Page 519 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“I know.” His eyes widened. “I mean, I know it’s in Uptown.”

Huh.

His hand cupped his neck. “This was supposed to play out differently.”

She was starting to get a strange vibe. “Like…how?”

His eyes widened again and he shook his head. “Nothing.”

“We have witnesses.” The voice came from Inspector Andrew Burke, as he walked up to them. He shot her a smile. “Eve Mulligan. I heard you’d moved over to our precinct.” He held out his hand.

She shook his hand, found it warm and solid. It seemed to calm her racing heart.

“Glad you’re here,” Burke said, and his gaze lifted past her, to the horror, his mouth a tight line. “C’mon. I found a woman who missed the bomb by two minutes. She’s a little shaky, but she might have something that gives us a start.”

Stone didn’t move. Just stared at Eve, and the look on his face sent an eerie tingle through her. “I forgot how beautiful you were—are.”

Eve just blinked at him.What?

And now he had Silas’s attention because he’d turned.

“Oh brother,” Burke said, and pulled him away.

But before he walked away, Stone stopped, looked up at the coffee shop, then back at Eve. “This time we’ll catch him.”

His words raised gooseflesh on her arms.

“What was that all about?” Silas said.

She watched him as he disappeared through the crowd with Inspector Burke. “I don’t know. But that was weird.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve heard stories about that guy. Trust me on this—the last thing you need is to get tangled up with him. You never know when you might end up in a book.”

Stone had emerged near the sidewalk, and kneeled down next to the distraught woman. He put his hand on her shoulder, his expression softening.

Maybe. But she had the distinct impression that there was more to Rembrandt Stone. And she wouldn’t mind figuring it out.

CHAPTER SIX

I’m trying to focus, really, I am. On the scene, taking in the crowd, on the activity of the firefighters. And especially on the witness statement of the middle-aged woman seated on the curb, her eyes rounded as she keeps glancing at the shell of the building, still sizzling, the smoke graying the sky. I’m listening to Burke ask her the pertinents—when, where, what did she see—but frankly, I’m reeling.

Everythingfeelsso real. The odor of creosote, the acrid pinch of burned metal and rubber. The wind picks up ash and blows it at our feet. The air is thick with smoke and the humidity of the firemen’s spray.

The crowd is still murmuring, some people crying. Firemen are shouting, and sirens rend the air.

We interviewed her before, Laura Stoltenberg, a pretty blonde who looks like she might shatter, so I put my hand on her shoulder to keep her together. I don’t offer platitudes, but Eve has told me how sometimes it’s good to connect with people, to show them kindness, and while I know that, it’s taken me a few years to let it out.

I give her shoulder a squeeze of comfort.

Burke glances at me when I do this, and frowns, but turns back to her.

“Do you remember the people in the shop, anyone who might have looked out of place? Or was acting suspiciously?”

Bombings are still rare in 1997. It’s been two years since the Oklahoma bombing, only a year since the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, and it’s the current thinking that bombings are personal, that the perpetrator has a political agenda against this particular store. But in the twenty years since, I know that they can be as unpredictable as the weather in Minnesota. People choosing random places to make a point.

Of course, this is fourteen years before 9/11 and that was hardly random, so maybe things haven’t changed that much. And, my memory of two more bombings of coffee shops reminds me that there is a connection we never solved.

Not the first time.