“Oh my God! Help her, Jared! Help her!” I screamed.
“Stay inside!” Jared yel ed over the noise. He jumped from the Escalade and ran to the roaring flames. He covered his face with his arm, testing different sides of the car. I could see from three stories up that he couldn’t breach the flames. Even if he had, Sasha was gone.
Jared watched the fire in horror, grabbing each side of his blonde hair with his fists. He shook his head, and then grabbed his knees, leaning over. After a few moments, he ran back to his Escalade and took off at ful speed. The wheels squealed against the pavement.
I ran to my desk and grabbed at the phone with trembling hands. I tried to dial 911, but my fingers shook so much that I kept hitting the wrong keys. After the third try, Jared was beside me.
I col apsed into him, tears final y wel ing up in my eyes. “What happened?” I cried. “Where did you go?”
“I wanted them to think I panicked and drove off. It was a bomb, Nina. They wired your car with a bomb.”
I paused, my eyes widening. “I kill ed her. I gave her the keys to my car and sent her to her death! Oh my God, Jared, she’s dead! She’s only twenty-two years old! She just got off the phone with her mother not half an hour ago!” My voice grew shril er with every fact.
Jared hugged me to him, unable to find words of comfort. “I should have sensed it. I should have smel ed it—something.”
“Nothing?” I said, looking up at him with wet eyes.
He shook his head. “Not a damn thing. The baby and how it affects your body saturates my senses. They must have wired it after you arrived at work. I don’t understand. I wasn’t half a block away. I should have seen it.”
“We have to cal the police,” I whimpered.
“Let someone else do it. If whoever placed the bomb somehow mistook her for you, it may buy us some time. That’s why I made such a show in the street. They’re probably watching.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Must have been a shel . There’s no way to tel how many are around.”
I nodded, and Jared pul ed my hand, leading me to the stairwel . He held his finger to his mouth, and then opened the door. We descended four flights of stairs into the basement level, and then sneaked out an access door to the all ey.
My shoes tapped against the wet pavement and sloshed through puddles. The moonlight glistened on the wet pavement we walked upon. Jared led us through labyrinthine all eyways cluttered with green trash bins and litter until we final y reached the Escalade.
“This wasn’t your fault,” he whispered.
“Then whose fault is it?” I sobbed, hitting the door with my fist. “I want to know! I want them to be held accountable for taking an innocent person’s life! She was mean and spiteful, but she had her whole life ahead of her! It’s not fair!”
“No, it’s not. It’s sloppy. They’ve never made a mistake like this.”
“You think it was a mistake?” I sniffed.
“One way or another.”
My face fel again. “She was in love. With Grant, and she never told him.”
Jared frowned. “I’m sorry for Sasha. I’m sorry for her family when they learn of her death, but we have a bigger problem here. We’re leaving in one week, and you won’t be all owed to leave the country if you’re involved in an investigation. We have to explain why she was in your car, and why your car was there and you weren’t. That’s after they declare it wasn’t you in the car. That could be a while.”
“Stop.”
He thought for a moment. “We’ll have to go away. Write a note to Beth explaining that we went on a short getaway and that you left your car keys on the desk in case she needs it, and I’ll have Bex put it on the floor under your desk in your office so that it looks like it fel .”
“Stop, Jared.”
“We’ll go away for a few days. Figure out our next move.”
I squeezed my eyes tight. “Just stop it!”
“What?”
“It won’t matter.”
Jared grabbed each side of my face and looked into my eyes. “Don’t do that. You’re not going to give up.” One hand left my cheek and touched my stomach. “We have a reason to fight more now than ever.”
His cel phone buzzed in his jacket pocket. “Ryel. She’s fine, but it was her car. No, her car exploded. They wired explosives to it. I’m not sure, yet.
She let Sasha take it for coffee. No,” Jared said, his voice low. “We’re going to leave town for a few days; buy us some time. Send Bex. I need him to run a note to Nina’s office. Bye.”
Sirens sounded in the distance. Jared put his phone away and cupped his hands over my shoulders. “You with me?”
I nodded. “I need paper and a pen.”
Jared patted his jacket and pul ed out a pen, and then he blurred out of sight. A few moments later he returned with a pink memo pad. I scribbled a few lines to Beth explaining my impromptu vacation and the location of my keys in case she needed to move my car, and then signed it. Five minutes later, a motorcycle pul ed into the all ey.
Bex planted his feet on the ground and pushed the visor of his helmet up. “Whatcha got?”
“Put this in Nina’s office, under her desk as if it fel . We need to explain this away.”
Bex pul ed off his helmet and grabbed the paper. “You guys staying here or…?”