Page 108 of Bonded in Death

Another minute clicked by. She remembered what the master told her in dojo training, and tried breathing through her toes.

“Ah, there you are. Not as clever as he thinks, is he then. Not as clever by far.”

“They can respond within four minutes.”

“And he’ll know they have.”

More wires, and a look in his eye that warned her he was about to do something. She started to ask him what, then decided to save her breath while she had it.

“A simple ploy, unnecessary booby-trap, and…” He clipped two wires at once. “Done.”

The timer froze at thirteen hours, thirty-one minutes, thirty-eight seconds.

“Can I get a ‘well done’?”

“Can he reactivate it? Remote it?”

“Absolutely not.”

Instead of words, she pulled him to her under the table and kissed him, hard and long.

“Don’t touch anything else until I get my kit and we seal up. I’ll call, have it picked up. Nonemergency, silent, unmarked.”

She crab-walked back, rose, then jogged away.

Roarke stayed as he was another minute, studying the device.

“Clever,” he murmured. “But no, not as clever as he thinks.”

Within thirty minutes, they were on their way home.

“There’ll be prints on it, ones that aren’t yours. Sure, he could’ve sealed up, but why bother? I’ll check tomorrow who had that table, get a description. He had to do it today—yesterday,” she corrected, as it had gone past midnight.

“Risks and complications, sure, but he’d have no reason to place it before that. He had lunch or dinner there, at that table. And at thirteen hundred tomorrow, he’ll be somewhere close enough to see it blow, or hear it, witness the immediate aftermath.”

“It’ll be a disappointment to him,” Roarke commented.

“So will finding his ass back in a cage. Listen, if they’re all still up, I need you to take them.”

“Where would you like me to take them?”

“Don’t get me started.”

They breezed through the gates where the house stood against the night sky, windows burning with light. And right now, not the sanctuary she’d grown to crave, but a safe house.

There was a difference.

“I have to write this up so Peabody, Whitney, Reo, Mira, all of them are fully updated in the morning. Update the board. Have five minutes to think. So I need you to keep on the expert consultant, civilian, and brief all of them.”

“I can do that.” He parked at the front entrance, then shifted to her. “Forty minutes. We take forty minutes more for this, then it shuts down for the night.”

“It’s a lot to write up.”

“Happily, you’re not only good at what you do but efficient. Forty minutes,” he repeated, and got out of the car.

She decided she could probably do it in forty, if everyone left her the hell alone. And if it took longer, she’d renegotiate. The man understood negotiations.

They walked in, started for the stairs.

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