Page 35 of The Rough Ride (Sanctuary, Inc. #3)

She gave the steering wheel an affectionate love tap. The accessories in this car were brag-worthy. Like a sound system solid enough for a block party, remote start, and frigid air conditioning for Indian summer days like today.

Liz grabbed her purse, locked the car, and headed for the entrance, pausing to claim a stray cart.

She loaded up on diapers, wipes, two adorable blue outfits for Ella (because Nick had teased that Ella’s drawers looked like a bottle of Pepto Bismol blew up in there) and a rotisserie chicken.

Her stomach growled. The veggies and yogurt she’d eaten for lunch were long gone.

She stopped at the crosswalk, fished the key fob from her purse, and peered down the aisle for her car as she put on her sunglasses and looked again.

It was way out there. She leaned into the heavy cart filled with purchases and got moving.

Hmm . She’d only tried the remote start feature once at the dealership and then just never got into it.

Today’s weather offered a perfect day to give it a whirl and slide into a cool car.

But for the life of her, she couldn’t remember how close she had to be for the thing to work.

She tried the remote about halfway there.

Nothing. Every two or three cars, she pushed the remote again.

When she was ten cars out, the car finally blinked and engaged.

She pressed the button to open the trunk, and voila .

Why hadn’t she used this awesome feature before now?

A hiss danced in the air, and she glanced left and right before a vicious force tore her fingers from the cart and launched her airborne. She landed in a heap with a thud.

Somewhere in the distance, her grocery cart crashed, followed by an explosion and a blast of heat.

Voices screamed far away. Her head throbbed, and her ears roared.

What happened? She tried to open her eyes, but the ache, oh, the ache.

She couldn’t do it. She’d just lie there, breathe a few minutes.

But the incendiary heat burned. Liz had to move.

She forced her eyes open, insisting they blink.

Once, twice. A two-story inferno raged in front of her.

Move. Move, soldier. Survive. Another explosion and the heat rolled over her like a steamy, lead blanket.

She couldn’t lift a limb and curled in on herself.

Move. Now. Move.

Liz rolled, sliding down the front of the car where she’d landed.

She covered her head with her hands and focused forward.

She combat-crawled and slithered under a large vehicle, tearing her blazer half off.

Blast it all, her brain was lost in a thick fog.

But it was cooler here. She squeezed her eyes shut to think.

Her only rational thought repeated several times. Call Nick.

People were running past her and screaming but she couldn’t move. She remembered the phone in her pants pocket and fumbled for it. The space was tight. Good. Tight was safe. She turned her face to the side and tapped the screen, but zoned out as it rang.

“I was just thinking about you, gorgeous. Did you leave work yet?”

Liz lifted her head and hit it on something metal. Her mouth was so dry and her tongue was thick, like a wad of gauze. She spit out a pebble and tried to wet her lips. “Nick. Big fire. Help me.” Her voice sounded like a distant echo in her head.

“What? Where are you? Liz? Dammit! Talk to me, honey.”

The line went dead.

Nick screeched onto the shoulder of the DC beltway and threw his truck into park. He grabbed his phone and checked Liz’s location. He’d set their phones on location sharing . She could call him an asshole later.

“Come on, come on…hurry up.” He shook the damn thing. Finally, the circle with her initial came into view. He enlarged the screen several times until it showed she was either in or somewhere near the Big4Less store. He was ten minutes away, but he could make it in five.

He slapped his left blinker on, churned up the stones getting off the shoulder, and re-entered traffic, calling Liz’s cell every thirty seconds. Each time it went straight to voicemail .

He cautiously inched through a red light when two fire trucks and a police car whizzed past him and turned onto the road for the store. His adrenaline slammed into overdrive at the sight of several vehicles on fire. He parked rows away from the inferno and jumped out of his truck.

The phone locator didn’t update fast enough to pinpoint exactly where Liz was, and he jogged the aisles calling her name until a fireman grabbed him by the shoulder.

“You’re not allowed to be in here right now. We’re roping off the scene. Get outside the tape for your own safety, buddy.”

“My girlfriend owns one of those cars. She called me for help. I’ve got to find her,” Nick yelled above the cacophony of noise.

“She called you after the explosion?”

“She needed help.”

“I gotta tell you, buddy—no one inside those vehicles is alive. You sure she called you after?”

“I’m sure.” His heartbeat stuttered. Unless she couldn’t get out. His next thought knocked the wind out of him. He tapped a phone number and waited for someone to answer. “Arlene? Are you and Ella together?”

“Yes, I’m feeding her supper right now. What’s all that noise? You alright?”

“I’m fine. Call you later.” He hung up, slumping against a van. Ella was safe.

The fireman dropped his gear and got on his knees, looking under vehicles.

“I can’t stay. Gotta unload hoses, but if she’s out here, she may have taken cover on the ground somewhere.

Start looking under the vehicles, and shit; don’t get any closer.

There’s gas everywhere. If you find her?

There are ambulances on the way. Get her to one of them pronto. ”

Nick got on all fours and scanned the ground. He ran five or six car lengths and did it again, screaming Liz’s name the entire time. She had to be here, somewhere. Five minutes later, Nick saw something under a pickup truck and sprinted in that direction.

He got on his knees and looked under the GMC truck. There she was—face down and still.

“Liz, babe. Can you hear me?” He lowered his body, stuck his head under, and slid his hand over hers. It was cold. “Liz. I’m here. Are you hurt?”

She turned her head toward him. Her eyes were glazed and wild; a row of scratches etched her cheek. She licked her lips.

“I told them not to send Jazz on the mission with us, but they did anyway.”

Jazz? Oh yeah, the guy who’d died when she’d lost her foot. He only knew the bits and pieces he’d heard afterward. She’d never told him any details.

“I gotta get you out of here, babe. We can talk about it once you’re safe.”

“Not yet. Incoming enemy fire. Stand down, soldier.”

He pulled his head out from under the truck and looked down the row of cars.

The fact that there were no firemen in their aisle was a good sign.

He could coax her out. It would take him a few minutes, but he didn’t want to drag her out with brute force in case she was injured.

He poked his head under again and laced his fingers through hers.

“Are you injured, honey?” He tried to slip a shoulder under the truck but didn’t fit. At least the sirens had stopped, and he could hear her.

“Jazz was always twitching. Tapping that foot. Bucking the brass. No discipline. I ordered him to follow behind and he came up on my side.” She heaved a huge breath. “He stepped on the mine.”

Nick muttered a curse. She was reliving every detail of that evil day under this truck and there wasn’t a fucking thing he could do about it. He stretched his arm and stroked her hair. “I’m here, babe. It’ll be okay.”

She lifted her head a little. “Wasn’t okay. I heard the click, raised my arm. Everybody stopped, scared to breathe. Pete radioed from the Humvee for bomb detail. Bomb guys are bad asses. They could’ve figured a way out.”

He stretched his neck to get a little closer to her. They locked eyes. “You’re right. Those bomb guys rock.”

Her lips smoothed into a grim line. “Jazz wouldn’t stay still. A few minutes later, he cracked a joke, smiled goofy at me, and shrugged his shoulders. He lifted his foot on purpose.” Tears cascaded off the end of her nose as she sobbed.

Nick’s stomach clenched. So, it was a suicide with intent to kill the others. He’d heard rumors, but anybody connected with that day had accepted reassignments elsewhere.

“Liz, I’m so sorry, babe. You’re the fiercest person I know. I love you.” He stroked her hair.

She lifted her head. “It was dark and so cold. If it wasn’t for Mac and that bomb dog, I wouldn’t be here.

I don’t remember much after that dog licked my face and Mac gave me morphine.

Sometimes, I dream about that dog. I don’t think they’re trained to lick a wounded soldier, but it whined and licked me that night as if I were its favorite human. ”

“Why were you even there, Liz? You were an analyst. Your brains were needed elsewhere.”

“I had a gut feeling the intel was bad. I’m the only one who’d met the bad guy, so I’d recognize his face and mannerisms. I had to make sure before they put a missile in his basement. I insisted.”

He tugged her hand and kissed a finger. “Do you know where you are?”

She gave a nod. “Big4Less store.”

“Did you buy anything?”

“Yup. Diapers. Blue and chicken.”

“Can you tell if you’re injured, honey?”

“Head hurts, but I think I’m okay.” She swiped the tears off her cheek with the back of her hand. “I really hate it when shit blows up.”

“You crawled under a pickup truck. I’ll come to your side and help you shimmy out.”

“Still scared.”

“I know.” His heart twisted with compassion, and he shook his head. “But I promise to hold you close.”

“Okay.” She rested her face on her hand for a minute and started to move.

He moved to her side. “That’s it, just a little at a time, brace your foot on the tire and push off. That’s my girl.” Once half of her body was out, he tugged, pulling her into his arms and kissing her. “You’re out. I’ll stand and then pull you up, okay?” She trembled in his arms.

“Yeah. I think I’m okay. Just my head hurts.”

When they were both standing, he wrapped his arms around her. “There’s an ambulance a ways down in the parking lot. I’m going to carry you there, make sure you’re okay.”

“No. I can walk; hold onto me. Where’s my car?”

They took a couple steps together and walked slowly toward the ambulance.

“Your car is roasted, babe. ”

“Damn,” she patted his chest with one hand, “I loved that car.”

“I know you did. You’ll get a new one.”

She stopped and looked across the aisles at the burned cars. “It was the first time I used the remote start since the dealership. Whatever happened tossed me over on this side. I remember crawling until I found something I could fit under.”

Nick took a whiff. No bomb material. He could identify that odor from ordnance training.

Aside from the pungent burnt stench of auto parts in the air was the underlying scent of gasoline, lots of it.

But four burned-up cars provided an awful lot of gasoline to ignite the next vehicle.

He’d leave it to the professionals to determine the cause, but the situation rubbed him wrong.

They reached the ambulance, where the medics wasted no time checking Liz out. She had a nasty bump on her head and some bruising, but aside from that, they cleared her, leaving a trip to the hospital for full evaluation up to her.

The police and fire marshal both conducted short interviews while Liz sat in the ambulance nursing a bottle of water.

Once they had the information they needed, she looked at Nick and pleaded, “I want to go home and hold Ella and hug my mom. I want a hot bath and a bowl of soup. Take me home?”

“You betcha. Let me drive my truck over and pick you up.”

As he jogged to his truck he thanked his lucky stars that the senator had decided to stay in Texas another week because he had no intention of letting Liz and Ella out of his sight until he knew exactly what had happened to her car.