Page 33 of Shane
“What is it?!” Alex barked like the Rottweiler he could be.
Everlee stopped whining and babbling. She was repeating herself anyway. But only because three firemen had materialized through the smoke billowing from Bremmer’s scorched front entry. Something lay on the gurney between them. Something long and black and charred and…
“Looks like a body,” she answered. Everlee blinked, shocked she’d said that last thought out loud. “Boss…” Her heart fluttered like it had that day she’d ended Finch. Too! Much! And too hard! “The firemen just exited Bremmer’s house. Looks like they found a body inside,” she answered, her voice still weak with shock. “Someone was inside Bremmer’s house when it blew, Boss. Might be h-her.”
Might not be…
Probably wasn’t, knowing Bremmer.
But Everlee couldn’t keep the quiver out of her voice.
“She blew herself up?” Alex asked, his tone calmer now. Gentler. Which meant he recognized the shock in her tone, damn it. Everlee hated sounding wimpy, especially to her boss.
“Not sure. I hope not… I mean, I doubt it.” Everlee had already jumped past the conclusion that the body was Bremmer to the very real probability that it was another innocent victim. “I think she planned this, just like she’s planned everything else. Bremmer’s been one step ahead of the FBI all along, and now she’s ahead of us. She knows she’s a wanted fugitive. She set a trap in this house and waited for someone stupid enough to come looking for her. For us. For someone to knock on her front door. God, what if that had been a kid? A paperboy or someone lost or—?”
“How bad’s Shane hurt?” Alex interrupted evenly.
With the rolled pack of Shane’s clothes under her arm, Everlee leaned to one side to see past the line of firemen manning the hoses and into the street where the EMTs attended Shane. “He caught the worst of it, but he isn’t too badly burned. Just a little scorched, you know. We split up. I was going around the house, you know, while he took the front. You know, in case Bremmer ran.” Everlee wanted to kick herself for her repeated use of‘you know’. But she was frazzled, and her mind was jumping all over the place. Every time it landed, it landed on the very real possibility that she was responsible for whatever happened to Shane. That she could’ve gotten him killed. “After the house exploded, I found him on his back in the middle of the street. Whatever she used blew him off her front porch, you know?”Damn, I can’t stop saying it.“I thought he was dead.”You know?!
She lowered her gaze to the ground and bit her lip. Her ADHD was killing her. There was no going back from this. Everlee would never forgive herself for the fact that Shane had nearly died tonight.
“Is he conscious? Can I talk to him?”
“Not right now. He’s a little spacey and the front of his shirt’s g-g-gone.”And I can’t stop stuttering!“But he was signing plenty when the EMTs took over and m-made him lie down.”
“Signing?”
“His ears, you know? He can’t hear, so yeah…” Might never hear again as hard as he’d hit his head. Everlee swallowed her guilt down one more time. “We’ve been communicating by ASL. American S-s-sign Language.”
“Son of a bitch!” Alex’s relief was tangible over the phone. Harsh, but sincere. That helped.
“This is my fault, Boss. I sh-should’ve taken the front door. We shouldn’t have a-approached until we did more recon. I shouldn’t have—”
“Stop.”
Everlee shut up despite the hissing command from Virginia, or maybe because of it. Her gaze dropped to her boots. For the first time in a long damned time, she was submissive and scared Shane was now damaged for life. Wouldn’t that suck? His first TEAM op and he’d never be able to hear again? He’d spent years in the Corps and had come home safe, but one day with her, and she’d gotten him injured. Her eyes teared up again. Damn all this smoke!
“There’s no sense jumping to conclusions, Everlee,” Alex said quietly. “Shane’s a big guy, a lot bigger than you. He’s built stronger and sturdier.”Yeah, that’s what he said.“And I’m sure he’s thinking he’s glad he took the hit instead of you. Go see what the medics say. Find out what they think about his condition before you fall apart.”
She nodded, listening to the kinder side of her boss. Alex was the first one in a fight, and he could be brutal when brutality was needed. But he had a tender side as wide as the ocean and twice as deep. Which was the real reason she’d crushed on him all these months. Once—just once!—it’d be nice to have a gentle man, a no-kidding thoughtful male, in her corner. A guy who would actually put her first once in a while, like Alex did with Kelsey all the time. Just because. Not because he wanted something out of her, like breakfast or dinner or sex or mothering or… or whatever. But just because he liked her as a person, because he actually saw her. The real her.
“Are you still with me?”
“Yes,” she murmured, then swallowed again, trying to work up enough spit to keep talking. “I can see them from here. They’re still working on Shane. He’s not bleeding, but he’s shaken up, and they’ve already inserted an IV in his arm, and I… I’m so, so sorry.”
“Stop blaming yourself,” Alex told her with what sounded a lot like understanding. “Shit happens, and you of all people know that. Trust Shane. Trust the medics. Go check on him, then call me back if he needs to be hospitalized. He’s your first priority. Get him sorted, then find out for sure who that dead body is. Talk to Bremmer’s neighbors. Find someone who’s spoken with her face-to-face. You’ve got to find her before someone else does.”
That wasn’t what Everlee expected to hear. She cocked her head at the worry in his tone. Not nasty anger or suspicion, just worry. For a killer like Tuesday Bremmer? Her moment of self-pity faded into righteous wrath. “Why should I? Who cares who finds her first, us or the FBI? As long as someone stops her murder spree, what does it matter?”
“Because I said so,” Alex growled. And there he was, the volatile man she’d grown to love—in a purely platonic way. But then he coughed and backed off all that male arrogance with a quiet, “Son of a bitch. Belay that last order. Didn’t mean it the way it sounded. You’re not an idiot, Ev. I trust you and Shane. I’ve just got a bad feeling about this entire mission.”
“Go on,” she encouraged. It was rare anyone got the upper hand over Alex. Had the FBI?
“Think about it. Why send a highly skilled team like ours into a state with more than one FBI field office? Hell, there’s one in Dallas.”
She liked that Alex said‘team like ours’instead of just‘his.’“Go on.”
“Why hire private contractors to locate anyone in the first place? What’s so difficult about finding a murder suspect—if Ms. Bremmer is in fact the killer everyone thinks she is—that the Bureau can’t do it themselves? They’ve got some of the best agents in the country. Thousands more than I do. And they knew precisely where she was.”