Page 24 of Shielding Soledad

Within thirty minutes, an explosives expert, the county’s bomb squad, both my brothers, and my oldest cousin waited on the street in front of my house. After a brief discussion among the officials, they decided on an unmanned approach, so the bomb squad’s robot rolled toward my door and the package that waited there. It stopped a foot away, and with its remote-controlled arms, the robot reached for the package and lifted it.

“No weight to it,” the bomb squad technician controlling the robot said into the tense atmosphere. My neighbors had been evacuated, making the street eerily quiet. The others and I stood behind a line of police cars, all our attention focused on the technician’s screen. “Total of eighteen ounces. Probably the weight of the box and something small. It wouldn’t be much of a bomb, but I’m detecting a slight ticking sound. Your call?” the tech turned to his supervisor.

“Let’s approach on foot,” the older man said, slipping protective gear over his head. The padded tunic covered him from his shoulders to past his knees. He donned a helmet and dropped a shield over his face before moving toward the house. The robot returned the package to the ground and retreated as the officer walked cautiously forward.

I wanted nothing more than to dash up there and handle the situation myself, but I didn’t need Zach’s restraining hand on my arm to tell me that would be a poor idea. Caution was the only approach, but I hated not being in charge, not taking action.

When the officer was a foot from the package, he knelt awkwardly, tucking the protective tunic around his legs in case of a blast. Wearing thick gloves, he slit the box open with a knife and slowly peeled back the flaps to look inside.

“Clock,” the man said after a tension-filled moment.

“Timer?” A police captain near me asked, his tone sharp.

“Maybe.” The man shone a flashlight into the box, turning the beam to exam it from every angle. Only the slight breeze made a noise on the street as we all waited. After what felt like forever, the officer shed the visor and helmet before yanking the gloves from his hands. “Just a clock and a note.”

I didn’t wait for him to reveal what it said. Instead, I rushed forward and peered into the box myself. A white index card had three words written on it in red.

Tick Tock Boom.

“Son of a bitch,” I cursed, instinctively reaching for the note.

“Don’t touch it,” the man cautioned. “We’ll check it for prints.”

They wouldn’t find any. Bruce was too clever for that. He would know they’d check, and he wouldn’t want to make this easy for the authorities.

“Could be a practical joker,” the bomb squad officer suggested as he rose. “We’ve heard about stuff similar to this in other towns. Random packages with threatening notes. Nothing ever comes of it.”

“No,” I said. This wasn’t random. I knew I’d recognized my former teammate, but it was going to be damned hard to prove based on nothing more than my word. The image the camera captured wasn’t clear enough to be recognizable to anyone who wasn’t deeply familiar with how Bruce moved and how he carried himself.

I was glad Luke and Soledad were safe at Colin’s, since my brother’s house was protected like a fortress after a stalker obsessed with Lily had come after her. Besides, Colin was monitoring his home security on his phone. I had seen him check several times, giving me a reassuring nod each time.

“You have an enemy that you think did this?” the officer asked, squinting at me.

“Yeah. One who knows plenty about weapons.” I filled the officers from the local PD in on Bruce and his threats. I couldn’t tell the entire story, because the mission we’d been on was classified, but I could say enough to make my point about Bruce and the credible threat he posed.

“Do you have any evidence? Anything we can use to issue a warrant or get a restraining order?” the officer questioned after listening in silence. “Without that, there’s nothing we can do.”

All I had was the video of Bruce at the door, and I knew there wouldn’t be enough of a facial image to convince the police of the package deliverer’s identity. I was shit out of luck, just as Bruce had no doubt planned, when it came to taking action through legal means. I was forced to concede my powerlessness, the corner I was in, as I watched the police pack up their equipment and drive off. I was left standing on my lawn, hands on hips, in disgust.

“Welcome to the civilian world,” Zach said grimly. “I know you want to just take care of this yourself, as quickly and directly as possible, but you can’t. That’s not how it works when you’re out of uniform.”

Everything in me wanted to take the fight to Bruce—locate him and eliminate the threat, as I’d been trained to do. And Zach was right: I couldn’t. “This sucks.”

“Yep,” Colin agreed, “but that’s the way it is. We have an advantage, though.”

“What?” I asked, reminding myself that Colin was the analyst, the thinker of the family.

“Bruce was willing to come out of hiding,” Colin said. “He’s ready to make his move, and he’s getting impatient.”

“Colin’s right. Bruce is sending a message that he’s ready to tangle with you,” Chance added.

My family was thinking more clearly than I was. My thoughts were tangled up with emotion, but I couldn’t let that continue. I needed to formulate a plan. And the first part of that plan was protecting my assets.

“You know what you’ve got to do,” Zach said as if reading my mind.

“Yeah,” I admitted. I should have followed their advice weeks ago and told Soledad about Bruce. She would have been worried, but now she was going to be pissed at me. Beyond pissed. And I had no excuse for my decisions other than wanting to shield her from the stress. I’d felt that she didn’t need that with a newborn to care for. She’d had enough stress throughout her pregnancy.

She would see the situation differently, though. She would think I hadn’t trusted her with the information, which wasn’t the case. Not at all. I trusted her—trusted her with our son’s life, which was huge for me. Somehow, in the past few months, I’d added one person to the short list of those I felt I could rely on.

---