attached to the undercarriage of my car.”
Chapter Eleven
Even after two hours of talking to the sheriff’s deputies, Stacy couldn’t stop shivering, delayed reaction setting in with ruthless strength. “My son was in that car. Anything could have gone wrong-we could have hit a bump-”
Harlan wrapped his jacket around her, although she knew her chills weren’t a result of being cold.
He’d been here with her at the sheriff’s department ever since Jeff Appleton, the deputy who’d cleared the diner, had pulled her aside for questioning when they reconvened at the church. Harlan had insisted on coming along as a material witness, since he’d spent many of those hours with her.
Charlotte, bless her sweet soul, had volunteered to keep Zachary occupied elsewhere at the station while the sheriff’s department investigators asked Stacy a thousand questions about the past twenty-four hours of her life.
“Maybe I should tell the deputies to call a doctor,” Harlan suggested. “You may be in shock.”
She struggled with the shakes, trying to get herself back under control. “No, I’m okay. I’ll settle down in a minute. I just-I can’t believe I was driving around with a b-bomb under my c-car.”
His warm hands cradled her face, forcing her to look up at him. “You weren’t in danger. Not yet anyway. It was rigged with a timer. It wasn’t going to explode from an impact.”
“A timer?” She ignored the urge to lean into his touch, though the temptation was almost more than she could bear. “How do you know?”
“I talked to Parker while the deputies were talking to you,” he said in a quiet voice, shooting a quick look at the pair of deputies sitting just outside the waiting area where she and Harlan sat. “He has connections here and pulled a few strings for the information. This bomb looks a lot like the one you helped disarm in Austin, only this one wasn’t rigged to blow with a cell phone call.”
“When was it timed to detonate?”
“5:00 p.m.”
She frowned, trying to make sense of what he’d just said. “Most days at five, it would be parked in the garage at the guesthouse. Would the blast have been big enough to take out the guesthouse, too?”
“I don’t know. It would take out the car, and the garage would be destroyed, but the garage is brick, isn’t it?”
“But my car wouldn’t have been in the garage tonight,” Stacy said, realizing that she hadn’t even told Harlan about her reason for having taken her car to Hal’s Garage in the first place. “Lila was supposed to take the car tonight. She and Bart were borrowing it to go to Amarillo for a meeting with potential donors.” She told him about Greg Merritt’s request. “They’d be on the road to Amarillo in the car at five. What if the bomb was meant for Lila?”
Harlan muttered a low profanity. “How many people knew about that trip?”
“I don’t know. Not many-the whole reason they were taking my car was to keep the trip under wraps. The donors they were going to talk to aren’t ready to commit to supporting the governor, and Lila didn’t want the press to get wind of this and scare them off. I didn’t even find out about it myself until this afternoon.”
“Did you tell the deputies who interviewed you about the meeting?”
“Yes. I thought it might be important information.”
He nodded. “I’ve got to make some phone calls. Are you going to be okay here for a minute?”
“I’m fine,” she answered, trying to hold back the shivers that still rattled up her spine. She managed a weak smile. She could tell from his look of sympathy that he wasn’t buying it, but he pretended to take her at her word and headed away from the waiting area.
A moment later, Jeff Appleton entered, holding a cup of steaming coffee. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m all right,” she answered, suddenly overwhelmed by a powerful sense of paranoia, uncertain who she could trust anymore, after all she’d been through over the past few days.
She’d known and liked Jeff since she and Zachary had moved to Freedom when she took the job with the governor, but what did she really know about him? It had taken Charlotte to tell her that his daughter’s developmental issues were the result of his late wife’s drinking and driving. She’d never even thought to find out the details of his life herself, despite seeing him several times a week at the diner and around town.
She hadn’t let herself get very close with anyone in town, had she? Everything in her life revolved around Zachary, and even the thought of anything approaching a normal social life was utterly exhausting.
Since her divorce, she’d never even looked at another man as a potential lover.
Not until Harlan McClain had swept into her life in the wake of a deadly explosion.
She took the coffee from him and took a sip. The bitter liquid burned a path down her throat, making her wince. But some of the shivers subsided almost immediately.
“I had Abby’s sitter bring her down here. Just needed to see her, you know?” Jeff’s smile was sympathetic. “Charlotte’s watching her and Zachary in one of the interview rooms. Zachary’s practicing his meet-and-greet skills.”
Stacy chuckled apprehensively. “How’s Abby taking that?”
“She thinks he’s a hoot,” Jeff said with a smile. “I don’t think his quirks bother her much.” He sighed. “I can see now that she’s going to be a sucker for a pair of baby blues when she gets older. I swear, I’m shopping around for chastity belts as we speak.”
“Hey, I have a kid with no concept of personal space,” she said with a wry grin. “I can sympathize.”
“Stacy?” Sheriff Bernard Hale himself stepped into the open doorway, his dark brown eyes sharp but friendly. He motioned with a jerk of his head for her to follow him.
She and Jeff walked with the sheriff down the hall to the same interview room where the deputies had questioned her earlier. But this time, it was full. Lila Lockhart sat at the table, flanked by Greg Merritt and Bart Bellows. Harlan and Parker McKenna stood behind them, their backs to the wall.
Sheriff Hale pulled out a chair for her and took the other empty chair beside her. “I’ve caught everyone up on what happened today. Now would someone like to catch me up on what y’all are doing about it?”
“Doing about it?” Bart Bellows answered the question with a fierce frown. “Hell, Bernard, I’ve practically handed the governor my whole stable of agents to keep her safe.”
Lila patted his arm. “Bernard, I realize you’ve always been a little wary about having the governor living in your town, and I don’t suppose I can blame you for that. I know having me here makes for a lot more headaches for you, and I don’t imagine that’ll get any better now that I’m running for president. But what would you have me do? Leave? I grew up here in Freedom. My parents before me, and my granddaddy’s granddaddy helped build the first settlement, right down the road near Abernathy Ridge. Freedom’s in my marrow.”
“Of course I’m not suggesting you leave town, Governor.” Bernard shot her a look of frustrated affection. “And I’m more than happy to have you fellows here, too,” he added, nodding at Harlan and Parker. “All I’m asking is, keep me in the loop. The way you talked about the bombing in Austin when I asked you about it, you acted like it wasn’t anything we needed to worry about up here. But I’m beginning to wonder if you were being entirely honest with me.”
“Sheriff Hale, we can’t be sure this was even about the governor,” Greg Merritt said in a placating tone. “The bomb was attached to Ms. Giordano’s car, not the governor’s-”
Stacy shot him a black look. He knew damned well that the bomb, had it not been detected, would have killed the governor and Bart Bellows, not Stacy. He was trying to throw her under the bus to protect Lila’s secret meeting that afternoon. She sneaked a look at the clock on the wall. It was only two. If they hurried, they could still be on the road in time to get to Amarillo. Was that all he cared about-massaging donors?
“We know about the trip to Amarillo,” Bernard said flatly. “Ms. Giordano understood that we can’t help keep the governor safe if we don’t have vital information. I’m a little surprised you don’t understand that, too, Greg.”
Stacy saw Harlan’s lips curve slightly at the sheriff’s slightly scolding tone. She’d sensed from the beginning that Harlan didn’t care much for Greg Merritt. She wasn’t the man’s biggest fan, either-he was far too ruthless and arrogant for her tastes-but he was a damned good political operative, and just the sort of campaign manager Lila
