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“Do not call me that!” I tried to scream, but the hand on my face tightened.
“A few more minutes, and this will all be over. Bring her to me, Hans. Save yourself.”
The man shoved me at Schmid hard enough for me to fall to my knees. He grabbed my hair and was pulling me to my feet when I heard two shots fired. There was a hard yank right before I looked up and saw Schmid fall.
“Get out! Get out!”I screamed, pulling myself to my feet.“The bomb!”I pushed Magnet back when he raced toward me.“Please! Get out of the house!”
He grabbed both my arms. “Listen to me! The bomb has been defused. It’s no longer active.”
“But there’s another man!”
“He’s dead.” Magnet put his gun in its holster and pulled me into his arms. “He’s dead,” he repeated.
“There wasn’t much doubt, but so is Schmid,” said Reaper, who’d raced around us.
“Are you sure about the bomb?”
“I wouldn’t be standing here, with my arms around you, if I wasn’t. While one of Macht’s men defused the one you saw, explosive detection canines were taken around the property. There are no others.” He walked me out of the bedroom. “Let’s return to the compound so the cleanup crew can get this taken care of. We’ll come back when they’re finished.”
“Wait. I can’t leave without this.” I wriggled from his arms and went around to the other side of the bed, gathering the things scattered on it. I thought Magnet would try to stop me, but he helped instead.
“There’s some blood splatter. Not much.” He picked up some of the framed photos and carried them out of the room while I put everything else back in the wooden box it had been stored in.
“Schön!”shouted Macht, coming around the corner and into the room. “Thank God you’re safe.” He looked down at the box in my hands. “Let me get that for you.”
“There’s more,” I said, picking up the other photos I’d dropped.
“What can I help with?” Flick asked.
I motioned to the throw on the back of the sofa. “My grandmother made that.” When I started to shake, she took the photos I held in my hands. “I’ll get these. You grab the afghan.”
“I need something to put these in. Anyone have evidence bags?” Magnet said from inside the kitchen where he’d gone to clean the blood from the frames.
“There are regular bags in one of the drawers,” I told him.
“Is there anything else you need to have with you tonight?” he asked, looking around.
“I don’t think so.”
“Let’s get out of here, then. We’ll come back tomorrow.”
I followed him down the steps and out to the SUV. “Schmid said I got too close. Do you think he means to what went down with Ehren and Dolan Baumgartner?” I asked once we were inside.
“I don’t think so. Poseidon and Oleander learned some things this afternoon that will shed light on what he said.”
“He told me he was a dead man. I don’t know what he meant.”
Magnet nodded. “I’m not sure I do, either. At least not entirely. However, what I do know is that it appears Schmid had ties to Godwin. Lots of them.”
I gasped. “What about Ehren?”
He shook his head. “She’s the one who saved your life, Prisca. All of our lives.”
21
MAGNET
That I kept my shit together at all was for Schön’s sake. Without Zeppelin, I wasn’t sure I would have. It was my fault that she’d been in danger at all. Not just her; I’d risked the lives of seven other people, who I considered my family. Even the ones I didn’t know well yet.