Adverse Possession (The Anna Albertini Files #3) - Rebecca Zanetti Page 0,94

Saber caught eye of me and hustled over. “You okay?”

“Yes.” I was unable to look away from the flames. The entire house was engulfed, and two of the trees out front lit on fire. The firetruck arrived, and the fighters went to work, trying to protect the home/businesses on either side of the rapidly falling building. “It happened so fast.”

“It always does,” Saber said, feeling solid next to me.

“Those two Barensky men were inside dead,” I whispered.

Saber nodded. “The other businesses were closed and the rest of our team was out, thank goodness.” His phone buzzed and he answered it. “Hi, Kurt. Just making sure you weren’t back at the office. Barensky got to it.” He listened for a few seconds. “Yeah. We’re all safe. Good luck in LA.” He ended the call.

Aiden made his way back to us with Drag at his side. “Well, that answers that,” Aiden said.

“What?” I asked.

“Barensky knows we’re ATF now for sure,” Aiden said.

We all watched as the building burned and then fell.

Chapter 35

It was almost midnight by the time we made it back to Aiden’s place after being interviewed repeatedly, first by the local police, then the state police, and finally the FBI. Then Aiden had taken back roads and backtracked before driving to his cabin. He and Saber had also run some weird wand thing over the entire truck before we’d left Spokane, checking for explosives as well as trackers. Apparently, the truck was clean.

He pulled into his garage and shut the door with the automatic button.

“I still think you should have a doctor look at your back,” I said for the fourth time.

“I’m fine,” he said, also for the fourth time. “It feels like a burn but not anything to worry about. This wasn’t my first explosion, Angel.”

I slipped out of his truck. My head hurt as badly as my ribs, but I was worried about him. “I want to see your back.”

We walked into the kitchen and Aiden moved to open the front door, where Saber, Drag, and Chelli waited with bags of chips and soda. They also held computer equipment as well as a bag of what I guessed were weapons.

“The rest of the team will be here in about ten minutes,” Chelli offered, moving inside. Her blonde hair was up, and a little soot dotted her chin.

The entire team had shown up at the fire to watch it burn, and then they’d all gone close to examine what remained when it had been safe enough to do so. I’d waited patiently with a police officer, as I didn’t know anything about explosives and really didn’t need to see what the fire had done to the two dead men. The discussion of ‘tissue samples’ between Saber and Drag when they’d returned had been enough to make me want to vomit.

Thank goodness nobody but the two dead men had been in the building when it blew.

“The control room is in there now,” Aiden said, pointing to the room that had his case board set up. “I’ll be a few minutes.” Then he took my hand and led me into the master bedroom and shut the door. “How’s your head?”

I gaped at him. In the light, burn marks showed on his neck. “I’m fine. Take off your shirt.” Without waiting for his agreement, I grasped the bottom of his shirt and started to pull. He ducked his head and let me remove it. “Wow.” There were light burns down his arm, and when he turned around, there were burns on his back. Not bad, but they looked painful from the raw bruising that accompanied the burns. “That has to hurt,” I murmured, gently touching the skin above the burn.

He shrugged and the bruises all danced. “A piece of wood landed on my back. Nothing is broken, and I just have a couple of bruises.” Turning around, he set his hands over my shoulders. “How’s your head? I tried to keep you from hitting it on the ground. You already had a concussion.”

“I have a little headache,” I admitted. Then soot rose from my shirt and I sneezed, turning away. Ouch. That hurt my head even more. “We might need a vacation.”

“Oh, we definitely need a vacation.” He took my hand and we moved into the bathroom, where he leaned into the shower and flicked on the water. “Let’s get all of this soot off of us, but I’ll need to use cold water on my back when we’re done with your