Page 95 of Jep

“Jep? You okay? Wake up.” Another slap. He blinked his eyes open and saw the sky above and a shadowy figure perched above him. “There you are. Welcome back to the land of the living. I thought maybe your pulse was lying. You look like a corpse.”

“Pearce?”

“Hey, buddy. You just lie there. The paramedics are on their way.”

Jep’s eyes shifted to look around and make sense of his surroundings, but it sent a shock of pain through his skull, and he closed his eyes. “What happened?”

“It’s hard to say. You’re a mess. Among other things, I’d say you got a nasty bump on the head.”

Jep pushed up onto his elbows, and the pounding in his head sent bile into his throat.

“Hey,” Pearce said. “Slow down. There’s nowhere you need to be. I’d hate to think what’s on the ground in this alley, but that’s the least of your worries. Try not to think about it and lie still.”

“No.” Jep touched the side of his head. There was no blood, but there was a sizable lump. “I’ll be okay.”

He sat up farther, pausing to let the giddiness pass before getting the rest of the way up. “I’m gonna feel this in the morning.”

“Aren’t you feeling it now?” Pearce said, holding his arm at his elbow to steady him.

“You know how it is when you’re on the job. No time to feel anything.” Jep looked up the alley. “His friend must have been watching and followed me.”

“Who?”

“You would have noticed the explosion?”

“It’s hard to miss. Was that you?”

“Not directly, but I almost got caught up in it. I was outside the door.”

“Whoa. No wonder you look like you do. You must be a cat. How many lives do you have left?”

“I think my ledger might be in the red.”

“Were you on your own? Should we be looking out for anyone else? When you made the call, it sounded like you said agents, not agent.”

Jep almost gave Emery away but caught himself. “Just me. I was checking on a lead. How long was I out?”

“Not long, but I don’t know how long you were knocked out before that. We arrived just after the firetrucks. What was the lead you were checking out?”

“Emery called me and told me she had found her sister’s address. She wanted me to check it out.”

“That’s Jade’s place that’s up in smoke? So you didn’t get a chance to look inside?”

“We—I did. But they must have been watching because I was ambushed. Had to escape out the window and left a journal behind that looked like it would be helpful. I doubled back to get it and got a face full of bomb instead. I’m hoping there’s something left to be salvaged.”

“Won’t have any luck there. It’s blown to smithereens. What the bomb didn’t destroy the fire did. Nothing left. You’re lucky you’re alive.”

“Yeah.” Jep squeezed the back of his neck. “That journal would have been our best lead yet. It looked like it had details in it that could have been invaluable.”

“You had a look at it? Can you remember of the details?”

“No. It was hard to make out the writing. We would have needed someone to look at it. The few things I could make out weren’t enough to get us anywhere.”

Pearce sighed. “We can’t seem to get a break in this investigation.”

“They had bomb-making materials in there as well, so there’s a chance another attack is coming.”

“You let me worry about. You’ve had a big day already. Let’s get you looked at. We’ll still be here when you get back.”

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