Page 4 of Blood Money

“Look, Little Miss Medic.” Gray swatted her hands away. “How about getting that thing out of my skull, slapping on a Band-Aid, and letting me get back to work?”

“The only place you’re going,” she said in a sharp tone, “is to a hospital on a gurney.”

“The hell I am.” Gray rose from the sofa and swayed, grateful for Dom’s steadying hand. “I’m walking out of here on my own two feet.”

“Fine.” She held up her hands in defeat. “It’s your funeral if you pass out and crack your skull on the pavement. At least sit while I get you that Band-Aid for your boo-boo.”

Ignoring the jibe, Gray sat down again, relieved at not having to go another round with the ornery medic who, he was coherent enough to realize, was only doing her job.

She whipped out a shiny set of tweezers from her kit, then dug into the back of his head and yanked out a piece of bloody shrapnel that she held up for his inspection.

“Got you good, buddy.” Dom examined what appeared to be a piece of twisted metal about a half inch in length and width.

“Ye—” Gray hissed in a breath as the woman slapped something onto the back of his head that stung like a sonofabitch.

Out in the hallway, Gray’s captain let fly a round of curses.

“I want answers, dammit,” Captain Kree shouted. “What good is a bomb squad if they can’t even detect a fucking bomb? I’m gonna have Miller’s ass on a plate.”

As the medic applied a Band-Aid, Gray flinched, which only served to make his head throb even worse.

“Make sure he gets that stitched up,” the medic said to Dom. A few moments later, she packed up her kit and disappeared through the door.

Over Captain Kree’s shouting, Gray heard Dom grunt.

“What?” Gray shifted to see Dom surveying the damage. He knew his partner well enough to know something was up.

“The explosives must have been hidden behind the wall.” Dom pointed to the blast hole. “Someone did a kick-ass job of re-taping the new sheetrock.”

Gray stood slowly, grabbing the doorjamb for support. Again, Dom reached out to steady him so they could both eyeball the damage.

“The blast blew open a three-foot-wide hole,” Dom said, “but most of the exterior wall remained intact. The explosion was directed inward.”

Their eyes met. “Anti-personnel bomb,” they both said at the same time.

Pieces of sheetrock lay on the floor, along with wood from the building’s original beam structure. The opposite walls were peppered at differing heights with shrapnel, probably nuts, bolts, nails, and pieces of scrap metal, one of which had caught Gray in the back of the head.

The laptop lay on the floor, its cover partially ripped off, the screen shattered by flying debris. Gray seriously doubted anything useful would be recovered from its hard drive.

It occurred to him that Methopolis could have rigged the bomb before he died, but the assassin had been dead for eight months. So who called in the tip?

Someone who wanted to kill police.

Another assassin.

“Smell that plastic?” Gray asked. From the distant look in his partner’s eyes, he could tell Dom was far away. “I’ve smelled it before. So have you.”

In a heartbeat, Gray flashed back to a day fifteen years ago.

Afghanistan. A hospital blown to bits. Innocent children shredded beyond recognition by shrapnel. His unit decimated.

Because the woman I trusted betrayed me and everyone else in that hospital.

Dom rubbed the side of his right leg. “Ah hell.”

Gray knew there was a long, ugly scar on Dom’s right leg. He’d seen it when they worked out in the gym together. He’d also seen it the day of the explosion all those years ago, his leg bloody and torn. Whenever anyone asked him about it, Dom joked that an old girlfriend scratched him with her nails during mind-blowing sex. But Gray knew Dom’s humor was a cover for not only the physical pain but the pain of loss he’d suffered that day.

At the sound of whipping fabric, they both turned to watch as two medics covered the FBI agent’s body with a white sheet.