Explosive Attraction - By Lena Diaz Page 0,38

coming up in a crouch and aiming at the fleeing man. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!” The man didn’t stop. Rafe squeezed the trigger.

The man cried out and stumbled, clutching his shoulder. He lurched forward, and disappeared over a dune into the twisted sand oaks beyond.

Rafe cursed and threw his gun back on the sand to keep it dry. He tossed his phone beside the gun, then waded into the surf. When he reached Darby, she was trying to give Mindy CPR with the waves buffeting both of them. He plucked Mindy out of the surf and grabbed Darby’s hand.

He slogged through the water back to the beach. Dropping to his knees, he laid Mindy flat on her back. He put his ear next to her mouth, listening for breath sounds. Nothing. He pressed his finger to her neck, checking for a pulse. Again, nothing.

He put his hands in the center of her chest and started compressions.

Darby crumpled to the sand across from him, wringing her hands and staring in horror at her friend.

“Where’s the bomb?” Rafe asked. He pinched Mindy’s nose closed and blew two quick breaths into her lungs before starting chest compressions again. “Darby.” His voice was louder this time, to break through her panic. “Did he tell you where he hid the bomb?”

She blinked, staring up at him. Some of the wildness left her eyes. “There is no bomb. He was laughing about the police wasting their time trying to find one, even though there wasn’t one.”

No bomb.

Relief swept through him. Then he met Darby’s gaze. Her eyes were filled with hurt, and something else. Accusation? Hell. She probably blamed him for what had happened to Mindy. She probably thought he’d wasted his time evacuating the park.

“Grab my phone.” He motioned with his head toward the dry sand where his phone and gun lay side by side.

Darby scrambled across the sand and grabbed the phone.

“Call 9-1-1 and tell them Officer Morgan needs assistance, and an ambulance. Tell them to proceed with caution, suspect possibly armed, extremely dangerous. Can you do that?”

More chest compressions.

Darby’s face was pale and drawn, but she made the call.

Two quick breaths. Rafe didn’t think Mindy had a chance, but he couldn’t stop CPR, not with Darby watching his every move. Not when her face was so strained, her eyes haunted and miserable.

She looked toward the dunes. When she looked back at him, she shoved the phone into his shirt pocket. “I’ll take care of her. Go, find the man who did this. Go.”

She shoved his hands away, pinched Mindy’s nose and puffed two deep breaths into her mouth. She sat back and began pumping Mindy’s chest, just as proficient at CPR as she was at swimming.

Rafe hesitated, desperately wanting to go after the bomber, but not wanting to leave Darby unprotected. A shout had him looking back up the beach. A uniformed cop topped the sand dune from near the parking lot and started running toward them.

Rafe waved his badge and pointed at Darby. The officer gave him a thumbs-up and ran toward the two women. Rafe grabbed his gun and took off after the bomber.

* * *

LARGE RED SPLOTCHES of blood marred the sand’s pristine surface, leading Rafe over the dune, into the scrub brush and sand oaks. The trail was harder to follow here, on the hard-packed soil.

He settled in for the hunt, falling back on his training. He didn’t want to rush in and end up clocked over the head like after the boat accident. Twenty feet into the scrub, a small snap—like a twig being stepped on—sounded off to his right. He froze and waited. Another snap. There, in the trees fifty yards away, the outline of a man, hunched over. When the man started moving again, Rafe crept through the scrub after him.

He eased behind the same tree where the man he’d seen had paused a few moments earlier. The bomber was twenty feet in front of him, in a clearing. Rafe stepped into the open. “Police. Freeze. Put your hands up!”

The bomber stiffened and whirled around.

A shot rang out. Rafe dove to the sand, rolling until he reached the cover of another tree. He peeked around the trunk to see if he could get a better line on where the bomber was. But the man standing in the clearing wasn’t the bomber.

He was Jake Young.

The bomber was lying on the ground at his feet, his eyes closed, a wet, red stain spreading across the sand beneath him.

Jake