Jenna stared at him and shrugged. The solution seemed easy enough. “Then add our phone numbers to the one on his collar. We’ll come get him if anything ever happens to you.”
“I’m not shooting him if you’re stupid enough to get killed.” Kane turned in his seat to look at him. “No way.”
“Once he knows I’m gone, Jo can take over.” Carter looked away. “We’ve been working with her.” He sighed. “I figured, since I’m working in your Godforsaken neck of the woods, I need a contingency plan.”
Dumbfounded, Jenna swallowed hard and stared at Jo. “What are you two mixed up in, Jo?”
“We’ll explain later.” Jo frowned. “Carter found something in the fire out of Louan. It’s complicated.”
After getting their guests and dogs settled, Jenna made a pot of coffee and waited for Carter and Kane to haul in laptops and a couple of evidence boxes from the truck. When they’d finally sat around the kitchen table, Jenna looked from one strained expression to another. “Okay, I know seeing the results of the victims of a fire is harrowing but I’m sure this isn’t the reason you two are being so evasive. Why do you need us to assist you? You could call in any number of FBI agents from other field offices.”
“Well, unless it’s involving the abduction of a child under the age of twelve, we’re expected to manage alone. It’s not usual to have cases like you have in Black Rock Falls all over the west.” Jo flicked a glance at Carter. “We need your help but we’ve come up with a security issue.”
“It goes way up to the top.” Carter leaned on the table and stared straight at Kane.
“Here we go.” Kane huffed out a snort of contempt and leaned back in his chair staring at the ceiling for a beat before lowering his gaze. “Security issue huh?” He gave Jenna a meaningful stare and then glared at Carter. “Do you figure us backwoods hicks can’t keep a secret?”
Jenna held up a hand. Of course, they had no idea, Kane had a higher security clearance than anyone in the room. What had a fire in Louan to do with national security? “Okay calm down, Dave.” She glared at Carter. “If you can’t trust us why come here in the first place? Did you just want a bed for the night?”
“No, Jenna.” Carter looked at her and smiled. “We’d sleep in the cells before we pulled a stunt like that.” He glanced at Jo. “Let’s cut to the chase. We trust Shane Wolfe. I gather you know he is ex-military and still has contacts. He insisted that we can trust you implicitly but what I’m about to tell you, never leaves this room.”
Biting back the need to tell Jo and Carter the truth about her and Kane, she nodded. “That’s a given in any case we investigate. Every member of my team is fully aware of keeping the details of a crime secret. Nothing ever leaves my office or here without my permission.”
“Okay.” Carter went to a sealed plastic box and pulled out an evidence bag. “When I did a search of the scene with Zorro, he found these fragments of the device used to detonate the C-4.” He placed the plastic bag on the table and Kane took it and examined it closely. “Do you know about explosives?”
“Yeah, it just happens that I do.” Kane lifted his gaze to Carter. “This isn’t from the primary explosive charge, it’s from a secondary charge.”
“Well, lookee here, a deputy with skills in explosives. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.” Carter grinned at him. “Worked in the mines before you became a deputy, huh?”
“Nah, marines.” Kane narrowed his eyes. “I just chose an easier life after my tour of duty. I’d had enough killing.”
Jenna looked from one to the other waiting for someone to throw the first punch. “Okay, can we get on with it? It will be midnight before Carter explains why this device is so darn important.”
“Yes, get on with it, Carter.” Jo raised her eyebrows at Jenna. “I’ll pull up the files, so he can explain.” She went to work on her laptop.
“Sure.” Carter took the evidence bag from Kane. “This is what you’d typically find in a cellphone used to detonate plastic explosives. When the phone rings, it closes a circuit and boom.” He pointed to the blackened remains of a cellphone. “The wiring in this phone is the same as we found in three explosions that occurred in DC some years ago. See the three dots of solder with the strikethrough, it’s unique, and a trademark of the creator. Two resulted in explosions and housefires. He hit the residences of a lawyer and a social worker, but the last one was different. He used the same type of device in a car bomb and the explosion resulted in the death of a high-ranking federal agent and his wife. We found nothing to link the crimes apart from the detonator.” He waved a hand at Jo. “This was the aftermath. I’ve just forwarded the crime scene files to both of you. They are classified as top-secret and the names of the victims are withheld but you’ll need the files for background on the bomber. The explosion in the vehicle was set to specifically kill the occupants, not to ignite the car—there was a small fire but it was extinguished immediately by a passerby. This type of explosive device takes skill and opportunity. It was set inside the vehicle and the agent survived the blast but unfortunately, died on the way to the hospital.”
An ice-cold chill sped down Jenna’s spine as Jo turned around the screen to display images of a wrecked car with a close-up shot of the body of a beautiful blonde-haired woman, her eyes open and staring in death. She lifted her gaze to Kane. His face had drained of color as his attention fixed on the screen. Panic gripped Jenna and her stomach threatened to empty. The image had to be of Annie; Kane had just been confronted with images of his dead wife. She grasped the laptop and turned it around to face her but Kane had turned to stone, his eyes locked on the space where the laptop had been.
“Okay enough of the gory details.” Jenna closed the lid. “You mean to tell me the FBI haven’t caught this guy in how many years?”
At that moment, Duke, who’d been sitting with his head on Kane’s lap, howled and bolted to the front door. Jenna stared at Kane. He didn’t meet her gaze and stood, scraping back his chair, and then headed for the door without a word. Smothering the need to run after him, she cleared her throat. “I think Duke needs to pee.”
“Ah, getting back to the case.” Jo glanced at Kane’s retreating back and then to Jenna. “We thought we’d caught the bomber, he claimed responsibility on his media pages and said he was with a terrorist cell.”
Jenna frowned. “So where is he now? Could he be training others to make similar devices?”
“No.” Jo reached for her coffee and sipped. “We pinned him down in a shopping mall and he went down in a hail of bullets after threatening to detonate the vest he was wearing.” She sighed. “Nothing has happened since and then this device shows up in a small town hundreds of miles from its origin.” She looked over the rim of her cup at Jenna. “This means we overlooked a possible accomplice and a serious threat is still out there.”
“We have the basic information but there has to be something that sets these victims apart. Something made the bomber hit them, on paper they’re as clean as freshly laundered sheets.” Carter tucked the device back inside the evidence box. “What if the vic was in witness protection? We have a ton of people out there, who need to stay dead. If there’s been a leak and this vigilante is hunting down key people or witnesses, we need to stop him.”