A Father's Sacrifice by Mallory Kane Page A

Glock.
    Mintz entered, breathing hard.
    “Alfred?”
    “I’ve got men searching the house and the grounds,” Alfred said.
    Dylan grabbed his arm, partly to draw strength from his friend, but Alfred seemed just as shaken as he was.
    “Have you searched the whole wing?” Alfred asked.
    Dylan shook his head. “Just in here—”
    “Daddy?”
    The small muffled voice sheared Dylan’s breath.
    Natasha whirled instinctively and aimed at the closet door.
    Dylan reached for the doorknob but Natasha grabbed his arm. “Wait. Get back.”
    Alfred stalked past them and with a nod at Natasha, he twisted the knob and opened the closet door. Natasha’s arms straightened and her finger tightened on the trigger.

    Underneath the hanging clothes were two pairs of feet, one pair locked into braces.
    Dylan gasped. He hadn’t even realized he’d been holding his breath.
    Ben’s head stuck out through hanging dresses. His face lit up and he shot out of Charlene’s arms. “Daddy!”
    Dylan crouched down. As his child flung himself at him, he wrapped his arms around him and lifted him. “Hey, sport.” His voice broke and he buried his nose in Ben’s bubble-gum scented hair.
    Natasha stepped closer to the closet door.
    “Come out of there,” she said to Charlene crisply, her attention half on Dylan and Ben. Every time she saw them together, her insides twisted into knots, sending a mixture of longing and emptiness through her.
    She couldn’t watch Dylan hugging his child and not be affected by the sight. Still, she did her best to ignore the imagined feel of those arms comforting and shielding her, or the fantasy of herself as a part of that loving embrace.
    Charlene crawled out of the closet and stood, folding her arms around herself. Her face was pale and distorted in terror. “Is everything okay?” she asked.
    Natasha nodded, watching her closely. “Why didn’t you answer? You must have heard Dr. Stryker calling.”
    Charlene shook her head. “I couldn’t be sure about the voice.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I had trouble getting Ben’s braces on. The sirens terrified him. We sat on his bed, but then I heard something.”
    “What did you hear?”
    “The slamming of a door, or maybe wood cracking. The noise came from the direction of the stairs, so I didn’t want to take him through that hall. I brought him in here.”
    “You’re going to need to talk with the detective,” Natasha said.
    “Detective? Police?” Charlene’s eyes showed white all the way around the irises. “What happened? Is everyone all right?”
    Natasha nodded, glancing at Dylan.
    He shifted Ben to one arm. “Charlene, thank you for taking care of Ben. Tell Alfred everything you heard and saw. I’m going to stay with Ben for a while, until he falls asleep.”
    As Alfred and Charlene left, Dylan aimed a warning look at Natasha. “Come and get me in an hour. Alfred will do his best to talk you into letting me sleep longer.”
     
    A N HOUR LATER N ATASHA shrugged tension from her shoulders as she stepped through the hidden gate beside the massive entrance. She was weak with relief that Ben was all right. She’d thought about going back to her room, but she knew there was no way she’d sleep. So she’d come out to see what, if anything, was going on at the scene of the bombing.
    Storm looked around as she emerged from the shrubbery.
    She had no idea how he always knew when someone was approaching him. He had some sort of sixth sense, a talent inherited from his Native American ancestors she was sure.
    “Anything new?” she asked him.
    He nodded toward a dark sedan. “Buckram’s leaving now. Like he said, there’s not much to go on. They’re loading what’s left of the delivery truck to take back to the lab.”

    As he spoke, a monstrous dump truck hoisted the charred wet mess in a massive scoop and dropped it into the bed. White and black smoke belched out from the truck bed.
    “Think they’ll find anything?”
    He shrugged.