Echoes of Danger

“Step aside, ma’am,” a young fireman said. “We’ll find your friend, but you can’t go in there.”

Shocked, Dana could only nod. She gripped Stephen so hard, he cried out again. Easing up a little, she held him close, her eyes searching the crowd. Maybe Tony had gotten out, too.

Please, God, let him be okay.

Then she spotted the pizza delivery boy in the crowd. He raked a hand through his bob of a haircut, then leaned back nonchalantly on the fender of her parked truck. He gave her the same serene grin she remembered from—

“From Emma’s store,” she said in a shaky whisper. The other customer. The one who’d run out when the storm had hit.

One of Caryn Roark’s boys.

A chill careened down Dana’s back. They not only knew where she was; they had planted a bomb just for her.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” she whispered to the horrid scene in front of her. “I’m so sorry.”

With that she waited, watching the grinning boy as she talked quietly to Stephen. “Listen, sport. We’re going to have to get away from here, because, well, some bad people are after us and we’ve got to find a safe place.”

“Mean people?” He sniffed and looked up at her, his body rocking back and forth in shock.

She nodded, her eyes watching the teenager across the way. She couldn’t lie to Stephen, and she couldn’t do anything more for Tony. They had to run, to get away, and she needed Stephen to understand the urgency of their situation. “We’ve got to sneak away, somewhere where they can’t find us.”

“What about Tony? Don’t leave Tony, Dana.”

She swallowed hard, her hand tightening on her brother’s shoulder. Stephen wasn’t supposed to be in such situations. He wasn’t supposed to be removed from his daily routines. And without his medication, he’d soon be bouncing off the walls. If she couldn’t handle all of this, how in the world would her little brother? “I don’t know about Tony,” she admitted. “I hope he got out.”

“Do we have to leave now?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so. We can’t take the truck, but don’t you worry. I’ll take care of you, I promise.”

She tugged him close, her eyes on the teenager standing in the crowd, watching her every move. Her gun was in the truck. “Here’s what we’re gonna do, Stevie.” She directed him around, away from the bomb scene. “We’re going to start running. We’re gonna run faster than we ever have. I want you to concentrate, like you do when you’re in track, or playing football. I want you to run as fast as you can, but don’t leave me. Don’t let go of my hand, okay. We have to stay together, no matter what. Okay?”

“Okay. Good thing I’ve got on my Ruby Runners. Yeah, Ruby Runners are fast.”

Thinking of Brendan Donovan, Dana nodded. “Yeah, let’s just hope they live up to their name.”

And so they ran, following the yellow ribbon of the street-lights, following the dirty gray-black ribbon of the sidewalks. They turned a corner that circled to the back of the apartment complex. She didn’t know where they were going, but she had to get away from that pimply-faced teenager with the stringy brown hair and the vacant eyes.

“Did you find her?” Caryn Roark asked into the slim, silver phone at her ear.

“Yes and no,” came the shaky reply. “We found her and we tried to scare her.”

“That doesn’t sound promising,” Caryn replied into the phone, the rage inside her simmering in a calm facade of control. “What happened?”

“We followed her from the sheriff’s house, all the way into Kansas City. She went to an apartment downtown. We monitored the apartment and we were able to get into the electronics system. We sent your messages via e-mail, hoping she’d leave and we could nab her outside. But she didn’t leave. Until a few minutes ago.”

“Where is she now?”

“Uh, we don’t know. The bomb—”

“You set off a bomb? You idiot, you could have killed them both. I need them alive and shaken, not dead and completely stiff. How else will I find what I need?”

“We were only trying to scare her out of the building, but it went off and…Derrick made it too powerful…and the building blew up. She got away in all the confusion and now we’ve lost her.”

Caryn glanced around the stark white of her office. Everywhere she looked chrome and glass reflected her image back at her. Forcing a serene look back to her face—she didn’t need extra wrinkles over this bit of trouble—she said into the phone, “You’d better find Dana Barlow and that stupid brother of hers. Do you understand me? Bring them to me alive. No more shooting or bombs, or you will be sorry you ever failed me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Caryn hung up the phone, then placed her fingers together. Admiring the smooth creamy tone of her perfectly manicured fingernails, she sat down in the white leather chair behind her desk, then glanced at the clock. “Almost time for late prayers. I’d better calm myself down.”

After all, it wouldn’t do to upset the children unnecessarily. No, that wouldn’t do at all.

Dana looked over her shoulder, thinking they’d outsmarted the smirking youth who’d been caught in the sway of the crowd gathering to view the bombing sight. She didn’t see anyone behind them.

“Ahhh!”

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.”