Deadly Christmas Duty. Virginia Vaughan

did you find out?”

      “Three weeks ago. It took me until today to make arrangements to get back to the States. My plane landed two hours ago and I drove directly here.” He turned to her. “What’s being done to investigate Wayne? Are you monitoring his phone calls? Staking him out?”

      She was stunned by his sudden change in direction and floundered for an answer. “No—no, we’re not doing any of that. We don’t have the budget for high-stakes surveillance, and even if we did, we don’t have the evidence to support a warrant for one.”

      He slammed his hand against her desk and she jumped, suddenly worried about what he might do. He was highly trained and obviously agitated. Was she going to have to worry about him going rogue and taking out Wayne on his own...and how upset would she really be if he did?

      However, when he looked at her, she saw sadness gleaming in his green eyes. “I should have been there for her.”

      She nodded. She felt similarly. She’d known about the abuse Nikki had suffered at Wayne’s hands and she’d wanted to help, but Nikki had to be the one to want out, and Melinda had never been able to convince her friend to leave. She’d come close once, until Nikki discovered she was pregnant and insisted on sticking out the marriage for the sake of her child.

      “Do you think he killed her?” Noah asked so softly that at first Melinda wasn’t certain she’d heard him, but he glanced her way, waiting for her response.

      In most cases she would never tell a grieving relative what she really thought if she couldn’t back it up with evidence, but this was no ordinary situation. She wasn’t looking at this from a legal standpoint where she’d only heard suspicions of abuse in the relationship. She’d had the confirmation from the victim herself, and she got the impression from Noah Cason that he really wanted to know her opinion. “I absolutely believe it,” she told him truthfully.

      “She deserves better than this. She deserves justice and a proper burial. I need your help to make that happen.”

      She nodded, suddenly intrigued at the idea of having another set of eyes on the case. The local police had long given up on uncovering additional evidence, and she suspected it had more to do with Wayne Lassiter’s friendship with the chief of police than the lack of leads to follow up on.

      “I’ll do whatever I can to help you. Nikki was my friend and I want justice for her, too. Let me get her file.” She reached under her desk for her briefcase. She’d taken the file home with her last night as she often did to peruse it and look for new clues. She pulled out her briefcase, but something stopped her—another image under her desk that caught the corner of her eye. It was pushed farther up under her desk. She reached in and pulled it out. It was a backpack that she didn’t recognize.

      “What in the world?” she muttered as she set it on her desk. Her mind worked backward, trying to figure out who had been inside her office with a backpack in the past few days. She couldn’t think of one person.

      “What is it?” Noah asked.

      “I don’t know. I’ve never seen this before.” She unzipped the main compartment and pulled it open. Her stomach rolled when she spotted electrical wires that clued her in to what was inside the bag.

      Noah pushed to his feet. “What’s the matter? What is it?” He pulled the backpack open as she backed away from the attached ticking clock and the containers of dark liquid.

      Her blood ran cold as she fearfully stuttered out the answer to his question. “It’s a bomb.”

      All his senses went on alert at the word bomb. He rounded the desk and looked inside the bag.

      She was right. It was definitely a bomb, most likely homemade. The backpack contained two canisters of a brownish liquid he knew was probably gasoline, with attached batteries for the detonation and a timer. One glance at the timer showed him they had only minutes before it went off.

      “Who else is in the building?” he asked as he grabbed her hand and hurried her toward the door.

      “I—I don’t know. No one. My assistant is gone to lunch and it’s Saturday, so most people are off.” He saw her glance around the suite. “I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone else when I came in.”

      “Run outside. Get clear of the building and call 911. I’m going to make sure no one else is here.”

      She nodded and ran for the door. He checked his watch. He had only four more minutes until that bomb went off, and hopefully it didn’t explode early. He hollered for anyone who could hear him, then quickly ran through the offices, looking for signs of life. He saw none. No one but Melinda Steele was working today.

      He hurried outside and saw her on the phone as he cleared the doors. He had no idea how much damage that device could do, but he suspected it would tear apart the inside of the building. He scanned the street. Few people were out and no one was close to the building, but he felt the need to warn them anyway.

      “Get down!” he shouted as he sprinted across the lawn toward Melinda. “There’s a bomb in the building!”

      People turned at his yelling then screamed and dropped. Melinda spun around as he ran toward her, and he saw the shock on her face as the bomb ignited and fire blew out the windows of the building. It also sent him scuttling to the ground, his back nearly on fire from the heat of the blast, a reminder of how close he’d cut it to making it out safely.

      “Get down!” he shouted at her as glass sprayed the lawn and curb. She screamed and dropped to the ground, covering her head just as he did. The smell of fire and gasoline took him back to the embassy where two men had died and he’d nearly suffocated on the black smoke of fire bombs being thrown into buildings. His eight-man team had endured the heat and blinding smoke to search for the ambassador and his aide, who were known to be inside, but they’d been too late to help; too late because of political bureaucracy and his own hesitancy to act without orders.

      The heat flowing off the building pushed him back to the present, where he crawled toward Melinda, away from the burning structure. Her face was smudged with soot, her soft brown eyes wide with fear. Her clothes and hands were riddled with shards of glass. That would be unpleasant to remove, but at least she was alive. His ears were ringing from the explosion, but he swore he heard the whirl of sirens mixed in with it.

      He grabbed her arms and checked her over. “Are you okay?”

      She nodded, but she was shaking and tears were sliding down her face, making trails between the soot and blood. He pulled her into his arms to try to calm her, and she leaned her petite frame into him. She’d had quite a scare, certainly a bigger one than anyone from Daytonville had ever experienced.

      “Was there anyone else inside?” she asked him in a small but concerned voice.

      “No. No one.”

      Besides the lack of people, her office had been the only one not dark, something he’d noticed when he’d entered the building only a few minutes earlier. Melinda Steele had been the only person working then...which meant she’d been the target of a bomber.

      Melinda clasped her hands together, trying to stop the chill of fear that was inching up her neck. She’d nearly been killed, and would have been had Noah Cason not arrived in her office and intervened. She recalled the feeling of having her feet glued to the floor, unable to move to even save herself. But he’d taken charge of the situation and saved her life.

      She glanced up at him now, conversing with the police, probably describing the workings of the bomb to them in the hopes of identifying whoever was behind this attack. Her brain was having trouble grasping the fact that this bomb had been placed beneath her desk. It wasn’t a random incident. Its placement had been targeted and precise. After all, it was Saturday, when most government employees were at home, and the building was clear of everyone except for her...and Dawn. What a blessing her assistant had taken her lunch out of the office today.

      She needed to call Dawn. Her phone had been damaged