Wedding cake and bombs.
Two thoughts sped through FBI agent West Brand’s mind as he jogged along the main street leading out of Red Ridge. Chocolate rum cake with vanilla frosting and swirls of delicate pink flowers. And bombs made out of materials as easy to find as cake.
The cake, he didn’t care about, but he wanted to make Quinn Colton happy. She was a real foodie and, as a caterer, weddings were her specialty. He’d be happy to eat a cake made from sprouts when they got married.
When they could risk a wedding. Red Ridge had a serial killer lurking, a psycho killing grooms right before their weddings. The MO was always the same: bullet through the heart, black cummerbund stuffed in the victim’s mouth. Several men had been murdered. And with the Groom Killer still out there, he and Quinn had decided to keep their newly engaged status quiet, along with their relationship.
For now, he had to focus on bombs. His cop instinct tingled, warning things were too damn quiet and the tension in the city was about to explode.
High-powered explosives were West’s specialty. He preferred to work alone and being on loan to the Red Ridge Police Department’s K-9 unit hadn’t changed his mind. West’s partner of choice ran on four legs.
Cool air washed over him as he ran, the darkness pierced by the green glow of his sport-utility watch. Rex, his black Labrador retriever, kept pace alongside him. West always took him on his daily jogs.
Breath fogging the air, he let his thoughts drift to the missing fifty-five-gallon drum of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide from a chemical warehouse in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The owner had reported it missing two days ago.
Even though there had been no other bombings reported in the area, all West’s instincts had gone full red flag.
Peroxide-based explosives presented a deadlier threat than ordinary C-4, which was much harder to obtain. Unstable chemical compounds brought the risk of blowing yourself up as you mixed and packed the ingredients, and quite possibly blowing up your unsuspecting neighbors, as well. Terrorists preferred the risk because they could easily purchase the ingredients without raising eyebrows or alerting the feds. Gone were the days when materials had to be smuggled past the eyes of authorities. These days, a kid could waltz into a grocery store and make a bomb with soda pop and nail polish remover.
The bad guys made it harder to do his job and keep people safe. So he kept learning and listening and reading, because long ago, he determined no one would ever die on his watch.
Not again, like when he was seventeen...
Don’t go there. Focus. Did a daydreaming clerk misplace the drum or did someone steal it to make a bomb?
Red Ridge wasn’t the type of town that saw the same kind of terrorist bombings as big cities. He’d bet that Dean Landon, the canine explosives specialist who was out on medical leave, had seldom seen many bombings in town. He was replacing Landon until the officer recovered from an injury and then it would be back to the city for him.
Maybe. Something else he had to discuss with his future wife.
He and Rex turned a corner down a dirt road toward the boarded-up building that once served as a hardware store. The store marked his three-mile turning point. As West started past the building and prepared to turn, Rex stopped.
The dog stared at the building.
“Whoa.” He jogged in place, frowning as he squinted at the building in the inky darkness. Dim light from the nearly full moon showed ghostly shadows, thick weeds and brush, and a rotting wood storefront with a few two-by-fours hammered over the windows.
The abandoned building sat on the edge of town, a scrubby cousin to the sleeker Main Street buildings with their shiny windows, trim doors and flower boxes. It fitted in with Rusty Colton’s nearby dive bar that reeked of stale beer, tobacco and dark thoughts.
He glanced down at Rex, the Labrador’s nose pointing at the storefront, his body tense and alert. Then the dog sat down.
West clenched his gut. Rex had found something. Specially trained to sniff out bombs, the dog sat when he smelled suspicious odors.
Though he’d worked with Rex for three months and spent each day training with him, he still remained wary. Maybe Rex saw something interesting. Or he smelled something fascinating, like a dead rodent.
“What is it?” he asked Rex.
The dog kept staring at the building.
Could be anything. Hell, even a ghost. Sure was eerie enough on this end of town, the sad, lonely building desolate and abandoned. Maybe a homeless person decided to camp there for the night and Rex sensed that.
The watch he wore on his right wrist insisted he had to get his butt back now into town in order to leave Quinn’s place before the nosy townspeople started opening their shops. Last thing he needed was a gossip