Secret Obsession (Carder Texas Connections #6)(31)



“My translator job. Archimedes shut him up.” Lyssa wrapped her arms around her body, a chill from the inside taking over. “Why now? I haven’t been back to the UN since the night Jack was killed.”

“A warning to those who help you perhaps,” Noah speculated. “And much more straightforward than whatever those two symbols represent.”

Noah, Rafe, Zane and Elijah were helping her. She’d made everything worse. Now the only way out was to somehow beat Archimedes at his game. To decipher his message. The designs meant something, but she had no idea what. She rolled the images through her mind. The spiral; the bar and circles.

“Something to do with math or engineering?” Lyssa asked.

“I see where you’re going. He probably likes being called Archimedes after the Greek mathematician and engineer,” Noah said as he searched the surrounding vehicles, not even meeting her gaze. “Neither symbols are used in math or electrical engineering. The original Archimedes determined the value of pi. That’s related to the golden spiral, but it’s a stretch.”

Lyssa stared over at him, dumbstruck.

Rafe crossed the lanes of traffic quickly. “Noah’s sort of like a human computer of useless math trivia. Good thing he has other, more worthwhile talents.”

“Just drive.” Noah peered out the back of the SUV.

Lyssa recognized Noah’s tension. She understood. They had no solid leads; Archimedes had found them. He was winning.

No one said a word the rest of the drive until finally Rafe pulled into the private airport. He honked the horn three times.

At the signal, a large door to one of the hangars slid open. A pushback tug exited the building, pulling the Lear slowly into the daylight.

“We should be able to take her up soon,” Noah said.

The two vehicles rolled out onto the tarmac then stopped.

Noah exited the car, his gun at the ready. Rafe and Zane peered around the deserted airport.

Nobody else would have dared come out with the weather worsening.

Lyssa slid from her seat. Tension knotted the base of her neck.

Everything looked normal, if not eerily desolate.

Noah opened the rear of the SUV. “Let’s—”

An explosion erupted from the belly of the plane. Flames soared into the sky, engulfing the Lear in fire. Shrapnel flew in every direction.

Noah leaped at Lyssa, shoved her to the ground and rolled her under the SUV. Her body pounded into the asphalt, scraping her palms and side.

Fiery debris flew at them. She ducked her head down as metal pelted the car.

“Stay here,” Noah shouted at Zane.

The man nodded and positioned himself between Lyssa and the plane.

She gazed at the hellfire that had erupted. Mini explosions sent more burning metal soaring at them. Several pieces bounced off the tarmac, and one hit Lyssa in the arm. She slapped it away, and Zane doused the licks of fire that took hold of her wool coat.

Rafe and Noah raced toward the tug. Just as they reached it, a ball of fire barreled near the gas tank. The back end erupted into flames.

Black smoke billowed into the sky, and Lyssa squinted through the blaze. The man inside the tug had slumped over the steering wheel, unconscious. “The driver!” she shouted.

Noah yanked at the door, but it didn’t budge. Rafe rounded the vehicle to try the other side, but that one wouldn’t open either. Frantically, Noah looked around. He grabbed a metal rod and slammed it through the glass. It shattered. Noah reached inside.

He didn’t see the fire that swept toward him.

“Noah, look out!” Lyssa screamed.

They didn’t hesitate. Noah shoved his shoulders through the hole in the glass and yanked the driver through. Rafe climbed up beside Noah. Together they dragged the man from the truck, falling back onto the tarmac.

Sparks erupted.

“Cover your head,” Zane yelled.

Lyssa buried her head in her arms just as another explosion hit.

Noah and Rafe fell to their knees, the driver between them.

Sirens closed in on them. The driver rolled to his back and propped himself up. “What happened?” he asked, coughing. He held his bleeding head then looked up at the burning plane. “Oh, man, did I do that?”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Lyssa said from beneath the SUV. “It was mine.”

Noah wiped the soot from his face. “No, it wasn’t. We know who’s to blame, don’t we?” He turned to the driver. “Did you see anyone around the plane, anyone unusual around the tarmac today?”

The guy shook his head and doubled over into another fit of coughing. “It’s been dead with the ice storm heading this way. Just some inspector.”

Lyssa caught the expression Noah shot at Rafe. “Archimedes?” she asked.

“I’m on it.” Rafe said, rising to his feet, heading for the hangar.

Fire engines screamed to a stop, and firefighters tugged their hoses out to douse the blaze. Noah knelt beside the SUV. “Stay there,” he said to her. “Too many people around. I don’t want you seen.”

Unwilling to argue, she hunkered down. “I’m sorry about your plane.”

He crouched beside the SUV, gun in his hand. “Like I said, not your fault.” He tilted his head and squinted. “What the—? Zane, see that white paint next to the plane. Can you make it out?”

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