Page 137 of Tate
“The sound guy. The one who fixed the mic on stage.”
She opened the door and stepped inside.
Tate grabbed her hand and took off in a run.
She screamed, mostly in surprise, but with a little horror as he hit the glass door to the balcony without slowing. It shattered as it opened, and then he had his arms around her.
“Take a breath!” He clutched her to himself as he launched them off the balcony.
Behind them, the room exploded in a flash of fire and glass and timber.
They hit the pool, Tate’s arms tight around her.
She’d forgotten to breathe, the water sucking her under, closing around her.
But Tate was right there, letting her go, pulling her to the surface.
She gulped air, a fish gasping. “What?—?”
Tate was already dragging her away from the falling debris, toward the edge of the pool. He hooked his arm around her waist and practically carried her out and away from the destruction.
“Are you okay?” He put her down then, and turned her, his hands running over her arms, her body, then meeting her eyes. “Tell me you’re not hurt.”
She managed to get a shake of her head in before he pulled her into his arms, so tight she couldn’t get her head around it all.
“What happened?”
Not her voice, but her thoughts, definitely. Ford was sprinting up the boardwalk from the park.
“The senator’s mic—that was a transmitter.” Tate wasn’t letting her go, so she pushed against him. His entire body started to tremble, clearly an adrenaline rush. “It didn’t make sense—our fifty-fifty odds were just too…easy. And the second mic?—”
Scarlett had run up behind them, barefoot, and behind her, a tall Native American man, along with a couple more men.
“That’s what the switch was for—it activated the transmitter in the senator’s mic.”
“I don’t understand,” Glo said. “Mother was mic’d in the greenroom, before the event.”
“Which was why they needed a second transmitter to activate the first. When Plunkett brought out the second mic and turned it on, it activated your mother’s unit. She was supposed to wear it until after her speech.”
“And since it was under her dress, she’d return to the suite to remove it,” Glo said.
“Which would then activate the bomb, in her room, as soon as she entered. They didn’t want to take out the crowd. Just your mother,” said Scarlett.
“And Glo, maybe,” Ford said.
“Collateral damage.” Tate looked a little pale. “I don’t know why I knew to run—it was just…something inside me said get out of there.” He turned to Glo again and pulled her against himself.
And she wasn’t going anywhere, thank you very much.
Not without her bodyguard.
13
Which one, Red? Tell me which one.
Ford’s words from last night burned through her, a torch that ignited Scarlett to her core as she stroked through the water. Her shoulders burned, her legs fighting a cramp against the cool water.
Jerk.
