Page 28 of Hurry Up And Wait

I handed it over, letting him take charge. He nodded for me to follow and headed inside the temporary office. After holding the door open for me, he shot off a text to someone and set the box on the table.

“I have a guy coming. It’ll just be a minute.”

“Sure,” I nodded, leaning against the counter. “So, what happened to the building?”

“Uh…that would be Edu.”

“Edu?”

“He’s a guy who works here. He sort of…blew up the building as a distraction.”

“And…your boss is okay with that?”

“Comes with the territory,” he shrugged.

“I love this place,” Riley chimed in. “Reminds me of home.”

“Because we blew up things at home?” I asked.

“No, but…well, you know what I mean.”

I didn’t have a clue what she meant, but she was off in LaLa Land, daydreaming about something—probably firemen coming to rescue her if she was trapped in the burning building.

The door swung open and a huge man walked through. I took a step back, not out of fear, but so I could take in all of him in one shot. Holy crap. Did they grow men around here?

“Isla, this is IRIS. He’s our EOD expert.”

The man tipped his head at me. “Ma’am.”

I scoffed. “I’m not that old.”

He grinned at me, striding over to the table. “This is it?”

I nodded as he leaned over and inspected the packaging. “Well, you carried it this far. I would say it’s most likely not a bomb.”

“I would hope not. He’s a cop. It would look bad if he sent explosives through the mail.”

His sharp gaze met mine. “A cop?”

“Yeah, a detective.”

“That makes it a little more tricky.”

“Why?”

“Because he knows how to hide all the evidence. If he’s not stupid—which I’m assuming he’s not.”

“No, unfortunately.”

“No signs of blood.”

I swallowed hard. “Blood?”

“Oh yeah. People send body parts in the mail all the time. Again, he’s a cop, so he could have figured out how to do it the right way.”

“You want to take it to the lab?” Dash asked.

He nodded. “We should have it scanned. I won’t completely rule out a bomb until we run it through.”