Page 46 of Lethal Danger

Like the faces of the two soldiers and six terrorists she’d seen after surviving the ambush. She’d never forgotten those either. He was right. She didn’t need more horrors in her head.

She slowly relaxed away from Hawthorne’s arm. Weird her reflexes hadn’t kicked in and told her to escape his hold instantly. She could have easily. But something about the concern in his voice made his touch feel more like a comforting embrace than—

“My wife.” A man shouted. “Is she all right?”

Jazz’s gaze sought the location of the familiar voice.

A face pressed through an opening in the pod next to the destroyed one. An unnatural opening—a long split where one wall was broken off almost completely.

“Jazz?”

Uncle Pierce? She’d never heard him sound like that. Anguished.

“Is Joan…alive?” He stretched his hand through the opening like he was trying to reach his wife on the ground below.

Jazz’s heart stuck in her throat. She looked at Hawthorne. Maybe she’d misunderstood what he’d meant.

He shook his head slowly.

She looked up, trying to force air into her collapsing lungs. “I’m sorry.”

A groan, a sob, wrenched from Uncle Pierce as he seemed to fall back into the pod, swinging it on the rope.

The sound stabbed Jazz’s heart.

Another man inside the dangling pod said something Jazz couldn’t hear. It looked through the window like he was patting Uncle Pierce’s arms. Maybe comforting him.

“I’m so sorry.” Hawthorne’s words slowly drew Jazz’s gaze to him. His brows tucked together, pain in his eyes.

“What happened?”

“I wish I knew. Everything seemed fine. I’d seen your aunt get on the ride with another woman. A board member, I assume.”

Jazz nodded. “They were doing their tour today.”

“Right.” He squinted up at the pods. “I’d just gotten called to help with a dispute elsewhere when the explosion went off behind me.”

“Excuse me.” The crowd shuffled out of the way as Marisa pushed through with two more medics. Maybe Aunt Joan had staffed more medics today because of—

The thought cut short with a sharp twist in Jazz’s chest. Aunt Joan.

Could that really be her, dead on the pavement?

Marisa and the other medics crowded around her, then one darted to another body Jazz hadn’t seen.

“The woman who was in the car with your aunt is still breathing. But she looks to be in bad shape. She must’ve been farther from the bomb, or your aunt’s body shielded her.”

Bomb. But there couldn’t have been a bomb. Bris and Toby had cleared everything that morning. “Did you see…” Jazz let the question drift. How could she put into words something she didn’t even want to imagine? Her aunt being—

“I saw the tail end of the explosion. Everything fell except that scrap hanging there. The car your uncle is in got hit, swung so hard I thought it was going to fall off.” Hawthorne lowered his gaze from the pods to Jazz. “I think he and the other man might’ve been unconscious until you arrived.”

Flash whined at her side. Jazz glanced at him, poor guy probably picking up on her anxiety. Or grief. Whatever it was. She’d figure it out later.

She glanced at Hawthorne. “We should get them down. They probably need medical attention. And we don’t want another panic situation with any of the passengers.”

A flicker of something—maybe surprise?—appeared in Hawthorne’s eyes. But he nodded. “Right. I see Butch is here with reinforcements, so we can leave crowd control to him.”

The head of security was corralling bystanders with a few other guards, pushing them back to establish a more extensive perimeter.

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