The FBI Thrillers Collection Books 6-10 - Catherine Coulter [352]
She was crouched down, until she was under tree cover again as she made her way to the side of her burning house. She felt the heat billowing off her house, felt a spark strike her hand, and shook her fingers, cursing. She looked down to see her burned flesh. It hurt like the devil, but she had nothing to wrap it up with. She shook her hand to cool it, then knew she had to forget it.
They’d thrown the bomb into the kitchen. Why? To flush them out? The kitchen was the farthest room from the guest room where Sam was sleeping. They’d probably known that. The last thing they seemed to want was to hurt Sam.
It seemed like years passed before she heard the deputies, the firemen. The bombers were gone, no reason for them to hang around since their target had escaped.
Suddenly, she heard another gunshot. At the same time, her cell phone rang. She yelled into the phone even as she rolled behind a garbage can, “Wade, stay put, that’s an order! The moron who bombed the house just shot at me!”
Another shot, this one a good twenty feet away. She saw Wade coming around the corner, and yelled, “Don’t come any closer, Wade! Get more deputies and get down!”
But Wade just kept running toward her, his gun fanning as he ran. Soon, four deputies were there, yelling, running into each other, trying to avoid flying sparks from Katie’s burning house.
“All of you be careful,” Katie yelled.
Wade was panting when he reached her. He saw the blood on her hand and turned white. “My God, your hand.”
“No, I’m all right, it was a flying spark. Wade, take the guys and check in the woods. See what you can find.”
Not many minutes later, she slowly rose to see Wade come running toward her through the thick rain. He was shaking his head.
“Nothing?”
“Not a single damned thing. Hell, Katie, this whole thing’s so off-the-wall. What do we do now?”
“We search every inch around here and see what we can find.” She pointed him to the shards of glass sticking out of the mud. “They dropped that one and broke it, but its brother went through my kitchen window.” She looked down at her hand. Wade pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and tied it around her hand. “There, that’s better than nothing.”
She looked up at Wade. “Thanks. At least the bastards didn’t follow Miles into Jessborough. They’ve got to be okay.”
31
Miles had got himself under control because, simply, there was no choice. “Your mama will be just fine,” he said as he eased himself behind the wheel. “Now, Sam, Keely, I want you both to sit in the passenger seat and snuggle under those blankets.”
They were wet and scared, their teeth chattering, and Miles turned the heat on high. “You guys know what? I’d really appreciate it if you’d sing me a song.”
The children, bless their hearts, sang themselves hoarse. “Puff the Magic Dragon” had never sounded so good. He knew they were scared, knew they were dealing with it, just as he was, and he was very proud of both of them. Within minutes, he heard sirens, saw sheriff cars, red lights flashing; he pulled the truck off onto a side street while they streamed past, headed to Katie’s burning house. Thank God it was raining so hard, the house just might survive.
He was praying Katie was all right as he scooped both children into his arms, charged through the door of City Hall, veered to the right, where the sheriff’s department was housed.
Lewis, the night dispatcher, waved them in. Then the outer door whooshed open again and there was Linnie, running through the doors right behind them, wearing jeans, boots, a huge sweatshirt with an extra-large bomber jacket over it, and rollers in her hair.
“This way,” she said and smiled down at the children, just as calm and cool as Katie had been. His own heart was pounding and he wanted to hit something.
The phone rang and Lewis was on it.
“Everything is fine,” Linnie said, leaning down to hug both children. “Listen to me now, I don’t want you two worrying. Your