Page 43 of Marked For Revenge

He lifted his head, glancing around them. “Other than the wire by my boot, are there any others near Ava and me?” Harley asked.

Precious seconds crawled by while he waited for Jesse and Nelline to check the area. Seconds that he could practically see ticking off on that damn timer.

“I can’t see any,” Nelline finally answered.

Not exactly a resounding no, but he couldn’t expect the deputies to be able to see through them and the debris to locate trigger wires.

“Check the ground that leads from here to the road,” Harley instructed the deputies.

He was almost positive he could retrace the route Ava, Theo and he had taken to get from the cruiser to the body, and they hadn’t set off any devices on the walk down. Still, that could have been pure luck, and a fraction of an inch could be the difference between living and dying.

While that ate up even more seconds with the deputies checking, Harley helped Ava to her feet. They both stayed low, both searching the area around them. Across from them, Theo was doing the same thing.

“I can’t see anything,” Nelline finally said. “You need to move now. There’s less than a minute left on the timer.”

That revved up his heartbeat even higher and Harley took hold of Ava’s arm with his left hand while he tried to keep his gun ready in his right. A thousand thoughts went through his head. Bad thoughts. Thoughts of how he wished he had done a whole lot of things differently so Ava and his baby wouldn’t be here right now.

Ava fired glances all around them as she moved. Fast. He was thankful she was in such good shape because even though she had to be terrified for the baby, she moved like the cop that she was. Fast and steady. Keeping watch of every step they took to make sure it wasn’t their last.

It seemed to take a lifetime or two to reach the road, and the moment their feet were on the pavement, they hurried to the open doors of the cruiser.

Behind them, the woods exploded in a fireball.

Chapter Thirteen

While Harley drove toward her house, Ava tried to force her body to level out even though that was impossible. Not with the vivid memories of lying on that ground, knowing that every breath she took could be her last.

In those moments, she’d gone through an emotional gambit of cursing herself for being there. Cursing the killer for putting them all in danger and for murdering a woman for the sole purpose of trying to lure them to their deaths. But Ava had also prayed that her baby would come out of this unscathed.

That prayer had been answered.

After everyone had gotten clear of the explosions, Theo and Harley had driven her straight to the hospital to make sure the baby was okay. She was. So were Theo, Harley, her and everyone else who’d been near the series of blasts. That was somewhat of a miracle and probably not at all what the killer had intended. He or she had likely planned on multiple deaths to add to the two that had already been on scene.

No one had been able to get close enough to the body in the shrubs to determine who he or she was, but that was yet another thing that’d need to be checked. An ID could give them yet another clue about the killer.

Now that Harley had dropped Theo off at the sheriff’s office so he could assemble the team needed to investigate the blast site and interview the teenager who’d found the first body, Harley and she would soon be at her place. It’d been where Theo had ordered her to go and get some rest.

Of course, rest was impossible, what with her mind racing and every nerve in her body on edge. Still, she hadn’t had the fight in her to try to convince him to let her stay and help.

Harley hadn’t pushed her either way. In fact, he was mostly silent, doling out a few worried looks, but he hadn’t mentioned that, because of her pregnancy she should be on desk duty and not out in the field. He hadn’t blamed her for anything that’d happened.

But Ava was blaming herself.

“If I’d just dug harder after the first murder, we might have caught the killer by now,” she muttered and instantly regretted that had come out of her mouth. “I didn’t narrow down the suspects until Monica’s death, and by then it was too late.”

Harley shot her one of those flat looks as he pulled into the garage at her house. “You did everything you could have done. Theo and the other deputies, too. Even the mayor called me in to help. Yeah, he did it because he was trying to cut back on the bad publicity, but he assisted with covering all the bases by getting Theo and you the extra help you needed so we stood the best chance possible of catching this SOB.”

So, she’d gotten a lecture after all, though not the one about her being out in the field. And every word he’d said was true. Still, the truth hadn’t helped any of the victims, and so far, it hadn’t helped anyone else who was in this killer’s path.

As they’d done previously, Harley and she checked the house and, once they were sure it was clear, Ava immediately excused herself to go take a shower. She needed a moment to gather herself, and resting was out. Instead, Ava was hoping a warm shower would clear her head enough so she could get on her laptop and help with the investigation in any way she could.

With a crime scene in disarray, it would take the CSIs days to process it, and they wouldn’t even be let into the area until the bomb squad had done its thing. They’d need to make sure there weren’t other devices and collect the pieces of the explosives so they could be sent to the crime lab. The entire process could take a lot longer than they had. The killer was clearly escalating, and there was no telling where he’d strike next or what he would do.

After she stepped from the shower, she groaned softly when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She looked as if she’d been through the wringer—which she had. But since she didn’t want to cause Harley to worry any more than he already was, she combed her wet hair, put on a pair of loose pajamas and tried to look as composed as she possibly could when she went back into the kitchen.

She instantly smelled the chicken noodle soup and saw that Harley had been busy while she’d showered. He’d fixed the soup, a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches and had poured two glasses of juice and another of milk.

Ava had to smile. “You’re taking care of me.”

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