Page 75 of Velvet Vaughn

“That’s my boss on the stretcher.”

“I understand, but I need you to remain here.”

Leo glanced past the officer toward Curtis. From here, he appeared dead. Lydia climbed in after him without looking back.

“He’s getting medical attention,” Anja reassured him. “That’s what matters right now.”

“They tried to kill him to get to me.”

“They risked his life to start a stampede and isolate you. Curtis was never the target. Keep that straight in your head, because it matters.” She didn’t let him argue the point. Her attention had shifted to the far end of the courtyard where a fire investigator crouched beside a scorched trash receptacle, prodding at the blackened metal with a gloved hand.

“That’s it?” Leo gaped at the trash can, at the modest curl of smoke rising from it. “That’s what set off the whole alarm?”

“Another diversion.” Anja’s mouth pursed. “The alarm trips, everyone panics and runs, and in the ensuing pandemonium, nobody notices two men steering you into a service corridor. It’s cheap, effective, and doesn’t require anything more sophisticated than a lighter.”

“And the explosion?”

“That’s the part that isn’t cheap.” She glanced toward the loading dock, where another officer strung crime-scene tape across the alley entrance. “It was a backup plan in case they ran into trouble.”

Remi rejoined them, dabbing at the cut above his eyebrow with a folded handkerchief someone had given him. “The detective wants to talk to all three of us. I told him we’re private security, here as guests, and tried to help when things went sideways. He didn’t love it, but he’s got two hundred witnesses and half of them think a gas line blew, so I don’t think we’re the priority tonight.”

“They won’t find anything back there,” Anja predicted. “Whoever set that charge knew how to erase the trail.”

Leo’s gaze moved from the alley to the fire trucks, then to the empty patch of flagstones where he’d knelt twenty minutes ago, convinced he was watching a friend die of a heart attack. His hands finally stopped shaking.

“They could’ve killed him.” He hadn’t looked away from the spot on the ground. “Curtis.”

Anja’s voice gentled slightly, the only concession she made to how he must look right now. “But he wasn’t the point. You were. And that means whoever’s running this is close enough to know which buttons to push to get you alone.”

An officer gestured them to a folding table where statements were being taken.

“We’ll finish this conversation at the safe house and not a crime scene,” she told him.

She walked away, and Leo stood alone in the wreckage of Tim Hargrove’s wake, watching the last of the ambulance lights fade. Somewhere in this city, a person who knew him well enough to predict his every move was still walking free.