Colleen Coble (17 page)

“Let’s eat here. I have a yen for the Black Pelican.”

He rose and moved toward the door. “I think I have a banana in my jacket to hold you over.”

She grabbed her discarded clothing and accepted the hand he
offered her. “I’ll take it.” He helped her down onto the pavement. The runway had emptied out as they walked toward the building. “Good thing my car is still here.”

She glanced at her watch. It was after seven. They’d be lucky to eat by eight. “I’ll take that banana now.” He grinned and dug it out of his pocket. She peeled it and offered him half. “Can’t have you keeling over on me. I’d never catch you.”

He didn’t turn it down, and they ate their snack in companionable silence. When they reached the building, the outside lights brightened the gloom. He grinned and reached toward her. His hand cupped her face, and he flicked his thumb over the corner of her mouth. “A fleck of banana.”

“I was saving that for a snack.” She pulled the hoodie from her head and shook out her wet hair. “I hope they seat us. I’m hardly dressed for a nice dinner out.”

“You look beautiful.”

The soft words turned her insides to mush. Where was this relationship going?

Curtis had parked the car under a light pole, and the bright light showed the Viper where he’d left it. The top was up.

Curtis frowned as he walked toward the vehicle. “I thought we left the top down.” Amy and Josh followed him.

Amy stepped to his side as they approached his car. “We did.”

From here, the car didn’t appear to have been damaged, but no one could have put the hood up without a key. Curtis punched the key fob and heard the doors unlock. He yanked open the door and glanced inside. His jacket still draped the console. After rooting through the console, he saw nothing missing.

He exited the car and stared at Amy and Josh. “How did the top get up? I don’t get it.”

Josh reached past him and touched the button that operated the power top. It whirred and began to go down. “There’s a key in the ignition.”

Curtis leaned past Josh and looked at the steering column. “That’s my extra set.” He pulled the key free from the slot and stared at it.

“Where did you leave it?” Amy asked.

“It hangs on a ring by the back door at my house.”

Amy pulled out her phone. “We need to make sure Edith and Raine are all right.”

She placed the call, and he tensed until he heard her speak to Edith. When it was clear from Amy’s end of the conversation that everything was all right, he stared at Josh. “What if someone has tampered with the car in other ways? It might not be safe to drive.”

Josh looked uneasy too, and he nodded. “You might be right. You should probably have a mechanic go over it and make sure the brakes are okay.”

Curtis stared at the car. “I don’t like this. Someone was in my house.” He pushed the button to pop his trunk. “I want to take a look around with my flashlight.” He pulled it out but didn’t slam the lid.

Amy ended the call. “Edith took Raine to the beach today. She was gone most of the day. The house wasn’t locked.”

“Most of us don’t lock anything,” Curtis said. “But someone had to know they were gone. And that I was on a mission and wasn’t likely to walk in on them. What was the point?”

None of them had the answer to that. Curtis stared at his car again. “It’s not like a good Samaritan decided to put the top up. It’s just plain weird.”

“You can have it towed to a mechanic,” Josh said.

“Let me just have a look.” Curtis dropped to the pavement and scooted under the car, then shone the flashlight around the undercarriage. “Brake lines are okay. Nothing unusual under here.” Then
the light landed on a small box. “Wait a minute.” He moved closer and studied the box. It shouldn’t be there. Wire ties strapped it to the exhaust pipe.

He shoved himself out from under the car, then jumped to his feet. “Run!” He grabbed Amy’s arm and propelled her away from the vehicle. “I think there’s a bomb under there!”

Josh leaped away from the car. Amy and Curtis raced after him. A
whump
sounded from the car, and a hot rush of air pushed him. Amy stumbled, and he seized her waist and half carried her away from the heat baking the pavement behind them. When he finally turned to look, he saw his car engulfed in flames.

“Holy moly,” Josh said softly.

Curtis couldn’t quite believe it. He stared at the flames. “Someone tried to kill me.”

Josh glanced at Amy. “Or both of you. Whoever did this had to know the two of you were together, so it’s hard to know who was the target.”

Several men ran from the metal hangar with fire extinguishers in their hands. Curtis pulled out his phone and placed a call to the authorities. The dispatcher promised to send some officers and the bomb squad. The hot fire began to bubble the blacktop. If they’d been in that car, they would both be dead now.

Her face pale, Amy hugged herself. “Thank the good Lord that you decided to look under the car, Curtis. You saved our lives.”

He didn’t like to think about what might have happened to her. “You okay?”

She nodded. “Just shaken. Do you believe me now? That someone killed Gina and Ben?”

“You think this is related?”

“Don’t you? It’s the only explanation. Someone knows we’re poking into their deaths, and whoever it is wants to stop us from getting to the bottom of it. But it makes me even more determined.”

He absorbed her words and glanced back at the burning car. The fire extinguishers weren’t making a dent in the ferocity of the flames. Whoever planted that bomb hadn’t been messing around.

Curtis was ready to do just about anything to prevent another attack on Amy.

E
IGHTEEN

A
my felt almost sick from hunger and fatigue by the time they settled at a table in Kitty Hawk. Their table at the Black Pelican faced the Atlantic, and watching the moonlight glimmer on the water eased the tension from her shoulders. It was almost nine, and the restaurant held only a few people.

Curtis glanced up over the top of the menu. “I promised you lobster, but I don’t see it on the menu. Anything look good? And are you sure you’re up to this? We could grab fast food and head for home.”

“I wouldn’t be able to sleep yet. I’m too keyed up. And hungry.” She studied the selection. “Ooh, look at the Wanchese Fisherman’s Risotto. ‘Scallops, shrimp, jumbo lump crabmeat, and bacon sautéed with sweet corn, tomatoes, and baby spinach folded into creamy roasted garlic risotto topped with a crispy sweet potato nest.’ I’ll take it.” She closed her menu and laid it aside.

The server placed a basket of hearth-baked pita bread and butter on the table. Curtis ordered for both of them and asked the server to bring an appetizer of seared ahi tuna.

She wrinkled her nose. “I still smell of smoke.”

“We’re lucky that’s all we endured. I thought Edith was going to have a heart attack when I called her.”

She squeezed lemon into her ice water. “We have to figure out what to do next.”

“I know. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

The intensity of his tone made her look up. He was staring at her with an expression that made her gulp. She was so unused to the dating scene. When should she tell him about her past? Now might be too soon. He could assume she thought there was more between them than he felt. It could scare him off.

She sipped her water. “About the investigation. Any ideas where to look next?”

“You said Tom mentioned he didn’t find Ben’s driver’s license. Did you ever look for it?”

She choked on her water. “I completely forgot about that! What on earth is wrong with me? I intended to search for it yesterday after church.”

“You went with me to talk to Gina’s neighbors,” he reminded her. “And we found that flash drive with all the money. So we had other leads to follow.”

She nodded. “If I can find his log-in information for that bank account, I could track where the money came from.”

“Would your father know?”

She shook her head. “Even if he knew, I don’t think he’d tell me. He wants me to forget all about this.”

“But someone tried to blow us up. He’d believe you now, wouldn’t he? And wouldn’t he want to know what really happened to his son?”

“I can tell him about it and see what he says.” She studied Curtis’s troubled face. “You know it wasn’t an accident now, don’t you?”

His jaw flexed. “I know someone tried to kill either you or me or both of us. I suspect it was both of us because we’re in this together. What would he have to gain with us dead?”

“Whatever was covered up remains that way if we’re dead.”

The server brought their ahi tuna, and Curtis speared a piece
of the rare tuna steak, then took a dab of wasabi and transferred them to his plate. “I’m going to go through Gina’s things and see if I can find her log-in and password for her account too. I still have her laptop. It’s stuck in my closet. The log-in and password might be on there.”

At least he had a little more power than she did. “Edith is the administrator of her estate, right?”

He nodded. “I see where you’re going. If we can’t find a way to get to it online, I can get Edith to see if she can get the account number identified so we know what bank it’s at. Then I can get access.”

“Right. Unfortunately, I don’t have that luxury. There’s no way my father will help me get into Ben’s. If I can’t find his information, I’m sunk.” She was
not
looking forward to another conversation with her father about this.

“Maybe it’s in his wallet, if you can find it. I’ll help you look if you’d like.”

“That would be great. I hate prying through his things.” She took a sip of water and tried not to notice the intent expression on his face. What was he thinking? She suspected it had nothing to do with bank accounts.

Curtis leaned forward, his gaze never leaving her face. “I want to get to know the real Amy behind that beautiful face. The one who cares for other people. The woman who risks her life for a stranger.”

She took another sip of water to cool the heat in her head. “I’m like most women, Curtis. There’s nothing special about me.”

He gave an emphatic shake of his head. “Oh, but there is. You jumped out of a helicopter into the ocean. Without training. Who else has done that? You kept your cool when my car exploded right in front of you. And what other sister would drop everything and try to track down what really happened to her brother? You left a thriving practice to come here, didn’t you?”

She looked down at her hands. “Yes.” Such praise was foreign to her. Her parents expected great things from their children. The only choice she’d had was to strive to make something worthwhile of her life, even if it was in a direction they disliked.

“So tell me how you got started with your career,” he said.

She took a helping of ahi tuna and wasabi. It might be the opportunity to tell him the truth, if she could get the courage. “It’s a boring story.”

He grinned. “I doubt that.”

“My parents wanted me to be a doctor. I went to Harvard, but while I was there, I met a nurse midwife and went on a delivery with her. When I held that new life, something shifted inside of me. I knew I wanted to do more than sit across a room and listen to patients list their symptoms. I wanted to be involved in turning life back into the miracle it truly is. I wanted to see women give birth in their homes instead of an antiseptic hospital. I wanted to have the entire family involved in greeting the new life.”

“You’re passionate about it.”

“I guess I am. Sorry if I sound like a zealot. I get a little carried away when I talk about it.”

“I like your commitment. It’s the same way I feel about my work. I could go to work in an office, but I wouldn’t be doing anything worthwhile with my life. What I do
matters
out there.”

She nodded. “People would die without you. Even today.”

“I think we’re two of a kind, Amy.”

He stretched his hand across the table, and she took it. When she’d decided to come here, she had no idea God might have some kind of turn in the road for her. She pulled her hand away and excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. She’d told Curtis the truth, but not all of it. Was she even ready for a relationship?