A second explosion rocked the quiet mountainside. Still running, Miles threw up his arm to block the intense heat.
His heart caught in his throat as he rounded the coupe’s door and saw she had a little girl clutched under her arm.
The woman braced herself on the ground with her other hand as she tried to get away from the burning car. He grabbed her by the forearm and hauled her to her feet. She wobbled unsteadily as he pulled her arm over his shoulder. The child scrambled past him, headed for the backside of his garage.
A confusing mixture of past and present rocked him like a punch to the gut. She wasn’t his beloved daughter, but the sight of her blond hair tossing as she ran ahead of him sent coherence spinning away.
The woman moaned and her weight sagged on him, bringing him back to the here and now.
“Help…”
He dragged her away from the car. “Jesus, lady, what the hell? Are you trying to get killed?”
He was practically carrying her by the time they arrived at the corner of the building where the little girl waited, shielded from the scorching heat.
“Aunt Lily!” She threw her arms around her aunt’s waist.
The woman knelt and gripped the child by her shoulders. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, sniffing.
“I’m so sorry.” She pulled the child close. “It’s okay, Annie. We’re going to be okay.”
“Not if you keep driving like that,” Miles growled. “You just blew up my gas station.”
The woman glanced at him. The horror in her eyes made him flinch. A trickle of blood ran down the woman’s temple and spattered her blouse.
“You’re hurt,” Annie said. Her voice trembled with the precursor to tears. She reached out and touched the woman’s face with tiny, hesitant fingertips. The gesture caused his shriveled heart to jerk.
Without removing those wide, brown eyes from his, Lily took her niece’s hand and stood. Only then did she glance past him.
“Is that your truck?”
His mouth fell open. “Lady, you need an ambulance.”
Would the phone still work, or had the destruction of his station knocked out power and phone lines? Services were finicky enough up here without being rocked by a two-megaton blast.
“He’s coming,” Annie whimpered.
The horror in Lily’s eyes deepened. She glanced at the child and started past him.
“I need your vehicle.”
Before he could have guessed this night would get any weirder, she snatched up a rusted sliver of metal and whirled around, pointing it at him.
“Give me the keys.”
She’s robbing me with an old antenna?
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Aunt Lily,” Annie persisted with greater urgency.
Slivers of wood exploded from the corner of the building above his ear. Miles heard the muffled chirp over the roar of the fire. He knew what it was even before a second shot whizzed past his head. The sound sent him careening back to his eight years with the Seattle PD.
Silencer.
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