More static. Pressing one palm into the floor beside the hole, she was able to flip onto her back. Skeletal dust clung to the rafters and cords above. The explosive had to have been set underneath the rug. She must’ve triggered it when she’d uncovered the remains, and now Harold Wood had become more decoration than evidence.
Heavy footfalls vibrated through the floor as she gave in to the heaviness pulling her eyes closed. SWAT would’ve heard the explosion. She, JC and Evan would be okay. They’d be... She closed her eyes as water pounded onto her vest from above. Two steps. Three. Then silence as her ears stopped ringing. She struggled to open her eyes, the blurred outline of a man above her, and she gripped her weapon, only to have it taken from her. “You should’ve walked away when you had the chance, Agent Ramirez.”
BENNING PUSHED OUT of the SUV as what felt like a punch of vibration shook the ground. “What the hell was that?”
“Sir, I need you to stay in the vehicle.” The officer assigned to protect him raised his hands. Voices and static battled for dominance from the radio strapped to his chest. “SWAT’s reporting an explosion from inside the house, possibly the basement.”
An explosion? Blood drained from his face and neck. “Ana.”
He shoved past the officer and bolted for the west side of the house toward the back, where Ana and her team had breached. Following the gravel driveway, he ignored the shouts telling him to stop and pumped his legs as hard as he could. The bullet wound in his shoulder screamed for him to slow down, but he pushed the pain to the back of his mind. If Ana had been down there when the explosion happened... His lungs burned with icy dread. He pounded up the four stairs of the back deck and raced inside the house. His heart threatened to beat out of his chest as he pushed deeper into the sparsely furnished home and caught sight of the open door leading down into the basement. White dust particles coated his neck and face as he neared. Cement? “Ana!”
No answer. He wasn’t a federal agent, he wasn’t SWAT and he didn’t have a weapon or backup, but nothing was going to stop him from getting to her. He took each step one at a time. If he’d learned anything working in construction for the past two decades, it was that explosions affected more of a building than the blast radius. One wrong step and he could be added among any casualties. A crack of wood shot his heart into his throat a split second before footsteps reverberated above him on the main floor. SWAT had breached the house from the front. He had to move. The first chance they got, they’d secure him away from the scene, possibly in cuffs. Ana might not have that much time. His boots hit cement, dust clinging to his clothing and face. The cold storage straight ahead didn’t look like it’d suffered any damage, and he followed the curve of the hallway around until he found the epicenter of the explosion.
A beam fell from the ceiling, wood on concrete loud in his ears, and he raised his hands to block the blast of dust coming straight at him. The unfinished door frame held strong against the explosion, but what he imagined used to be an open living space had been closed off by twisted ducting, broken plumbing and exposed wiring. Damn it. He had to get in there. Had to get to Ana. Water splattered against the floor, but he couldn’t tell from where. It carved rivers around his boots to the drain where a bathroom would sit if the construction had been finished. At least the place wouldn’t flood. Dust worked down into his lungs, and he coughed into the crease of his elbow. “Can anyone hear me?”
A groan broke through the rush of water, just on the other side of the ducting blocking his way into the room, and Benning shoved the metal shaft off to one side. The hole in his shoulder screamed, but after everything the Tactical Crime Division had done for him and his family, getting Ana and her team the help they needed was the only thing that mattered right then. The drain behind him was backing up, making it hard for his boots to get any leverage to move the piece of ducting. The groan he’d heard had been distantly male, which meant Ana hadn’t heard him or she was unconscious, and this damn section of ducting was keeping him from getting to her. “Somebody shut that water off!”
Multiple sets of boots echoed off the unfinished stairs as SWAT descended into the basement. “You heard him! You, find the main water valve and shut it down. You two, get over there and help him get that debris out of the way. We’ve got agents in there.”
Two armed SWAT members made quick work of clearing a path into the main room where the explosion had originated, and Benning hefted the last of the debris out of his way. “Holy hell.”
Blood. A lot of it. His stomach wrenched as he homed in on the massive hole in the middle of the foundation. A bag had been torn to shreds by the blast, but he didn’t have time to figure out what—or who—had been inside. Movement registered off to his left, and he caught sight of a boot pinned beneath more debris. His heart rocketed into his throat. Ana? Hauling more ducting and beams out of his way, he struggled to keep the panic clawing through him at bay. She’d already taken two bullets and a window pane through her femoral artery. If she’d been injured in the blast, how long before her body decided it’d had enough? “Ana. Talk to me. Tell me where you are.”
Another groan cut through the patter of water on cement. Lifting a panel of
