A Father's Sacrifice by Mallory Kane Page B

“Who knows? They’ll sift through it. But that fire was superhot. Burned everything to a crisp. Whoever made the bombs did that on purpose.”
    “Terrorists?”
    “Buckram figures the driver was probably a foreign national, in the U.S. illegally. If that’s true, it’s going to take weeks to sort out who he was.”
    “I guess it won’t do any good to try to match dental records or DNA.”
    “If we’re lucky, the guy will be in our terrorist database. But it’s a long shot. Even if he is it’s going to be a slow process. If they were dumb enough not to file off the Vehicle ID number, or if any papers survived the fire, we might get lucky.”
    As the truck pulled away, Natasha walked closer to the gates. “Like Mintz said, there’s hardly a mark.”
    “Buckram took a list of Stryker’s staff and the surveillance disks from the two guardhouses and from the camera mounted beside the gates.”
    “Why didn’t you take them?”
    Storm sent her his million-dollar smile. “’Cause I’m undercover, sugar. I don’t have access to the labs and equipment here. It’s probably best that no one know that there’s more than one FBI agent on the scene.”
    “Even Buckram?”
    Storm nodded just as his gaze sharpened. A couple of seconds later she heard footsteps. She turned in time to see Mintz emerge from the hidden gate.
    “You shouldn’t be out here,” he said, glowering at her. “Get back to the house and catch a couple of hours sleep. Today’s going to be busy, and you still have a hacker to catch.”
    She glanced at Storm, who chuckled.
    “Where’s Dylan? With Ben?”
    She nodded. “Ben was really scared. Dylan lay down with him. He wanted me to wake him in an hour. He said you’d try to keep me from bothering him.”
    A crack appeared in Mintz’s weathered face. Must have been a smile. But then it was gone. “Come on, I’ll walk you back.”
    Natasha raised her brows at the unexpected offer.
    “See you later, sugar,” Storm said.
    “Bye, Storm.”
    She went through the gate behind Mintz and fell into step beside him.
    “Dylan’s exhausted,” he muttered. “It’s a wonder he can think. But he won’t stop. Acts like he has a personal vendetta against Ben’s disability.”
    “Burning himself up from the inside.”
    Mintz shot her a look. “Good way of putting it.”
    At the front doors, Natasha paused, hands on her hips. “You look like hell yourself, Mr. Mintz. You’re covered with soot and mud. Have you had any sleep?”
    As usual, Mintz didn’t answer her question directly. “It’s been a long night.”
    “I vote we let Dylan and Ben sleep, what do you say?”
    His sharp brown eyes studied her. “What about you? You didn’t get any sleep, either.”

    Natasha stretched her arms and arched her neck. “I had a couple of hours before the excitement. I think I’ll take a shower and then get started tracing that hacker.”
     
    D YLAN AWOKE IN A PANIC . Someone had tried to break in. His eyes flew open and he saw the small dark head of his son.
    Ben was lying on his back with a small fist curled close to his chin. His beautiful little face was placid, his long dark eyelashes resting on his round cheeks, his little mouth moving with his soft breaths.
    He was so innocent, so vulnerable. Dylan’s heart swelled until he felt his chest couldn’t hold it. He loved Ben so much his whole body ached with it. His eyes stung and his throat grew tight.
    All he wanted was to make everything right for his child—give him a perfectly functioning body, let him run and play in a world where there were no fences, no confining braces, no people who could hurt him.
    But he couldn’t rewrite the past or change the present. Someone had deliberately run his wife’s car off the road and killed her and maimed his son. The love inside him morphed into helpless fury as the awful memory of the twisted wreckage of the SUV rose in his mind.
    And now, despite all his careful efforts, he was under attack