didn’t stop. She pulled Stephen along at a brisk trot, mindless of his complaints. The city was dark and misty. It had been raining. Car lights flashed in her face, but Dana didn’t notice. She looked down the nearly deserted street.
She turned back to get a grip on her exact location, taking one last look at the apartment building. Then the earth shook and in a matter of seconds, part of the building blew up and out into the sky. The blast sent glass flying and bricks falling. Somewhere someone screamed and a baby began to cry.
Frozen in horror at first, Dana sprang to life. “Tony!” she cried as she ran back toward the building. “Tony!”
Stephen screamed, too, then began to cry. “Dana? What happened? Where’s Tony?” His screams turned into a high-pitched wail that would only get worse if she didn’t calm him down.
People began to run out into the streets, pushing and shoving, questioning. Dana held Stephen close, watching as the remainder of the building settled back into itself, hissing and burning. What used to be Tony’s apartment was now a hollowed-out hull with charred, tangled computer equipment strewn across its blank face. The air was heavy with smoke and falling cinders, the acrid smell cutting off her frightened breath. Closing her eyes, she bit back the tears wailing inside her. A silent scream roared through her pounding head. This scene was too familiar. This was too soon, too quick, too much.
Tony was dead, and it was her fault. All her fault.
“I have to find him,” she said out loud, grabbing Stephen to pull him back toward the building.
Sirens blared all around her; paramedics arrived in ambulances, pushing the sightseers and shocked neighbors aside.
“Tony,” she said, trying to tell someone, anyone, where he was. “Tony is in there.”
“Step aside, ma’am,” a young fireman said. “We’ll find your friend, but you can’t go in there.”
Shocked, Dana could only nod. She gripped Stephen so hard, he cried out again. Easing up a little, she held him close, her eyes searching the crowd. Maybe Tony had gotten out, too.
Please, God, let him be okay.
Then she spotted the pizza delivery boy in the crowd. He raked a hand through his bob of a haircut, then leaned back nonchalantly on the fender of her parked truck. He gave her the same serene grin she remembered from—
“From Emma’s store,” she said in a shaky whisper. The other customer. The one who’d run out when the storm had hit.
One of Caryn Roark’s boys.
A chill careened down Dana’s back. They not only knew where she was; they had planted a bomb just for her.
“I’m sorry, Tony,” she whispered to the horrid scene in front of her. “I’m so sorry.”
With that she waited, watching the grinning boy as she talked quietly to Stephen. “Listen, sport. We’re going to have to get away from here, because, well, some bad people are after us and we’ve got to find a safe place.”
“Mean people?” He sniffed and looked up at her, his body rocking back and forth in shock.
She nodded, her eyes watching the teenager across the way. She couldn’t lie to Stephen, and she couldn’t do anything more for Tony. They had to run, to get away, and she needed Stephen to understand the urgency of their situation. “We’ve got to sneak away, somewhere where they can’t find us.”
“What about Tony? Don’t leave Tony, Dana.”
She swallowed hard, her hand tightening on her brother’s shoulder. Stephen wasn’t supposed to be in such situations. He wasn’t supposed to be removed from his daily routines. And without his medication, he’d soon be bouncing off the walls. If she couldn’t handle all of this, how in the world would her little brother? “I don’t know about Tony,” she admitted. “I hope he got out.”
“Do we have to leave now?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid so. We can’t take the truck, but don’t you worry. I’ll take care of you, I promise.”
She tugged him close, her eyes on the teenager standing in the crowd, watching her every move. Her gun was in the truck. “Here’s what we’re gonna do, Stevie.” She directed him around, away from the bomb scene. “We’re going to start running. We’re gonna run faster than we ever have. I want you to concentrate, like you do when you’re in track, or playing football. I want you to run as fast as you can, but don’t leave me. Don’t let go of my hand, okay. We have to stay together, no matter what. Okay?”
“Okay. Good thing I’ve got on my Ruby Runners. Yeah, Ruby Runners are fast.”
Thinking of Brendan Donovan, Dana nodded. “Yeah, let’s just hope they live up to their name.”
And so they ran, following the yellow ribbon of the street-lights, following the dirty gray-black ribbon of the sidewalks. They turned a corner that circled to the back of the apartment complex. She didn’t know where they were going, but she had to get away from that pimply-faced teenager with the stringy brown hair and the vacant eyes.
“Did you find her?” Caryn Roark asked into the slim, silver phone at her ear.
“Yes and no,” came the shaky reply. “We found her and we tried to scare her.”
“That doesn’t sound promising,” Caryn replied into the phone, the rage inside her simmering in a calm facade of control. “What happened?”
“We followed her from the sheriff’s house, all the way into Kansas City. She went to an apartment downtown. We monitored the apartment and we were able to get into the electronics system. We sent your messages via e-mail, hoping she’d leave and we could nab her outside. But she didn’t leave. Until a few minutes ago.”
“Where is she now?”
“Uh, we don’t know. The bomb—”
“You set off a bomb? You idiot, you could have killed them both. I need them alive and shaken, not dead and completely stiff. How else will I find what I need?”
“We were only trying to scare her out of the building, but it went off and…Derrick made it too powerful…and the building blew up. She got away in all the confusion and now we’ve lost her.”
Caryn glanced around the stark white of her office. Everywhere she looked chrome and glass reflected her image back at her. Forcing a serene look back to her face—she didn’t need extra wrinkles over this bit of trouble—she said into the phone, “You’d better find Dana Barlow and that stupid brother of hers. Do you understand me? Bring them to me alive. No more shooting or bombs, or you will be sorry you ever failed me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Caryn hung up the phone, then placed her fingers together. Admiring the smooth creamy tone of her perfectly manicured fingernails, she sat down in the white leather chair behind her desk, then glanced at the clock. “Almost time for late prayers. I’d better calm myself down.”
After all, it wouldn’t do to upset the children unnecessarily. No, that wouldn’t do at all.
Dana
