Her brows shot up. “The governor is still here?”
“Refuses to leave. Both Aronson and Hastings are coming unglued.”
She sat up straighter. “He needs to listen to them. We need to get everyone who isn’t security or law enforcement as far away from here as possible.”
“What did the text say?”
Inhaling deeply, she held the phone between them as she read aloud. “‘High noon. Glad you could never resist playing the hero. Midnight’s going to be the real banger.’”
Jake stared back at her. “High noon. Midnight? What do you think they meant with the hero part?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged, and padded straps tugged on her shoulders as if she needed a reminder of the bomb she wore on her back. “The backpack, I’m guessing. They had to know there was no way anyone would let a little kid walk around saddled with a bomb.” She tapped on the phone screen. “But I got another message before you took off.” She tapped into another thread and showed him the previous communication.
I’ve given you a dozen reasons. Cooperate.
“A dozen? So, we are thinking maybe twelve bombs?”
She held a palm up. “Who knows? It’s possible, but the timing feels off.”
Jake frowned then unzipped a pocket on Max’s tactical vest. “I want to show you something.” He reached inside the pocket and pulled out a plastic evidence bag.
She frowned as she eyed the red-and-white laminated We’ll Be Back Soon sign with its movable clock hands pointing to straight-up twelve o’clock. “Where did you—”
“We pulled it out of the debris around the ticket booth. It was still thumbtacked to a chunk of particle board.”
She was about to press him for more information, but every question she had was answered when he turned the card over to show her where someone had written “Time’s up” in thick black marker on the back.
“Is this the twelve?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Possibly.”
The only sound she heard as the two of them stared at the sign was the wind rushing past her ears. Or was it her pulse pounding?
“I think there are twelve bombs,” she said, admitting her worst fear at last. “The timing on this might be to throw us off.”
“I do, too,” he agreed.
“Do you think they plan to detonate one every hour?” she mused.
His lips thinned into a tight line. “Possibly,” he repeated.
Jake read the message again, then tipped his head back as if absorbing the information. “But if there are twelve and they started at noon, that only gets us up to eleven o’clock tonight.”
“But midnight is going to be a real banger,” she said, scooting forward and twisting to peer over her shoulder at the backpack. “This one wasn’t hidden. It was handed over.” She paused for a second. “To a child.”
He spoke the part she couldn’t bear to think about too hard aloud. “Because they knew you’d play the hero.” He reached for one of the straps. “We need to get this off you.”
“But they’re watching,” she reminded him, trying to pull away.
“But what if—” Cassidy got one arm and half the sentence out before a bang and the screech of tearing metal filled the air.
Cassidy’s knee hit the deck of the carousel hard. Her breaths came in short, sharp pants as the sounds of falling debris filtered through the residual ringing in her ears.
Shattered glass. The dull clank of metal hitting the ground. Shouts. A cry of agony.
She turned her head and spotted Trooper Rhodes sprawled on the tarmac. Another man held his shoulders down as the young officer writhed in pain.
Her phone vibrated, dancing across the corrugated metal deck. She was still processing the fact that Jake had hurled his own body on top of hers, so she was slow to react. He reached for the device and held it up to her face to unlock the screen.
