chest constricted. Had Amir survived and escaped, or had he been blown to bits in the explosion?
Sheriff Wolf followed Jane back to the limo, and Stefan tailed him, hoping Jane was wrong. But Jane pointed to the seat and floor where she had sprayed Luminal, and Stefan saw the blood. Not just a few drops either. Enough to indicate someone could have been seriously hurt.
Sheriff Wolf spoke into his radio. “The blood suggests that a passenger was injured in the explosion. I want the search teams to cover a three-mile radius of the area.”
Jane waited until he finished issuing his orders, then waved her lab assistant over. “Tomas, we need to find the blast point, then let’s move out one foot at a time and collect everything we can find. Gum wrappers, pieces of metal, cigarette butts, glass—anything could have traces of the residue on it. Photograph and catalog it, then we’ll take it to the lab for analysis.”
The younger man nodded, hoisted his camera and went to work.
A balding man with a drooping left eye and a cheap suit approached Jane, then gestured toward Stefan. “What’s he doing here?”
Stefan tensed at his surly tone, but Jane simply gave him a level look. “The dignitaries traveled in a similar limo earlier. Security team is just covering their bases.”
Stefan hated compromising Jane by forcing her to lie, but security measures required it. He stepped forward and extended his hand. “Prince Stefan of Kyros. And you are, Sir?”
“Ralph Osgood, CSI and Jane’s superior.”
Stefan disliked the man immediately. Most likely he used his rank to bully Jane and anyone else around him.
Osgood stuck a toothpick in the side of his mouth and chewed on it. “Prince Lutece, you need to stay behind the crime scene tape. You could be compromising evidence.”
Edilio stepped up to defend him, but Stefan shook his head, warning him to let him speak for himself. “As you suggest,” Stefan said with more politeness than he felt.
Gritting his teeth, he stepped back behind the crime scene tape. But what he really wanted was to examine the bomb himself.
He’d have to consult with Jane at the lab after she analyzed their findings.
Perhaps if he used his charm, she’d allow him to look at the evidence.
JANE FELT the tension radiating from the prince in his forced politeness to Ralph, but the smile he graced her with twinkled with an unspoken camaraderie as if he knew his good looks and smooth voice had won her over.
She had agreed not to share news with the press, but that was because she didn’t trust the media not to mess up a good case.
Not because of the prince’s mesmerizing green eyes.
Because she was a professional. And no one, not even the prince himself, would dissuade her from following protocol and doing her damnedest to solve this case.
Thankfully he moved behind the crime tape out of her direct vision, but she still felt his eyes watching her, studying her movements. Did he know something more about this bomb than he’d revealed?
If one of the royals had been inside when the bomb ignited, why wouldn’t he want them to alert the police?
Tomas was searching for forensics on the north side of the vehicle so she stooped to examine the underside of the car. The easiest bomb to make was one that involved gunpowder, a plastic bag and a wire. A blast-off mechanism was required, but the bomber could have used something as simple as a kid’s rocket toy. He would have put it near the engine, then run wires from the ignition to the bag. When the car started, the electrical spark would ignite the gunpowder, which would have ignited the bomb.
Except the limo didn’t explode when the engine started.
This bomb exploded mid-ride, meaning someone must have set a timer or been nearby watching to trigger the device.
She inspected the ignition, the engine and the gas tank and collected trace from all areas. The scent of burned metal and copper permeated the air along with the lingering odor of charred metal, burned rubber, blood and human skin.
Ralph was processing the car’s interior, so she used her flashlight to scan the ground along the deserted road. A cigarette butt caught her eye, and she bagged it, then gathered several pieces of metal, wires and plastic that could have been part of the explosive.
When she glanced up, Prince Stefan was still trailing her with those intense eyes, and she had the uncanny feeling that he was holding something back.
A glint of metal suddenly flickered in the moonlight. She frowned, waved her flashlight across the sagebrush and prickly pears, and spotted something that looked like a cell phone in the midst of a patch of Indian paintbrush.
With her gloved hands, she knelt, pushed apart the scarlet leaves and foliage and retrieved the phone, then flipped it over. It could have belonged to the passenger from the limo. Maybe they’d lift some prints that would lead to the bomber.
Or at least the name of the passenger. Then they could look at motive.
Unless the driver had been the target.
They couldn’t dismiss that possibility, although if this limo had transported the royals earlier, the more likely prospect was that the intended target had been all or one of the dignitaries.
She punched the connect button to make a call, but the battery on the cell phone was dead. The lab would have to do its magic, search for prints, the phone log history.
She bagged the phone and carried it to the evidence box. Prince Lutece’s eyes flared with interest as their gazes connected, and he wove along the edge of the crime scene tape until he stood only inches from her.
“You found something?” he asked in a gruff voice.
She nodded. “A cell phone. Could be nothing, or it could have belonged to the missing passenger.” She held up the bag and his jaw tightened.
“You recognize the phone?” she asked quietly.
A muscle worked in his throat. He was stalling. Debating whether to lie or how much to reveal.
Well, damn. Maybe the missing person was a friend of his. But she was not here to play games.
“Listen, Prince,” she said, purposely inflecting sarcasm into the title. “I don’t care what your position is. If you know the identity of the second person in the car, you need to speak up. Withholding information about a crime is a crime itself.”
Anger sharpened his tone when he spoke. “I do not need a lecture on the laws of your country.”
“And I don’t need you breathing down my neck if you aren’t going to cooperate. Do you know who this phone belongs to?”
He didn’t speak for a moment. He simply breathed deeply, so deeply that the sound sent a tremor through her. He was afraid he did know.
And he also feared that he couldn’t trust her.
The image of the panic on his face in the earlier news
