Stunned, she could hardly breathe.
The flowers! She could have been killed. So could her innocent baby. But they were safe! Thank you, Jesus.
As the officer slowly straightened and allowed her to move, she felt so light-headed she was afraid she might faint. If she hadn’t already been sitting on the floor she knew she would have been reeling.
Tears gathered and spilled down her cheeks. So utterly thankful she could not speak, she threw her arms around the dog’s neck, pressed her face into his fur and silently wept as the reality of her situation dawned. There would not always be a police officer at hand to rescue her at the last second, so what could she do? What should she do?
Nicki was at a loss to know. Death had stalked her, and she had once again triumphed. The question was, how many more narrow escapes could she hope to endure before some lurking, unnamed evil slipped through her meager defenses and succeeded in ending her life?
TWO
“It doesn’t make any sense for them to want to hurt her when they think she’s keeping secrets,” Jackson told Captain Slade McNeal as they stood apart from the other officers at the scene of the chaos. “If the gang wants the information Arianna gave her, they need to keep her alive and well.”
“Unless they knew you were with her and figured your dog would identify the device before it was touched.”
“Possibly.”
“How’s the woman doing?” Slade asked.
“She’s scared silly. Who wouldn’t be?” Jackson paused and raked his fingers through his short, dark hair. “I can’t believe how close we all came to buying the farm.”
“Yeah. It wasn’t a big explosion, but it sure made hash out of her apartment. I’m having the paramedics hold her in the ambulance until the ATF boys get here. They may have a few questions for Ms. Johnson, too.”
“Makes me wish we had our own bomb squad right here in Sagebrush.”
“Can’t afford it.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m just glad you hired me and Titan.” He sobered even more as he regarded his superior. “We’re all sorry about what motivated you.”
“Thanks. I still blame myself. If you’d been here then, my wife might have been warned in time, and Caleb would still have a mother.”
Chagrined, Jackson shook his head and thrust his hands into his pockets. “Don’t be so sure about that. I messed up on this one.”
“You saved the woman’s life. I’d hardly call that a failure.”
Jackson snorted derisively. “Tell that to Ms. Johnson when she gets a look at what’s left of her place. It’s a shambles. Every window is blown out, and the furniture looks like a wildcat on meth shredded it.”
“Yeah...but she’s still alive. If I were you, I’d remind her of that before I let her go up and look. The bedroom seems to have escaped damage, except for lots of plaster dust and smoke, so she will still have clothes and personal items to salvage.”
“I hope that helps. She has every right to be furious with me.”
“You’re too hard on yourself,” McNeal told him. “Why don’t you go see to your dog and check on Ms. Johnson while I wait for Boomer.”
“Right.” Hearing the familiar ATF agent’s nickname almost always made Jackson smile. Any guy with the initials TNT was a shoo-in for a bomb-investigating job. Timothy Nelson Taft was not only good at his job, he seemed to enjoy the good-natured teasing he usually received when people realized why he was called Boomer.
Several other members of the Sagebrush P.D. and fire department were milling around the rescue and police vehicles parked in the street. Some regular officers had cordoned off the apartment grounds and were detouring traffic. That was probably unnecessary, yet Jackson didn’t complain. He had mistakenly underestimated their foes and an innocent bystander had almost paid for his laxity.
He went first to Titan and the fellow K-9 officer who was tending to him. Valerie Salgado’s Rottweiler had been the one wounded on these premises a few days ago and since Valerie was on her own for the present, she had volunteered to look after Titan while Jackson spoke to their captain.
A tall woman with green eyes, freckles and long, reddish hair, Salgado was seated in one of the SUVs, petting Titan to soothe his jangled nerves.
“How’s he doing now?” Jackson asked, approaching.
“Better. He’s not shaking nearly as much as he was when I got here. What happened, anyway? Didn’t he alert properly?”
“The dog did fine.” He reached toward his canine partner to affectionately ruffle his velvety ears. “I was the one who messed up. I let a civilian get ahead of me and she picked up the bomb before I could stop her.”
“That’s when it went off?”
“No, thank God. Literally. I had a few seconds to grab it and throw it. Unfortunately, the only place I could pitch it was into her apartment.”
“Better a few dented walls than dented heads.” She gently stroked Titan’s broad back, wiggling her fingers, much to the dog’s delight. “What a good boy.”
“Do you have time to mind him for me a little while longer? I want to check with the EMTs and see how the vic is doing.” Jackson inclined his head toward a parked ambulance.
“Sure. No sweat. I’ll take him back to the station with me and you can pick him up there later, if you want. Lexi won’t be able to work for a while yet, and I miss relaxing like this.” She sighed. “Petting a dog lowers your blood pressure and does all kinds of good things for your state of mind.”
“I know. Just save me a little Titan chilling time. I’ll need it after I get through showing the lady over there what happened to her apartment.”
He could hear Valerie’s light laughter behind him as he started for the ambulance.
One of the paramedics headed him off before he got all the way to where Nicolette was being treated.
“Worth. Hold up,” the medic said. “I need to talk to you for a sec.”
“Sure.” He peered past the shorter, younger man’s shoulder. “Is there a problem?”
“Not yet. At least not that I know of, but you should know that this victim is pregnant before you continuing questioning her.”
That brought Jackson up short. “She’s okay, though? I hit her pretty hard when I was shoving her out of the way.”
“Seems to be. It’s early in the pregnancy so she’s not showing. There’s no way you’d have known unless she chose to tell you.”
He huffed quietly. “I figured she was holding something back, but I had no idea that was it. No wonder she seemed so overwrought.”
“Yeah, well, I wanted you to know.”
Jackson clapped him on the shoulder and stepped past. “Thanks, man. I owe you one.”
The ambulance was positioned at an angle to the curb so it could go into action without delay. Jackson made sure he was smiling as he circled it and came face-to-face with Nicolette.
The woman’s eyes were misty as she looked up at him and asked, “Are you okay?”
“I’m supposed to be the one asking you that.”
“I’m fine.” She returned his smile. “Well, relatively fine.”
When he said, “I’m really sorry about your apartment,” he saw her face grow ashen.
“How bad is it?”
“Truthfully? It’s a mess. But the good news is we’re all safe and