Authors: Robin Burcell
The Black List (39 page)
The second and third officers stepped up to assist Scotty, when the bomb exploded.
The stairwell shook. It felt like an earthquake rocked the building, and Sydney balanced herself against the side, her heart racing as she looked toward the top of the stairs. The whole world seemed to stop in that one moment. No one moved. Suddenly her heart started thudding as she realized what had happened. “Griffin!”
Scotty grabbed her around the middle, and her knees started to give out.
She gripped the banister. “He’s in there.”
“We’ll find him. I promise.” He pulled her hand free from the banister, guided her forward.
The next few seconds and minutes blurred together. She had no idea how she got down the next eight flights of stairs and out to the street. The whole time, Scotty held her tight, refusing to let her back into the building.
“He did it,” Scotty said. “He saved everyone.”
Only then was she aware of the chaos around her. The police cars cordoning off the block, the sound of sirens as fire trucks rushed to the area. And then Scotty was leading her across the street to the back of a white utility truck, where uniformed personnel were removing equipment. One turned around and ran a radiation detector up and down the length of her.
“She’s clean.”
He moved off to check someone else, and Sydney turned, looked over at the hotel, her gaze moving up the stories to the top, toward the restaurant she couldn’t quite see from this angle. She had no idea what sort of damage was done, if it had been survivable. She couldn’t see smoke or signs of a fire, and she prayed that was a good sign.
“I think we should have EMS look you over,” Scotty said, taking her hand once more.
“I’m fine,” she told him. “I need to find Griffin.”
“They’re not letting anyone in there.”
He was right about that. They had stationed uniformed officers around the entrances of the hotel to keep everyone out as NEST prepared to enter.
“Besides, Sydney, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Not now, Scotty. Please.”
“The Wingman Squared case.”
She looked at him, and it took a moment for her to gather her thoughts. “Why would you bring that up now?”
“Because you left the coffee shop before I could finish telling you, and it’s not like I can talk about this in the office. I know you think you know everything about BICTT and your father’s case, but . . . well, when this is all cleared up out here, when you want to come by, I—I have a file you might be interested in.”
“A file . . . ?”
Someone shouted, and several people started running in that direction. She turned, tried to figure out what was going on. And then she saw him. A half block away, coming from the side of the hotel.
“Oh my God. Griffin . . .”
She started toward him, and Scotty caught her hand, stopping her. “Sydney?”
She looked at Scotty, realizing he was expecting some sort of answer, putting his job on the line by letting her see a file she shouldn’t see. “Can we talk about this later? Tomorrow.”
He hesitated and she had the distinct feeling that he didn’t want to let her go. He looked past her toward Griffin, then finally dropped her hand. “Sure. Tomorrow.”
She turned, ran across the street, but the men with the radiation detectors swooped down on him before she could reach his side, taking readings, then, finding residue on his hands, hustling him off to a station for decontamination. She wasn’t allowed in shouting distance, and when they finished that, the EMTs cut her off as they helped Griffin toward the ambulance. He was limping and it grew more pronounced the longer he walked. They had him take a seat on the back bumper of the ambulance while they looked at his leg.
“Doesn’t seem to be broken,” one of the EMTs said. “But we should probably take you to the hospital, have it looked over.”
“Twisted my ankle. It’ll be fine.”
When he stood, she hesitated the barest of seconds, then threw herself into his arms. He kissed her, holding her tight, and when he finally pulled back, he simply looked at her.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing,” he replied, digging his keys from his pocket and handing them to her. “Just glad to see you, that’s all.”
They started toward the car, Griffin limping beside her. “So . . .” she started, not even sure what to say at first, then decided on the obvious. “How’d you get hurt?”
“The usual. Jumping down the stairwell after I rolled the bomb into the walk-in freezer.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “Just another day at the office, Griffin?”
“Yep.” He put his arm around her, then leaned in close, whispering, “Makes me look forward to quitting time.”
ROBIN BURCELL is an FBI-trained forensic artist who has worked in law enforcement for over two decades as a police officer, detective, and hostage negotiator. A two-time Anthony Award winner, she is the author of two previous Sydney Fitzpatrick novels,
The Bone Chamber
and
Face of a Killer,
as well as four novels featuring SFPD Homicide Inspector Kate Gillespie:
Every Move She Makes, Fatal Truth, Deadly Legacy,
and
Cold Case.
You can visit her website at: www.robinburcell.com.
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IDNIGHT
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE BLACK LIST. Copyright © 2013 by Robin Burcell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition JANUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062133489
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062133540
FIRST EDITION
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