Hunted by Karen Robards Page A

extracted a cell phone and set of car keys, which he thrust into his pants pocket. Then he ran his hand beneath the lightweight jacket and discovered a flak vest along with a mesh belt and holster holding one very weird weapon. One that he didn’t have time to take more than a cursory glance at as he pulled it out.
    “Fine?” Her voice was sharp. “Where are they?”
    “Look, I’m done answering questions. Quit asking.”
    “Screw that. Where are they?”
    He ignored her question in favor of asking one of his own. “What’s this?”
    He held it up for her to see. In the dark, the weird weapon looked like a DustBuster. Some kind of oversized stun gun, maybe? Whatever it was, he was 99.9 percent sure it wasn’t deadly. Given that, at the moment he had scarier things to worry about than whatever the hell the thing was.
    “Radar gun.” Her grim reply came as Reed tucked the weapon into his jacket pocket. He didn’t believe her and didn’t have time to care, mentally labeling it a mystery to be explored later. Then he pulled the chest plate on her body armor out of the way and unzipped the flak jacket to make certain that the only things beneath it were soft curves of the natural kind. The shirt she was wearing was definitely not cop issue. From his vantage point behind her he couldn’t really see it, but the top felt satiny smooth and sexy as all hell and her skirt, he discovered as he ran his hand down her thigh and encountered silky bare skin, was tight and short. He was just registering that she was still as smokin’ hot as he remembered, but definitely all grown up now, when Holly said, “Cops out there were saying you have this place all rigged up with a bunch of bombs. Where’d you go getting any bombs?”
    Reed shot Holly a shut - up look—useless with the blindfold—and didn’t answer.
    “You don’t have a dead man’s switch,” Caroline said slowly, and he knew that his nonanswer had resonated with her as she asked, “Do you even have a bomb?”
    “You saw that big black backpack the mayor was holding, didn’t you? What do you think was in it?” he countered, not yet ready to admit the truth even though she was now his prisoner and there wasn’t a thing in the world she could do with the knowledge. Somewhat to his surprise, he had discovered that he wasn’t a big fan of death, especially when it came pointing its fickle finger straight at him. And death was in the cards for both him and Holly tonight if he screwed this up.
    For Ant, too, maybe. Jesus, would they really murder a thirteen-year-old boy? Reed had barely finished asking himself the question before he remembered the kid with the bullet hole between his eyes in the cemetery and had his answer: hell, yes, they would.
    His gut tightened. His anxiety level rose and he felt his heart accelerate in response. He had to work to dial it back down.
    “You don’t, do you?” She sounded angry. “You don’t have a bomb. What were you thinking ? Do you realize they’re going to kill you ?”
    “Not if I can help it,” Reed replied, answering her second question because it was easier than the first, and completed his pat down by sliding his palm around the back of her trim waist as Holly exclaimed on a note of horror, “You were faking it about the damned bombs? How the hell are we gonna get out of here if there are no damned bombs?”
    “You’re not going to get out of here,” Caroline said. Angry as she sounded, Reed could feel some of the tension leaving her body. He translated that to mean that she was no longer quite as afraid of him as she had been.
    Holly groaned. “This blows, Dick. This really blows.”
    “How about you just shut up and stand there for a minute while I finish up here?” Reed said to Holly. He could hear the edge in his own voice, but he was absolutely not in the mood for Holly’s shit.
    Holly was undeterred. “You seen how many cops are out there? There’s a fucking army. What’ve you got, one gun?