“We can try again tomorrow,” I said. “But yeah. For now, let’s get some rest.”
I checked the secure messaging app on my phone. No updates. The team would swap out in half an hour. We were as safe as we could be, and Sylvie needed sleep. From the bed, we had a direct view down the short hallway to the front door. I lay beside her, watching the rise and fall of her chest as I slipped into a light sleep. I wouldn’t let myself go all the way under. Not until Sylvie was safe.
The vibration of my phone, followed by the low creak of the porch stairs, jerked me fully awake not long after three a.m. I tightened my arm around Sylvie, sliding a hand over her mouth. Her eyes flew open, and I whispered in her ear, “We’ve got action. Don’t move.”
She gave a short nod, and I slid my hand away.
“Trust,” I breathed, rolling into her, half shielding her body, feigning sleep as I heard the front door swing open and close almost silently, and saw a dark shape move down the hallway toward us. All they would see was a couple wrapped in each other, tucked into bed, fast asleep. Vulnerable. Easy prey.
The footsteps stopped at the door to the bedroom. Through slitted eyes, I watched the bomber’s arm rise and take aim at us, the black metal of his weapon catching the faint light from the hall. I braced, reminding myself:Trust.
A shadow moved in the hall behind him. He caught the scuff of a shoe and started to turn, but he was too late. A second later the gun was wrenched from his grip. The light flicked on, and Ryder was there, the barrel of his 9mm shoved into the back of the bomber’s skull. Maddox stoodbeside them, the bomber’s gun in his hand, trained on its owner.
“Secure him,” Ryder said.
Maddox flipped the safety and stowed the extra weapon in his cargoes. He pulled a set of restraints out of his pocket, wrenching our would-be killer’s hands behind him.
Ryder tapped his ear with his free hand. “Call it in. He’s secured.”
Law enforcement had been interested in our guy. Now that we had him, the FBI would be on the way, happy to take him off our hands.
In the time we had left, we wanted answers.
“Who hired you?” Ryder demanded.
The bomber’s expression was flat. Sylvie had said he was charming and friendly when they first met at the building he’d blown up. There was no sign of charm here. The bomber’s eyes were dead, his jaw hard, face resolved.
He didn’t answer Ryder’s question. Didn’t even flinch.
It was the reaction of a professional. Not that I’d had any doubt that was who we were dealing with. I sat up, shoving Sylvie behind me. He was disarmed and secured, but a primal part of me didn’t want so much as his eyes to touch her.
“What is Ghost Trace?” I asked, studying his face for any reaction.
Nothing.
“Did Ghost Trace hire you?” Maddox demanded. “How close are you to Silas?”
The faintest smirk crossed the bomber’s face. “Closer than you,” he said.
“But not close enough,” I pushed. A faint nod. Apparently, he agreed. “And Ghost Trace. Why did they hire you?”
“Ghost Trace isn’t athey,” he said. His tone was smug, but there was something else there. Fear? Resignation at being caught? He wasn’t scared of us, I could tell. Which meant he was afraid of something else.
“Then what is it?” Ryder demanded, nudging the barrel of his gun into the back of the bomber’s head.
“Is this the part where I’m supposed to tell you everything?” The bomber gave a thin, humorless smile. “I missed the monologuing class in villain school. You’ll have to figure the answers out yourself, if you can. My time is up.”
There was a curious, resigned flatness to his last words that I didn’t understand.
He cocked his head to the side as if listening to something we couldn’t hear. I saw the shadow of something in his ear, like a compact hearing aid. A red light pulsed, the shell of his ear glowing for a split second. His body locked solid as a jolt seemed to go through him. I would have thought he’d been tased, but the only people near him were Ryder and Maddox. They both held a gun on him, but no taser. Nothing that could deliver a shock strong enough to have him crumple to the floor.
His knees gave out like a hinge whose pin had been pulled, his body going down with a thud. He fell on his side, the tiny device in his ear tumbling to the floor, pushed out by a thick stream of blood running across his cheek and dripping out of his nose to pool beneath his head.
“What the fuck was that?” Maddox asked, staring at the body at his feet with wide eyes. “Did he do that to himself? Or did he?—”
“I don’t think he did it to himself,” Ryder said, watching the motionless form of the bomber on the floor. “I heard something just before that light flashed. A voice, but it sounded mechanical. Like a countdown.3-2-1, andthen—” Ryder lifted his chin to indicate the moment the bomber had gone down. He stepped back, scanning the hall and the open door of the cottage.
“Someone triggered that device,” I finished for him. “They knew he’d been captured.”
