage to see if we can spot him. But we’re all in agreement that if this is Malachi—and it very much could be—he’s not far away from the scene, even if whatever device or devices are inside are on remote timers. And if that’s the case, we’re going to get him. Today.”
Holy shit. “So, what should we do?”
“Nothing. I promise one of us will keep you and Lucy posted as soon as we know anything. Until then, just sit tight, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. Be safe,” Sam said, ending the call. Sitting down on the edge of his bed, he tapped the icon of Lucy’s smiling face, his rib cage tightening with each unanswered ring.
“Hi, you’ve reached the voice mailbox of Lucy de Costa. I can’t take your call right now…”
Biting a curse between his teeth, Sam hung up. She was probably asleep. She’d left Station Seventeen before he had, and she’d flat-out told him she was headed home to turn off her phone and crash. Anyway, Malachi was halfway across the city, with the bomb squad and the Intelligence Unit and probably Remington SWAT hunting him down by now. Lucy was at her apartment building in a busy part of the city, perfectly safe.
Yeah, he wasn’t going to be able to rest until he heard her voice.
Sam scrolled back to her number. But before he could hitsend,his phone rang in his hand.
“Lucy, thank God,” he said, relief filling him in a rush. “Listen, have you—”
“Sorry, no. Not Lucy, I’m afraid,” came a voice that was decidedly not Lucy’s even though the person was calling from her phone, and Sam’s breath froze in his lungs, his entire body paralyzed with the cold, hard prickle of fear.
“Malachi?”
“I’d like to say it’s nice to officially meet you, Sam, but I think we both know that’s a lie,” the man said. “Still, we have a few things to talk about. Namely, the fact that I’d very much like to hurt you, and I happen to have something you very much want. Or maybe I should say, someone.”
