Page 5 of Long Arm of the Cowboy

No luck.

The thing weighed a ton.

How was she getting it into the back of her car?

Glancing around, she hoped for helpful neighbor standing by with a dolly at the ready. But no, she was all alone on the quiet street.

She threw another look at the front of the closed-up house. Nobody was looking…so she cracked open the crate. The wood alone weighed a lot. She’d just unpack it and—

She stopped dead.

Oh god. Big mistake.

That looks a lot like a bomb.

A rasp burst from her lungs, and it wasn’t from fear.

Yes!Could this be her big chance to become a hard-hitting investigative reporter?

Except…she wouldbecomethe news if this thing detonated.

Wires projected from one side of the metal contraption and were fastened to the other. Peering closer, she saw a tiny screen with numbers on it.

Lark dug her fingers into her temples.WWAD—what would Andrew do?Her brother always had a solution.

He was street smart. He’d been around the block a time or twelve—everybody from their old neighborhood had. The guys who hadn’t left were in prison. The girls she’d grown up with had also done time for drugs or petty crimes. Most had several kids by now.

Lark had been lucky enough to escape. Andrew made sure she got that full ride to college and finished her degree.

That was where she let her brother’s generosity end. He wasn’t going to provide for her all her life. Nope, she paid her own way now, and to do that, she needed to complete this Quick Bunny task.

Sucking in shallow breaths, she drilled her brain trying to come up with a solution to this problem. Thank god it had been too heavy to lift or she’d be on her way to the destination now, delivering a bomb to some poor, unsuspecting person.

Who could she turn to? Who would help now that Andrew was living halfway across the state?

The name popped into her head at the same moment that his image hit her mind’s eye.

Clay Lexis.

Clay had recently moved back to East Canon. He joined the Army after high school. He was a cop.

If anybody would know what to do, it was Clay.

Now she only had to find him.

ChapterTwo

Clay cracked an eye open. The lid felt like it was glued shut and the white had been baked in the scorching sun.

But that knocking sound was real.

He rolled onto his stomach and buried his face in his pillow to escape the noise.

More insistent pounding, louder this time.

“Go away!” he roared. “Come back tomorrow!”

The pounding continued.

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