“Ow.” I put my thoughts into words as coherently as I could.
“I know,” Tara said. “You took a pretty hard hit to the head. We need to get it checked out.”
I blinked several times and then set about trying to figure out where I was and what Tara was talking about. I’d just realized that I was in the backseat of Tara’s car when her words finally triggered something in my mind.
“Hit to the head. As in my head and the ground? Or myhead and flying debris? Because the car …” I trailed off. “Oh, God, the car.”
“You’re okay,” Tara said, her voice low and smooth. “You’re going to be fine.”
I sat up, slowly, and Tara leaned toward me. She took my head in her hands, and peered carefully at my eyes.
“Your pupils aren’t dilated,” she said. “Can you track my finger?”
I followed her French-manicured index finger as it zipped back and forth.
“Headache?” she questioned.
I gave her a look that I hoped conveyed a properly large amount of “duh.”
Tara was not the least bit deterred by my response. “Nausea?”
“No.”
“You probably don’t have a concussion,” Tara told me, “but procedure says we have to get you checked out, just to be sure.”
“Better safe than sorry?” I asked, a single note of sarcasm creeping into my voice. I’d known logically that spying was a dangerous gig, but the fact that there were procedures for stuff like this kind of hit that message home.
“More or less,” Tara replied.
“Makes sense,” I said. “I mean, I’m guessing the government likes to cover all their bases when their top-secret underage teenage agents almost getblown to freaking pieces!”
“Drama queen.”
I never thought I’d live to see the day when a cheerleader would call me a drama queen.
“I could have been killed!”
Stupid Big Guys. Stupid bomber. Stupid Jack’s uncle.
This time, Tara just mouthed the words. “Drama. Queen.”
“Exploding car,” I countered. About that time, it occurred to me to ask the question that my subconscious was deliberately skirting. “Jacob Kann?”
Tara shook her head.
“Our mark is dead.” I said the words out loud, but they still didn’t feel real. “Somebody killed him.”
“We’ll find out who,” Tara said. “And why.”
I was in shock, and her words were strangely comforting. Jacob Kann hadn’t exactly been one of the good guys. In fact, there was a very good chance that he was one of the bad guys, but I felt oddly compelled to avenge his death, to find the person who planted that bomb and to make sure they couldn’t ever do it again.
“The Big Guys are sending in a special team,” Tara told me. “Half to run interference with the local law enforcement, and half to speed up the forensics end of the investigation. We should know more about the explosives used by tomorrow.”
I rubbed the side of my head and was immediately rewarded with a sharp, throbbing pain.
“Don’t touch it,” Tara said. “I stopped the bleeding, but it’s going to be a heck of a bruise.”
“Stopped the bleeding?” That sounded serious. “How long was I out for?”
