Conard County Revenge. Rachel Lee

had found something exciting.

      If they were curious because of her, they were in for a serious disappointment, she thought wryly. One agent in overalls was hardly the show they’d be hoping for. And they’d be right. Most explosions drew a bigger response, but at the moment too many cases had investigators pretty tied up. If she needed some backup, she would get it, but right now hands were tied.

      She pulled in between two dusty pickup trucks, then retrieved her laptop and evidence case from the back of her truck.

      Almost at once Jackson Castor appeared. “Let me at least carry the coffee,” he said eagerly.

      So he was still here, still interested in the goings-on. Might be a flag, might not be. So far nothing was setting off her internal warnings except his presence.

      “Thanks. Make sure everyone working gets a cup,” she said. Relieved of the extra coffees, she could handle the other items better. “Is Alex still around?”

      “Yeah. He’s been inside the school a lot. I guess you wanted some tarps?”

      And just how did he know that? Was Alex talking to him? And what if all these people were here because something important had been found? The ATF preferred to keep evidence to themselves until they had the most complete picture possible. Dribbling news out to the public could only create problems and possibly false expectations or, worse, appear to accuse innocent people.

      Not that her organization was completely without stains and mistakes. Like any organization, it was made up of people and people weren’t perfect.

      The cordon had been extended as she had asked, creating a much-wider area for investigation. She asked Jack to remain at the edge of the yellow tape and told him she’d tell everyone he was holding coffee for them. He seemed pleased by his job, however humble.

      Well, she thought, it was possible he was just a kid who was interested in a career. It didn’t have to mean anything that he was hanging around so eagerly. She discovered she was honestly hoping he was as innocent as Alex believed him to be.

      The crowd, such as it was, showed a lot of interest in her, but she could feel their repressed disappointment that she was just one small woman and she didn’t have a brawny team marching with her.

      Not a very impressive display for the ATF, she thought with grim humor.

      As she approached the most obviously blackened area, she caught up with Charity Camden. “Jack Castor. You know him?”

      “The high school kid? Sort of. I seem to remember him from a talk I gave at the school about arson last fall. Eager and full of questions. Good questions.”

      How interesting, Darcy thought but kept the thought to herself. “I left him at the cordon holding coffee for you and your guys, and anyone else working on this. Maybe you’re used to it, but it feels chilly to me out here.”

      Charity smiled. “Coffee’s always welcome. Thanks.”

      “What brought the crowd? Did you find something?”

      Charity laughed. “Not what, but who. They heard ATF was here. Enjoy your celebrity, if you can. I experienced a bit of it after I married Wayne. Good people, but curious as hell.”

      She called to her two helpers, telling them Jack had coffee for them. That cleared the zone briefly for Darcy, who set her equipment down, pulled on her gloves, made sure her loupe was in her pocket along with some evidence bags and started to walk through the grid laid out by the firefighters.

      She squatted often, examining the contents of a bag more closely and checking the ground beneath it. Once, she lifted her head and sniffed the air. It still contained the faintest tang of fuel oil after nearly two days. It must have soaked the ground.

      She added that tidbit to her increasing list of tidbits. She needed to find out what kind of fuel it was, because she needed to know its burn characteristics but also because she needed to know why she could still smell it. Fuel oil evaporated quickly if it didn’t burn. It was the benzenes and xylenes that made up the gasoline that created most of the familiar smell. Those evaporated relatively quickly, so a lot must have leaked out of that bomb without burning at any point.

      That brought her head up. Still squatting, she thought about it. That much fuel oil? In a closed container, why add the fertilizer? You could just make a great Molotov cocktail.

      She looked toward the building. But it wouldn’t have caused that kind of damage. She closed her eyes again, sniffing and thinking about it. Apparently the bomber hadn’t perfected his method. He’d left far too much gasoline residue behind. Way too much.

      Had this been a practice bomb? The notion chilled her deeply. One accident might well become a string of bombs if this had been a trial run.

      Good God!

      “Can I join you?”

      Darcy turned her head a little in response to Charity’s voice. “Yeah. Don’t disturb anything.” She almost winced as she heard herself. Charity certainly didn’t need that warning.

      Soon Charity was squatting beside her, saying, “I figured once we move everything we can see out of here we’ll need to look again.”

      “Yeah, with a rake. It’s hard to be sure we haven’t stomped something into the dirt.” Then she pointed toward where she’d found the wire. “We have all that to cover, too.”

      “You’re sure the wire came from the explosion?”

      “Unless someone was soldering out there, yeah.”

      Charity sighed. “I’ve seen some bad fires, Darcy, but nothing like this. You’ll have to tell me what to do.”

      “I don’t seem to have a problem with that, huh?” Darcy’s voice was dry.

      Charity chuckled quietly. “That’s okay. There can never be too many reminders. By the way, Alex said you needed a place to spread all this out. He’s talking the principal into turning the gymnasium over to you. I don’t get why that would be a problem. We haven’t even been able to determine if the rest of the building is structurally sound yet. We have an engineer coming from Gillette on Thursday. Meantime, no school. And thanks again for the coffee.” She raised her foam cup as if in toast, then sipped.

      “Darcy?”

      “Yeah?”

      “You’ve been squatting here an awfully long time. Is something bothering you or do you need help getting up now?”

      It was such a relief to just laugh. Darcy let it out, along with a lot of tension. “I was thinking. You’re the arson person. Do you still smell fuel oil?”

      “Yeah, I do. Some didn’t burn off. The ground must be soaked. It’s driving my guys crazy because I won’t let them smoke anywhere around here.”

      Darcy turned her head. “Your guys smoke?”

      Charity shrugged with a half smile. “The chief, my husband, hates it, but it’s as if these guys just can’t get enough smoke. They’re not allowed to do it in public, but it’s no secret, really.”

      “Criminy,” Darcy remarked.

      “Yeah. You’d think they never saw the results of careless smoking. Anyway, fuel oil. I gather it’s bothering you, too.”

      “If the bomb was precisely made, the residue of the fuel oil, the volatile chemicals in it, should be pretty much gone by now. The fact that I can smell it here in the open air after all this time...” She shook her head a little.

      “You’re thinking this guy didn’t know what he was doing?”

      “I’m thinking he knows what he’s doing but hasn’t quite got it right.”

      Charity drew a sharp breath. “I don’t like what that might mean.”

      “Me neither. Say, you know Alex, right?”

      “Fairly