Stephen’s scream and the tug of his body being pulled away from hers brought her head around.
Someone was holding her brother.
“Let him go,” she said to the dirty mass of a man standing in front of her. Winded and tired, she squinted at the huffing figure holding her squirming brother. “Tony?”
“It’s me, doll face.”
Dana threw herself into Tony’s arms, tears of relief streaming down her face as she reached around Stephen to hug Tony. “You’re all right. Thank goodness! How did you get out of there?”
“Can’t breathe,” Stephen said, his hands flapping between them.
Tony pushed Stephen back toward Dana, then bent over to take a deep, calming breath. He was covered in dirt and soot from his head to his feet. His left temple was cut and bleeding, his bifocals were bent, but all in all, he seemed to be okay.
“Well,” he began, breathing between words, “when I opened the box, I realized the bomb was too complicated for me—not your average-grade pipe bomb, more like an alarm-clock bomb. So I grabbed my cell phone and I hauled myself away. I took the back stairs, screaming and yelling to people as I went. I dialed 911, told them I had a bomb ticking in my apartment, then I got outta there.”
Dana sighed long and hard. “And just in time. Oh, Tony, if anything had happened to you…”
“Hey, I’m all right. My computers are gone, but don’t look so sad. I’ve got a back-up system at the main office downtown. And I’m fully insured. They haven’t won yet.”
“Why are they after us?” Stephen asked, rocking back and forth on his feet. “Why, Dana? Why?”
Dana gave her brother a worried look, then followed it with one to Tony. Too scared to stay out in the open, she pulled them both over to a cluster of trees that formed the beginnings of a huge park. A sign a few feet away announced the fenced area as the Wyandotte County Lake And Park Grounds. “We don’t know why they’re after us,” she tried to explain. “But I think our neighbor is trying to scare me. I made her mad, and apparently, she doesn’t forgive and forget.”
“But she runs a church,” Stephen said, thoroughly confused. “Church people are supposed to follow the ways of the Lord, and forgive everyone. Should forgive, Dana.”
“Not this particular church lady, sport. For some reason, she’s got it in for us.” She didn’t dare tell him that Caryn had threatened him.
Slumping down against an ancient oak tree, Stephen asked, “Dana, are we ever gonna get back home? Stephen wants to go home.”
Dana brushed his hair out of his face. “Sure we are, sport. Sure we are. But it might be a while, and I can’t promise we’ll have anything left to go back to. You just hang in there, okay.”
Stephen looked around. “This place is spooky. I want my baseball cards.”
Hoping to distract him, Dana pointed to his shoes. “Boy, you ran so fast in those Ruby Runners.”
Stephen stared down at his feet. “Ruby Runners. Yeah, I have Ruby Runners. I like them. They make pretty noise.”
Dana figured her brother was talking about how his new shoes squeaked. “That will stop once you get them broken in.”
Tony stood and took in their surroundings. “The park’s okay, but sometimes vagrants do hang out in there.” He lifted his chin toward a secluded spot behind a service building, then his eyes flashed wide. “Hey, I know someone who might be able to help us. He lives on the edge of the park.”
“Are you sure?” Dana asked, afraid to trust too many people. Or cause anyone else to get hurt.
“Yeah.” Tony nodded as he stretched and brushed at his clothes. “He’s a retired police officer who doesn’t always play by the book, if you get my drift. Leo will know what to do.” Then he stopped and gave Dana a sharp-angled look. “But I have to warn you, Leo is really weird. I met him when I went to fix a computer at a local church. He was attending an AA meeting there. Helped me move some tables so I could get to the plugs. We kinda clicked, but he’s out there, if you know what I mean.”
“Great,” Dana said, too tired and worried to argue. “That’s comforting.”
Tony took her by the hand. “But I trust him, Dana. He’s helped me out of a lot of tight spots.”
Dana decided that was good enough for her. Tony didn’t trust that easily.
“Okay, let’s go,” she said, turning to grab Stephen by the hand.
“C’mon, there’s a hole in the fence over there where I climb through to go jogging sometimes. We’ll cut through and be inside the park. We’ll be safe there, at least. We can call Leo from my cell phone.”
“No,” Dana said. “What if they trace it?”
“Good point.” He put the phone back in his shirt pocket. “If they found you here, and planted a bomb in a pizza I ordered online, then it stands to reason they can find us anywhere.” Then he shrugged. “Leo’s house is just on the other side of the park.”
“Let’s head deeper into the park,” she said, taking Stephen by the arm. “At least out in the woods they can’t link us to any computers.”
They hurried along, following a trail that circled the lake. The woods were quiet, except for a few nocturnal animals here and there.
“Sure is dark,” Stephen whispered, his hand clutching Dana’s arm. “Don’t like dark, Dana.”
“Lots of shadows,” Tony added, sticking close to Stephen’s other side. “Nothing to worry about, sport.”
“Hope they didn’t see us come in here,” Dana whispered back.
“Are there any bears in here?” Stephen wanted to know.
“Nah, but we might run into a deer or a fox. Maybe a really mean squirrel or two.”
“Hush,” Dana said, smiling for the first time in a long time. Then she thought about the bomb again. “That was definitely a strong message back there. I hope no one was hurt or killed because of that bomb.”
“Well, we can’t get information out here,” Tony said, his tone mourning the loss of his lifestyle. “They destroyed my computers!”
Tony guided them through the vast park until they reached the other side of the perimeter. “There,” he said, motioning toward a street beyond the fence. “I know another place where we can climb through the fence.”
They headed up a hill where a clump of trees formed black shadows on either side. The scent of decayed leaves assaulted Dana as she tried to catch her breath. Giant sycamore trees stood sentinel, their pale gray bark looking ghost-white in the muted moonlight. The night was so still, Dana could hear their breathing growing more rapid, could hear the patter of their shoes on the worn, cushioned path. It was if they were alone in the center of the world.
“Through here,”
