Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(16)

Our union will be explosive.

He peered back through the haze of smoke. His eye fastened onto Liv’s graceful form. Blair Madden marched beside her, chest flung out.

Liv’s car. Burning. Explosive.

They split to walk around the battered pickup. That wasn’t a trophy vehicle a pompous dick like Madden would drive. Must be Liv’s.

Click. It fell into place. His panic released, like a coiled spring.

He took off towards that pickup like he had rocket launchers under his feet. He barely recognized that howling voice as his own. Time warped, like in combat. People flinched away as he pounded by. Madden goggled at him behind the windshield. Liv’s eyes were huge.

“Get away from that car!” he bellowed. “Get back!”

Liv froze, one foot already inside

Madden locked his door, lunged across the seat, grabbed Liv’s wrist to yank her in, the cretin. Fuck. Sean shattered the driver’s side window with a flying kick. He unlocked the door, wrenched Madden out.

The guy grunted as he hit the hot asphalt. Liv backed away ’til she hit the glass display window of Trinket Trove Gift Emporium.

“Get away!” he yelled, waving his arms at her and everyone else he could see. “Back! Farther! Now, goddamnit!”

Everyone obeyed. Nobody wanted to be near the howling psycho.

The keys were in the ignition. He popped the hood. Any movement could trip the bomb, but he had to take that risk upon himself. Nobody was going to believe him. He knew that from bitter experience.

He wasn’t even sure he believed it himself, but hell. He had no choice but to trust an impulse strong enough to make him practically blow chunks all over the spit-shined Endicott Falls shopping district.

He scanned the Toyota’s engine for bomb designs he was familiar with, but there were infinite variations, endless new strategies, and he’d never tinkered with the guts of an aging Toyota. He wouldn’t recognize a wire out of place if it bit him in the ass. He stared at it, stomach churning. He dropped to the ground, shimmied under the pickup on his back. Switched on the penlight on his keychain. Peered around.

A thrill of confirmation jolted his nerves. A wire wrapped around the drive train. Old classic. Easy to spot if you were looking for it, but why look? He poked around delicately. There it was. A wad of plastic explosives, molded between the gas tank and the truck body. If Madden had driven a few inches, the turning driveshaft would’ve pulled the trip, and ka-boom. He let out a jerky sigh. Tension drained out of him.

The smell of sunbaked asphalt tickled his nose. Scratches on his back began to sting. He stared at the destruction clinging to the belly of the truck, like a malignant growth. So close.

He wiggled out from under the Toyota. It took some eye-rubbing to recognize Officer Tom Roarke. The man had put on weight in fifteen years, but the hostility in his face was immutable.

Sean hardly blamed him. Punching an officer of the law in the face and restraining him with his own cuffs was a very undesirable course of action. Even in his wilder days, Sean had known that.

And all for nothing, in the end. He’d been too late to save Kev.

“Mr. McCloud, would you like to explain to me what you’re doing vandalizing Ms. Endicott’s car?” Roarke’s voice was as harsh as gravel.

“Verifying the presence of unexploded ordnance,” Sean replied.

Roarke’s face went blank. “Huh?”

Sean sat up. “Take a look,” he offered. “There’s plastic explosives around the gas tank. A wire around the driveshaft. Could be a decoy, though. Somebody could be watching with a remote detonater.”

“You’re kidding.” Roarke’s face went an odd, purplish shade.

“I wish I were. I suggest you evacuate this block right now.”

Roarke yanked his walkie talkie out of his belt. Sean turned, and found Liv standing in the street, way too close to her car. Miles, too, was wandering closer than he should, goggle-eyed and slack-jawed.

“Detonator?” she echoed faintly. “You mean…a bomb? In my pickup? But I drove it this morning. I parked it here at five A.M. It’s been right out here in public, all morning. How on earth—”

“Get the f*ck away from the car, Liv. You, too, Miles. Move!” Weird, to hear his father’s drill sergeant voice coming out of his own mouth. It had no discernible effect on Liv, though. She didn’t bat an eye. Sean spun her around, and shoved.

“Get your hands off her.” It was Madden, his voice shaky and high. His face was wet with sweat. He grabbed Sean’s arm.

Sean just towed the guy along with them. “Let’s have this pissing contest out of blast range,” he growled.

“I’d like to know how you knew about that bomb, McCloud.”

Sean’s gut clenched. A lot of people were going to be unpleasantly curious about that. I had a funny feeling didn’t get you far when people were casting around for a scapegoat, and he made a kick-ass scapegoat.

He braced himself. “I had a hunch.”

“I see,” Madden’s voice heavy with scorn. “A hunch. How convenient and timely. You’re so obviously an expert, I’m surprised you’re not defusing this so-called bomb all by yourself, on the spot.”

“I probably could, but I won’t.” Sean kept his voice even. “Not without equipment, and backup. I’d do it off the cuff if somebody’s life depended on it, but given the choice, I’d rather call the EOD techs.”