LITMIR.BIZ

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are going to have to spend more money,” she said without looking at the doctor at her side.

      “Come again?”

      Standing at the window, she watched as people ran back and forth, getting what looked to be units of blood, doing things she wasn’t even vaguely familiar with. “If your friend saves his life, there’s going to be a lengthy trial.”

      Harrison glanced at the man who had come in with the blonde before looking back at her. “Everybody deserves his day in court.”

      She had thought that once, too. Before the job had gotten to her. Before she’d seen what she had today. She turned from the window to glare at the doctor spouting ideologies.

      Her eyes were cold. “A man who would blow up innocent people to vent his anger or to carry out some kind of private war doesn’t deserve anything.”

      Harrison took quiet measure of her. The woman appeared to be a handful by anyone’s standards. Probably gave her superiors grief. Not unlike Lukas on a good day, he mused.

      “Odd philosophy for a law enforcement agent.”

      “Oh, really?” Tired and in no mood for pretty-boy doctors who probably saw themselves as several cuts above the average man and only slightly below God, she fisted her hand at her waist. “And what makes you such an expert on law enforcement agents?”

      “I’m not,” Harrison said. A seductive smile spread along his lips as he regarded her. “But give me time and I could be.”

      Lydia saw her partner move closer and held up her hand to stop him in his place. “I think you’d better go now.”

      Harrison raised his hands in complete surrender, taking one step back, and then another. He had places to be, anyway. With a woman who was perhaps not as exciting as this one, but who, he was willing to bet, was a whole lot more accommodating.

      “Okay, but go easy on my friend.” He nodded toward the room he’d just vacated. “His head doesn’t grow back if you rip it off.”

      She glared at the doctor’s back as he walked quickly away. It was easy to be flippant, to espouse mercy and understanding if you were ignorant of the circumstances. If you hadn’t just seen a teenage boy destroyed, a life that was far too short snuffed out right before your eyes.

      Restless, Lydia couldn’t settle down, couldn’t keep from moving. If only she and Elliot had gotten there earlier.

      But the tip they’d received had been too late. It had sent them to Conroy’s house, where they had uncovered enough powder and detonating devices to blow up half the state. It was by chance that they’d stumbled across the intended target: the Crossroads Mall exhibit honoring Native American history.

      They’d rushed to the Crossroads, calling in local police, calling ahead to the mall’s security guards. To no avail. She couldn’t stop the bombing, couldn’t get the mall evacuated in time. She tried to console herself with the fact that things could have been worse. If this had happened at an earlier hour, the damage would have been far greater in terms of lives lost. And fortunately, it had happened in the middle of the week, which didn’t see as much foot traffic at the mall as a Friday or Saturday night.

      The bombing, according to a note sent to the local news station and received within the past hour, had been meant as a warning.

      For Lydia, even one life lost because of some crazed supremacy group’s idea of justice was one too many. And there had been a life lost. Not to mention the number of people injured and maimed. The ambulances had arrived en masse, and the victims being taken to three trauma hospitals in the area.

      Knowing that only Blair Memorial had an area set aside for prisoners, so the paramedics had brought them here.

      And now the doctor with the solemn face and gaunt, high cheekbones was trying to save the life of a man who had no regard for other lives.

      It was a hell of a strange world she lived in.

      Lydia leaned her forehead against the glass, absorbing the coolness, wishing her headache would go away.

      “I can take it from here, Lyd,” Elliot was saying behind her. “You’re beat. Why don’t you go home, get some rest?”

      She turned to the man who had been her partner from the first day she’d walked into the Santa Ana FBI building. At the time she’d felt she was being adopted rather than partnered. Elliot Peterson looked more like someone who should be behind a counter, selling toys, not a man who regularly went to target practice and had two guns strapped to his body for most of each day. He was ten years older than her, and acted as if he were double that. Elliot took on the role of the father she’d lost more than a dozen years ago. At times, that got in the way.

      He was always trying to make her job easier.

      Lydia smiled as she shook her head. She wasn’t about to go anywhere. “You’re the one with a wife and kids waiting for you. All I’ve got waiting for me is a television set.”

      “And whose fault is that?” It was no secret that he and his wife had tried to play matchmaker for her, to no avail. Loose, wide shoulders lifted in a half shrug. There was no denying that he wanted to get home himself.

      “Yeah, but…”

      There was no need for both of them to remain here. “How long since you and Janice had some quality time together?”

      Elliot pretended to consider the question. “Does the birthing room at the hospital count?”

      Lydia laughed. “No.”

      “Then I don’t remember.”

      She looked at him knowingly. “That’s what I thought. Go home, Elliot. Kiss your wife and hug your kids and tell them all to stay out of malls for a while.”

      The warning hit too close to home. His oldest daughter, Jamie, liked to hang out with her friends at the Crossroads on weekends. If this had been Saturday morning instead of Wednesday night…

      He didn’t want to go there. Suddenly ten paces beyond weary, Elliot decided to take Lydia up on her offer. “You sure?”

      This job could easily be turned over to someone in a lower position for now, but she wouldn’t feel right about leaving until she knew what condition the bomber was in.

      She started to gesture toward the closed doors behind her. Pain shot through her arm and she carefully lowered it, hoping Elliot hadn’t noticed. He could fuss more than a mother hen once he got going.

      She nodded toward the room. “As the good doctor pointed out, that guy’s not going anywhere tonight. I can handle it from here. If anything breaks, I can always page you.”

      Grateful for the reprieve, Elliot patted her shoulder. “Night or day.” He glanced through the window. The medical team was still going full steam. “From the looks of it, it might be a while. Want me to get you some coffee before I go, maybe find you something clean to put on?”

      She glanced down at her bloodied jacket. “My dry cleaner is not going to be happy about this. And, thanks, but I’ll find the coffee myself.” She didn’t like to be waited on. Besides, Elliot had put in just as full a day as she had. “You just go home to Janice before she starts thinking I have designs on you.”

      Looking back at his life, he sometimes thought he’d been born married. Janice had been his first sweetheart in junior high. “Not a chance. Janice knows there isn’t an unfaithful bone in my body.”

      That makes you one of the rare ones, Elliot, Lydia thought as she watched her partner walk down the long corridor. She vaguely wondered if there would ever be someone like that in her life, then dismissed the thought. She was married to her job, which was just the way she wanted it. No one to worry about her and no one to worry about when she put herself on the line. Clean and neat. She was too busy to be lonely.

      “You’d think a state-of-the-art hospital would keep coffee machines in plain sight,”

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