Page 18 of Rescued Faith

“They both have rap sheets?” Bryce asked.

Penny nodded. “Yup. A little aggravated assault, larceny, theft. Drug possession. And skipping bail. Don’t want to forget that.”

“Guess we got us a regular pair of thugs.” Bryce leaned casually on the desk. A whiff of Penny’s usual vanilla scent, sweet but mixed with something earthy that had always driven him alittle wild, wrapped around him. He cleared his throat. “Where are they from?”

“Why don’t you come with us now, and we’ll only have to go over it once. We’re going to meet Allen Frees, Sergeant Donaldson, and the others in the conference room.” Olivia gathered the file and laptop off the desk.

“I guess you’re heading out then?” Bryce looked down at Penny.

“You’re not getting rid of me that fast, cowboy. The governor’s office hired me to be on the task force.” She stood, the breezy smile slipping a little. “That won’t be a problem, will it?”

At this height, she was almost eye to eye with him. Bryce scrambled for words. “Uh, yes. I mean, no.” He dropped the pen. He scooped it up off the floor and combed back the hair off his forehead. “It’ll be fine. Great!”

She was staying.

Hopefully his overly bright grin didn’t display the inner turmoil those words set off in him.

“Good.” She didn’t break eye contact.

“Good.”

It would be fine. She’d help them. Maybe he’d even get a little closure on their past. Andthenshe’d leave.

Out of the corner of his eye, Bryce caught Olivia snickering and walking away. “I’ll see you both in the conference room.”

Penny spun and followed her.

He jogged after the women, down the hall and into the room. Sitting around the long table were Allen Frees in his wheelchair, Anthony Thomas, and Sergeant Donaldson. The freestanding white board and a large-screen TV took up most of the space along one wall. Penny helped herself to the coffee carafe in the middle of the table.

“All right. Looks like everyone is here. Let’s get down to business.” Frees tossed the dry erase marker to Bryce. Good. Something to keep his hands busy.

“Let’s start by recapping what we’ve got.” Bryce tapped on the board with the marker.

“Perfect.” Penny sat in one of the office chairs and leaned toward the board. “Read me in.”

“Four weeks ago we were called out to a fire in an electronics store. We thought it was a fluke, maybe some kids playing around with fireworks, since that’s what ignited the blaze in the back of the store.” Bryce wroteelectronics storeon the board. “Then last week we had a shed blow up on an abandoned property right outside of town. But I’m not so sure it was abandoned. There were a lot of tire tracks and signs of use even though the house was like something out of a horror movie. An accelerant was used in that fire. We also found fragments of PVC.”

“So we’re thinking pipe bomb.” Allen Frees spoke up. “I already met with the arson investigator. Residue is being analyzed.”

“Which brings us to last night.” Bryce wrote the wordwarehouse. “We were called to the warehouse fire, but there was a secondary explosion. We’re still not sure what caused it. It might’ve been that the fire reacted with a flammable substance?—”

“It was a bomb,” Penny said. Gone was the playful smile and tossing of the blonde curls. She was all business. Bryce liked this side of her too. That precision and focus.

“How do you know? We haven’t been out there yet to investigate.” Allen said.

“Because I saw it.” The room hushed.

“That’s why Jude called you in. This is part of your case?” Olivia asked.

Penny nodded. “Like I told Officer Thomas last night in my statement”—she looked over at him and smiled—“I followed a woman named Emma Kemper here from Denver. The ATF office there arrested her brother, Vincent. He’s a bomb expert. They haven’t figured out his endgame or who he’s working with. Emma was a person of interest. They didn’t think she was directly involved but wanted to be sure. I followed her around for a few days in Glenwood Springs while she laid low. Stuck a tracker on her car. Yesterday, she packed up and left.”

“And ended up here? In that warehouse?” Bryce asked.

“Yeah. She met up with the two men we identified and someone else. A guy with whom she seems to be romantically involved. I don’t know who he is, but he’s running the show here, from what I can tell.”

“How’d you wind up in that closet?” Bryce asked.

Surprise flashed across her features for a quick moment, then she cleared her throat. “They spotted me.”

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