At Close Range

It took him under a minute to pull his ID and convince Cassie’s neighbor he was legit, but those seconds beat beneath Seth’s skin like the echo of a faltering heartbeat.

Finally, the guy lowered his shotgun. “Sorry. I just needed to be sure, what with Cassie being a cop and all.” He rubbed his temples as though he had a headache, but focused his slightly bleary eyes on Seth. “What’s wrong? Has something happened to her? Do you want me to go in with you?”

Untrained backup could be worse than no backup, so Seth shook his head. “No. Get inside with your family and lock up.”

Then Seth took two running steps and slammed into the door. Pain sang through his body, but the heavy wood held. He cursed and tried again, wishing this crap was as easy as it looked on TV.

The door gave on his third try, splintering around a sturdy dead bolt. He kicked it the rest of the way in, convinced now that there was something wrong. There was no way Cassie could have missed hearing that racket.

He took a step inside her place. And smelled gas.

Her half of the house was full of it.

“Out! Get out!” Adrenaline sizzled through Seth’s body. He raced back onto the porch and hammered on the neighbors’ door. “There’s a gas leak! Get your family out and warn the neighbors.”

Then he ran back inside Cassie’s home and swept the main room with his flashlight, barely noting the accents she’d added since his last visit, unexpectedly feminine touches of chintz and softness. “Cassie?”

No answer.

Knowing the gas leak was no accident, he turned for the kitchen, hoping it would be that simple. No such luck. The stove and oven were both electric.

Damn it. The gas was coming from the basement. The bastard must have rigged a furnace line to fill her side but not the adjoining half of the house.

Seth took a guess and yanked open a door off the kitchen, hoping she had basement access. He was rewarded with a flight of stairs stretching downward beyond the flashlight beam. He eased down, moving fast but testing each step for a tripwire or pressure pad.

The smell was less intense in the cellar, suggesting that the gas line had been looped into one of the forced hot air vents.

When Seth reached the bottom, he shined his light over the dusty space, picking out a neat stack of cardboard boxes, a discarded bicycle, a hot water heater, and finally the furnace.

He froze and cursed at the sight of a wire-laden device duct taped to the tank. As he watched, the red numbers of the digital display ticked from twenty-one to twenty.

Then nineteen.

He spun and ran for the stairs. No time. There was no time to disarm the device, even if he had the knowledge. Once that thing blew, the spark would follow the gas trail up into the house. He had to get Cassie out of there, fast.

Seventeen. Sixteen.

He pounded up the stairs to the kitchen while the numbers counted down in his head. His flashlight beam carved through the darkness ahead of him as he bolted up to the second floor and shined the light into a short hallway, a bathroom, a bedroom.

No Cassie.

Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen.

Damn it. Where was she?

He reversed direction and charged down the stairs, heart pounding in time with the seconds left on the digital timer.