CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
"Owen! Owen!" May yelled.
Her deputy was lying on the ground, his eyes closed, his body still. She fell to her knees by his side and felt for a pulse on his outstretched hand.
Through the billowing smoke, she noticed that he was wearing his bulletproof vest, and that he'd fallen behind one of the metal supports in the basement.
Had that been enough to save him, to ensure his survival?
Her fingers were trembling, but she found the pulse. He was alive!
"Owen! Owen, can you hear me?
Owen groaned. His hand twitched, and then his eyes opened.
"Wow, that was some blast," he said in a hoarse voice, and then coughed. He sat up gingerly, blinking.
"We need to get out of here, May. It looks like this whole place is about to burn down."
Relief flooded through her. Owen was okay. She knew he would need to be thoroughly checked out by the medics, but the fact that he was able to move, and to speak, and that he knew where he was and what had happened, indicated that no serious harm had been done and he was simply stunned by the force of the blast.
"Yes, we need to get out. As fast as we can." She helped him to his feet.
There was no way of knowing how much time they had before the whole place burned down, and they both knew it. The fire was growing ever fiercer and it felt as if the building was about to collapse under the weight of the blaze.
She stumbled with him over the rubble, making for the stairs. May hoped that they would still be able to get up that way.
"I hope it’s still clear enough to get up here. The fire was quite bad," she gasped, coughing.
"There's another way," Owen choked out. "I can go and see if it's still passable. It might be blocked."
"We need two choices. The stairs might collapse."
“I’ll go see if the other door is open. It’s not far away. I’ll be a minute, and I’ll come back and find you. If your way is open, we go out. Otherwise, we go back the other direction. We meet here, right? Here. Near this overturned Lexus. In one minute’s time.”
They both turned around, taking in their surroundings, knowing that they could change within a minute if the smoke thickened, but that this was the best course of action.
Then Owen hurried off, and May forged forward, hoping that the stairs were still clear, and they could get up that way.
Then she saw a figure approaching her through the smoke. Her heart lifted, because surely that meant they had just come down the stairs? Was it a fireman or a policeman, coming down to locate them?
But then, she thought again.
Because this figure was tall and rangy, and clutching something in his hand. He had a backpack slung over his shoulder and he was wearing an electrical company’s overalls, and he was approaching her with intent. This was not a first responder. There was no police uniform, no reflective clothing, no Kevlar, no helmet. And no signs of panic. He wasn’t an innocent electrician trying to escape. He was confronting her.
It was the killer. It had to be. He was disguised as an electrician and that was how he’d gotten down here to plant the bombs. What irony that Owen had gone down to rescue him! And now, he was here, on site, watching May blunder through his death zone.
"Well, here you are! Are you one of the police who's been chasing me?" he said, his voice hoarse. “What have you done with the judge? Judge Zackary! Where is she? Did you take her out of the courthouse? The video played! The bomb exploded! And she wasn’t there!”
Now his voice was cracking with fury. May had never heard such maddened rage.
May's hand instinctively dropped to her gun. She needed to take this guy out, immediately.
But he gave her a warning shake of the head.
"Oh, no. You don't do that. Because if I see your hand move, then I'm going to pull the fuse that detonates this baby. If I do that, we both die. This is a very powerful bomb," he told her, coughing slightly as he spoke. “And I need to use it. I didn’t get to use it on my target. You prevented that, despite all my planning. You made things go wrong. That’s unforgivable. Nothing was supposed to go wrong! Call the judge. Get her back here. I want Judge Zackary. Bring her to me!”
His eyes were glittering. May sensed that this man had crossed a line into madness.