Page 88 of Counter Attack

“Maybe someone who makes bombs,” Nathan said.

Madden approached the square where Mal alerted.

“Wait! It may be booby-trapped,” Carl said. “We have to evacuate the entire block.”

The bomb squad commander yanked out his phone and dialed for his team and robot while Madden phoned for backup.

Alex and Nathan took the building they were in and went door-to-door evacuating residents. By the time they had everyone out, the entire block had been evacuated and cordoned off, and the area was swarming with police cars and officers.

While they waited for the robot to x-ray the floor, Alex pulled photos of Denton from her file, and she and Nathan interviewed his neighbors. The neighbors who recognized the photo said he was reclusive. A few said they got weird vibes from him. All in all, no one knew much about him.

Alex had about given up hope that she would come across anyone who had knowledge of Denton as she interviewed the last tenant on his floor of the building, a young woman withher six-month-old baby. Brooke Masters. “Thank you for your time,” she said, closing her notebook.

“Sorry I couldn’t tell you any more about him.” The woman bent over her stroller to tuck in her baby’s blanket. When she raised up again, she shivered. “It makes me so mad, just thinking about it. What was Denton thinking, anyway? Having that kind of stuff in the building. We could’ve all been blown up.”

Alex frowned. “How did you know there were explosives?”

Brooke pointed toward the people gathered. “Someone said the bomb dog alerted to explosives in Denton’s condo.”

The media would take that and run with it. What they wouldn’t tell is that C-4 by itself was harmless—it took extreme heat and a shock wave, like the detonators they’d found, but they had to be activated.

“Say, you ought to talk to Ms. Mattie,” Brooke said. “She used to talk about him being alone, and sometimes she took him food.”

“Ms. Mattie?” Alex said, opening the notebook again. “Do you know her last name?”

“No. I’ve just always called her Ms. Mattie.” Brooke shrugged apologetically. “We’re not much on last names around here—I only knew Phillip Denton’s last name because ... well, someone getting killed in your building—you’ll remember their last name.”

“Can you describe Ms. Mattie?”

“About my height, blue hair ... old. She lives across from Denton’s condo, been here forever, but she does go to visit her sister sometimes and may have been there when he died.”

Alex could get her last name from the company that managed the building. “How long have you lived here?”

Brooke tilted her head. “I think I’ve been here maybe five years. No, my husband and I moved in right after we got married,and that’s been six years.” She shook her head, bouncing her blond curls. “I can’t believe it’s been that long.”

Fearing Brooke would rattle on, Alex thanked her and scanned the crowd still gathered a safe distance from the building, but didn’t see anyone who might fit that description. She turned back to the young mother. “Ms. Mattie—do you see her anywhere?”

“She isn’t here. I saw someone pick her up earlier, probably for a doctor’s appointment. She has a lot of those.” The young mother chuckled. “She’ll be so mad to miss all the excitement.”

Alex thanked her again. If the older woman lived across from Denton, it wouldn’t be any problem to come back and interview her tomorrow.

She caught up with Nathan near the command center talking to the bomb squad commander. “Looks like there was no booby trap in the floor where Mal alerted,” he said. “The robot removed the carpeted square and found enough C-4 to take the building down if it had been detonated.”

Even knowing it would have been all but impossible for the plastic explosive to go off on its own, Alex still wouldn’t want to live in a building with a bunch of it lying around. She turned to Carl. “What do you suppose he was planning to do with all that explosive?”

He shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Was there anything in the space that might give us a lead on Denton’s family members?” she asked.

“No. But I found a sheet of notepaper that matched the one on yesterday’s fake bomb. It was on the kitchen floor, like someone dropped it, and if they did, it had to have been no more than two weeks ago. That’s when an agent last showed the condo, and the company assured me no one left paper lying about.”

That meant someone had been in the condo recently. Phame?

Carl rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m mostly worried that the box of detonators has some missing. What if this Phame person had access to the condo and took some of the C-4 and the detonators?”

The thought made Alex’s head hurt. The fake bomb yesterday let them know this Phame knew how to make a bomb. “But whoever made the fake bomb used dynamite, not C-4.”

“Not hard to substitute the two. Maybe we’ll get lucky and our killer left fingerprints when he got the supplies to make that one.”

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