Page 58 of Lethal Danger

“You did?” Why did that spread warmth through her chest that had nothing to do with the summer heat?

“Yeah. On faster speed so I could get through it all.” His gaze caught hers. “I said I wanted to help.”

She smiled. “You did.” And he’d remembered. About the fair, her aunt’s death—things that mattered to her.

His lips curved slowly upward, and a twinkle glittered in his eyes as he watched her.

She was staring. Probably with a dumb, lovesick smile on her face.

She redirected her gaze to the sunglasses he’d set on the table. “What did you find?” Stuffing the corn dog in her mouth, she bit off a ridiculously large piece. Great. Now she probably looked like a chipmunk, cheeks stretched round while she tried to chew the glob of food.

His mouth twitched like he was holding back a grin as he glanced away and picked up his soda cup. “Well, the police have a copy, too, so I’m sure they’ll go over it thoroughly. But I did observe some things. Your fellow agent, the explosive detection team…” He paused like he was waiting for her to give him a name.

“Bristol.” Jazz managed to mumble the word around the corn dog she was still trying to mash down.

“Bristol. She checked all the cars on the Skyride yesterday morning starting at seven.” He took a quick drink through the straw, then set the cup down. “After that, the ride operators at both Skyride docking buildings did a safety inspection on each car before opening the ride at eight.”

Jazz finally swallowed the last of the corn dog. “So someone would’ve had to put the bomb in the pod after the ride opened.”

Hawthorne nodded. “Looks that way. The ride operators were on camera during their entire inspection at each of the buildings. They’d have to be really stupid, or incredibly brilliant at sleight-of-hand, to have placed a bomb in one of the cars while on camera. I didn’t see them do or hold anything that looked suspicious.”

“What about the rest of the time leading up to the explosion?”

“Only visitors got in and out of the cars. The ride operators physically helped some visitors on and off, but not your aunt. And that would’ve been too risky of a moment to try to plant a bomb anyway. Not enough time and too many witnesses.”

“So the bomb had to be planted by one of the visitors.” Jazz took another drink from her water thermos.

“They had the best opportunity. A long ride from one side of the fairgrounds to the other. That would be enough time to plant a bomb and hide it under the seats where the next visitors wouldn’t be likely to spot it.”

“Then we need to check out all the visitors from eight in the morning until the explosion? That has to be thousands of people.”

“Yep.” Hawthorne lifted his blond eyebrows. “I never knew how many people could go on a Skyride in a few hours until I watched the footage.”

“I know, right?” Jazz glanced at the crowds of people who even now were walking past the tables and lining up at food stands. “I wish there was a way to recognize if any of the Skyride passengers were members of that cult you told me about.” She turned her head back toward Hawthorne. “My aunt told me, just that morning, that the guy who leads the cult…” She searched her memory for the name.

“Desmond Patch.”

“Right.” Jazz pointed a finger toward Hawthorne. “Desmond Patch. He apparently made a public statement condemning the fair two years ago when a teen from the cult died in an accident here. Did you hear about that?”

Hawthorne nodded. “I’m familiar with it, yes. And I’m not surprised about Patch. Like I said when we found the pin, the whole cult is taught to be against the fair.” He pressed his lips into a line and glanced away, almost like he was scanning the crowd, looking for something. Was he checking to see if someone was listening to them?

He returned his gaze to Jazz and leaned forward, his forearms braced on the wooden table. “I looked for people from the cult on the security footage.” His voice lowered enough that she had to press in to hear him above the noise of the fair. “But I didn’t see anyone I recognized.”

She straightened. “Recognized? You mean from the pin or their white clothes?”

He paused, his eyes seeming to search her face for something. Then he finally answered. “No, I mean from having seen them before. I—” Hesitation halted his voice for the first time since she’d met him. “I grew up in the cult. Well, from the time I was twelve.”

She couldn’t have been more shocked than if someone from the crowds passing by had suddenly darted over to slap her. How could that be true? He was a celebrity. Wouldn’t everyone know if he’d grown up in a cult? “Are you serious?” The question came out before she’d thought it through.

But his mouth relaxed from the serious line it had held before. Maybe not the worst thing to say, after all. “Sadly, yes. I didn’t want to join. I was forced into it, kicking and screaming. I hated every minute I was there.”

Jazz stared at him, trying to fathom this normal man—but very successful and brilliant author—having been in a cult. He made it sound like it was all in the past, at least. So maybe he was as normal as he appeared. “Your family left eventually?”

His lips pulled downward in a frown. “No. Not all of us. I got out as soon as I became a legal adult.” His gaze lowered toward his hands that he brought loosely together on the table. “My younger brother and my baby sister left after I did, when they each turned eighteen. My other sister and parents are still there.”

He flattened one of his hands on the table and seemed to be staring at it. His voice had stayed even as he’d told the facts. But tension radiated off him like the heat emanating from the pavement.

Hawthorne was pretty much an orphan. Like her. Just in a different way. “I’m sorry. That must be really hard.”

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