The Terror (A Sarah Roberts Thriller Book 18) Read online

  At least he still had the bomb downtown. That unsuspecting couple delivered it to a popular intersection where it would cause the most damage. But that wasn’t the only reason he wanted it to blow at the corner of Bernard and Ellis. No, he had his reasons and the mounting death toll would shine light on his purpose.

  But this woman was something else entirely. How did she know about the backpack, or what chair it would be placed on? How could she know how much time was on the detonation clock?

  If she hadn’t entered the mall in such a dramatic fashion, he would’ve been in his truck and already driving away from the mall when the device exploded.

  When she ran through the sliding doors, she’d almost bumped into him. The look on her face, the determination made him stop and watch her. She ran for the coffee shop and stopped a few feet from the backpack. When she yelled about the bomb, then fired a gun, he knew exactly what she was up to. But how could she have known? It was virtually impossible. Unless he learned who she was and how she knew, he would go insane. Someone was bugging him, watching him. Had to be the case.

  The more important question was her identity. He needed to know who she was.

  Thirio had too many questions that were going to have to wait. Now wasn’t the time to stand around. The police were talking to people who had witnessed the event. They were asking for everyone to stick around, talk to them. Maybe someone saw who left that backpack in the chair at the coffee shop.

  The chance that some snot-nosed kid might turn to him and point was a risk he wasn’t prepared to take.

  He slipped sideways between a woman and her husband, then moved down the hall to his left that led to the public washrooms. Before entering the men’s room, he turned left and entered the back hallway of the mall where retailers walked their garbage to a central bin or took deliveries at the backs of their stores. He followed the corridor toward the exit. Seconds later, he left the building and started across the parking lot toward his work truck as the sun beat down on the back of his neck. He felt its warmth between his shoulder blades as his black collar shirt attracted the heat.

  Whoever that woman was, he hoped he didn’t meet her again. She had thwarted his plan. How she had figured it out was beyond him. What he had planned next could never be stopped. No Wonder Woman could get in his way again. Especially since she was carted away by the cops and driven off the premises handcuffed and in the back seat of a cruiser.

  Thirio hopped up in his truck, turned it on and let the air conditioning cool the sweat from his brow. He frowned as he thought back to the planning stages of the coffee shop attack. There was no way anyone could have seen him at any stage of the planning. Nothing he did caused alarm. The device was set to a timer he initiated in the truck before entering the mall. The device was gently placed inside the backpack two hours before in a secluded area. He drove to Kelowna from Penticton, about an hour’s ride, parked at the mall, and entered the coffee shop. No one observed a thing. As far as he could tell, no one looked at him wrong or suspiciously. If they had, wouldn’t the police have nabbed him before he left the mall?

  That’s where it didn’t make any sense. Unless that blonde girl was psychic, there was no way she could’ve known about him or his plan. If she knew what he was up to, she would’ve done something about it when she was manhandled toward the cruiser not five feet away from him.

  The girl didn’t even look at him.

  Then how could she know about the bomb? And by her actions, how could she have known about the timer?

  Utterly impossible.

  Yet, somehow, she’d known.

  Thirio put the truck in gear and started out of the mall parking lot. The Penticton site was burned. The city of Kamloops was burned. He turned onto Harvey Avenue toward Vernon. The half-hour drive would give him time to think as he prepared to start his money-making scheme one more time before the denouement.

  He would continue with his plans. They would never catch him. He was as elusive as D.B. Cooper or Jack the Ripper. He was as sly and as cunning. But most importantly, he was as dead as those men were and that was why they would never catch him. The authorities couldn’t catch a dead man.

  Nor could a psychic blonde girl.

  Chapter 6

  Another interview room, another police interrogation. This time, the interview room wasn’t numbered. It was in a separate building than the police station because Sarah was to be interviewed by British Columbia’s Serious Crimes Unit. They explained to her that they had this office outside the police station as these guys worked provincially, not municipally.

  There was no traditional two-way glass. Only a digital recorder and a dome lens camera above the door. The small room was no bigger than an average four-piece bathroom in an average-sized house. One desk, two chairs. Sarah’s chair rested against the back wall beside the small table. The interviewer’s chair was to her right, still empty.

  At least an hour passed before the door clicked open, but Sarah was grateful for the break. It gave her a chance to rest. After massaging her wrists where the cuffs had bit in, she dozed off during her time alone. Her nerves frayed after two close calls with explosives, the quiet time was a welcome reprieve. Even Vivian was absent, leaving Sarah to ruminate over her next step. She wasn’t a bomb disposal type of girl. She preferred roving street gangs or guys in back alleys with knives to bombs that could tear her apart before she had a chance to blink. That made the last few hours a test of faith. Even though Vivian was a truth-teller, what if she got the exact second of detonation wrong? Trusting her sister wasn’t the issue when self-preservation kicked in. The urge to avoid that backpack stuffed with a bomb at the coffee shop was felt in every limb. Either live with the countless dead or wounded on her conscience, or deal with the device in a cool-headed fashion.

  And this was the thanks she got. Stuck in a small room by herself without a single glass of water or a cup of coffee. It would give her a large lump of pleasure to tell Officer Stephen Lee that she was done.

  “Find the perp on your own time,” she mumbled under her breath. “Fuck you guys.”

  But she couldn’t do that. She came here to find the home-grown terrorist at the behest of Officer Stephen Lee and she wouldn’t stop until the unidentified subject—perp—was arrested or killed.

  Isn’t he already dead, Vivian?

  The door handle clicked. Sarah opened her eyes, blinked twice, then sat up, wincing when her sore shoulder smarted. A female cop in an ironed blue shirt and red tie stepped into the room and closed the door. She held a blue binder in her left hand.

  Sarah rubbed her eyes, paused, then rubbed them again.

  “Ah, damn,” Sarah murmured.

  “What’s that?” the woman asked.

  “I thought if I rubbed my eyes hard enough, you’d disappear.”

  The woman ignored her, adjusted her shirt at the belt line, then moved closer. At the desk, she opened the blue binder, pulled out a pen from the back of the binder, and took a seat. The chair scraped annoyingly across the floor.

  “Coffee?” Sarah asked.

  The woman stopped flipping through pages in the binder and addressed her.

  “Maybe we got off on the wrong foot,” the woman said.

  Sarah shrugged and shook her head. “Don’t think we even got off yet, let alone on the wrong foot.” She placed her right arm on the edge of the table and leaned closer to the woman. “Doesn’t that sound creepy to you? Got off on the wrong foot? How could you say such a thing?”

  The woman blinked twice and leaned back. “You’re here to answer a few questions—”

  “Where’s my Miranda?” Sarah wagged a finger back and forth. “No Miranda, no case. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

  The woman set the pen down on the binder. “This is Canada. We don’t Mirandize our citizens during an arrest. We follow the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It recognizes the right to counsel—as early as possible. Even though you may clam up, we may still continue to question you. You’re not und
er arrest, though. Even if you were, I understood the officers at the mall explained this when they cuffed you.”

  Sarah huffed. “That’s their story.”

  “Is it true?”

  “They tried to give me your version of Miranda by calling me a bitch, but didn’t continue with the female-bashing name calling.”

  “You’re here as a guest of Officer Stephen Lee. According to witnesses, you saved the day at several locations in the city of Kelowna today. I’m not here to give you a hard time. Just ask a few questions.”

  Sarah sat back in her chair and picked at a damaged fingernail tip. “I didn’t save the day. Two people died.”

  “I’ve been brought in to learn what you know as this is a province-wide case now.”

  Sarah frowned. “Province wide?” She met the woman’s eyes. “How’s that?”

  “The minivan that exploded downtown today came from Penticton. The woman who’d jumped out at the intersection gave us a good description of where they were and who sold them the chairs.”

  “The chairs?” Sarah asked, suddenly feeling out of the loop. “What chairs?”

  The woman picked up the pen, clicked a button on the tape recorder, and met Sarah’s eyes again.

  “State your first and last name, please. Speak clearly.”

  “Without being advised of my rights?” Sarah acted affronted, a shocked expression on her face. “How about a lawyer? What kind of police system are you guys running here?”

  “Look, you’re not a suspect. You’re not even a person of interest. I merely have questions that may be used in a court of law at a later date regarding other suspected parties. Other than information, this has nothing to do with you personally.”

  “If it has nothing to do with me, why do you need my name? In fact, why do you need me at all?”

  The woman grunted. “Lee said you might prove to be difficult.”

  “Lee said that? Suddenly he’s the expert on me? I’ve known him all of five hours. And what about your name? Who are you?”

  “I’m Corporal Nan Hammock with the Southeast District Major Crime Unit. Would you please answer my questions?”

  Sarah eased back in her chair, then slouched down until her head rested against the wall.

  “I’ll negotiate with you,” Sarah muttered.

  “Negotiate? What?” Hammock appeared surprised. “How?”

  “Because you could’ve been nicer about all this. We don’t need to be here, in such a controlled environment. Leaving me in this room for an hour without a coffee or an offer of a washroom break was disrespectful. You guys forget whose side I’m on.” She pushed herself forward and leaned across the desk. To Nan’s credit, the woman didn’t move away. “I’ve always been treated less than by the authorities because I haven’t earned a badge. I won’t hold it against you. So, yeah, I want to negotiate. Or you get nothing from me except a big fuck you and I walk out of here. Now, interested in making a deal with me?”

  Corporal Hammock tapped the pen on the binder. Her mouth held back a smile, as if Sarah was telling her a joke and Hammock was trying hard not to laugh. “Go ahead. What are your terms?”

  “Get me a large coffee. Black. Come back with it still piping hot. That gives you one question, one answer. After that, we exchange information. I’ll answer one of your questions after you answer one of mine. It goes on like that until one of us is satisfied. Or as you put it earlier, until one of us is getting off. Wrong foot and all.”

  “No deal.” Hammock locked the pen onto the paper in the binder. “I’ll get you the coffee.” She rose from her chair and started for the door. “When I return, we’ll take thirty minutes to get through my questions and be done with it. Coffee. Then questions. But I won’t answer yours. I’m not bound to.”

  Sarah watched as Hammock left the room, then shut her eyes and leaned back in the chair.

  “We’re in for a long night then, Hammock.”

  Vivian, you got anything for me?

  Vivian remained silent.

  Chapter 7

  “What the fuck is this?” Parkman asked.

  Lee tossed a folder onto his desk and placed both hands on his hips. His face had reddened after reading some of what was in the folder.

  “There’s nothing I can do,” Lee said. “It’s been handed off to the provincial task force. Even I.H.I.T. wants a piece of this.”

  “I.H.I.T.?”

  “The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team.”

  “Where the hell do you guys come up with these names?” Parkman plopped down on the small sofa in Lee’s office. “Look, I don’t care who is involved. This is no way to treat Sarah. You saw what she did. You were there. Fuck all the rest of it. Stealing guns. Shooting at firetrucks. Storming a coffee shop and scaring people. She saved lives today. Dozens of lives. She shouldn’t be stuck in some room being questioned like a suspect. She should be in here telling us our next move.”

  Lee turned and stared out his office window. His shoulders hitched. He adjusted his glasses. Parkman gave him the time he needed. If he didn’t fix this somehow, Sarah would fix it and no one would like what Sarah did—no one.

  “Parkman, maybe this was a mistake. You know, bringing her to Kelowna.” Lee turned to face him. “I know what she did, but—” Someone knocked on his door. He turned toward it and shouted, “What?”

  The door opened and a woman wearing a red tie stepped inside.

  “Hammock, I thought you were talking to Sarah?” Lee asked.

  “I was. And now I’m getting her a coffee. Just thought I’d let you know that it’s not going well.”

  Parkman chuckled.

  Hammock looked his way.

  “Ignore him,” Lee said. “What do you mean, not well?”

  “She’s refusing to answer any of my questions unless I answer hers.”

  “Then answer hers.”

  “But sir, some of the questions she may raise aren’t something I’m able to divulge—”

  “Don’t you understand?” Lee said as he stepped up to his desk and set both clenched fists on its top. “Sarah will give you nothing if that’s what she decides to do. So do it her way.”

  “It’s the only way,” Parkman added, his mouth in a half smile.

  Hammock glanced at Parkman, then back to Lee.

  “Am I authorized to bring another officer along?” Hammock asked.

  “For what?” Lee asked.

  “Intimidation. We could threaten to arrest her on weapons charges. Assaulting a peace officer. A whole slew of other charges could get her talking.”

  “You do that,” Parkman said, rising from the sofa, “and Sarah will eat you guys for breakfast. And hey, Lee, fuck you if you try that shit. We came as guests. She saved lives. Bring her in here. Talk to her yourself. You’ll get the answers you need. Do anything else and you’ll be stunted. Or fucked. Or both.” Parkman’s voice held an edge of hardness that he was sure Lee would take as a warning.

  Hammock went to say something, but Lee held up a hand. “Shh,” he said to her. “Parkman’s right. Get Sarah that coffee, then bring her in here.”

  Hammock was clearly vexed. “But sir—”

  “I don’t care about I.H.I.T. or your team or anyone else. Sarah came to Kelowna because I invited her here. I’ll deal with her and the fallout thereafter. It’s on me.”

  Hammock looked from Parkman to Lee, then back to Parkman. In a huff, she retreated from the room, turned at the door, and disappeared down the corridor.

  “That seemed to go well, don’t you think?” Parkman asked.

  “Fuck you, Parkman.” Lee ran a hand through his hair. “No really, fuck you.”

  Parkman smiled as he dropped back onto the sofa. That’s what he loved about Sarah. Her ability to get under people’s skin by just being herself.

  “Hey, Lee. Call Hammock and get a coffee for me, too.”

  “Get it yourself,” Lee grumbled as he dropped in behind his desk chair. “And get me one while you’re at it.�
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  “Fuck you, Lee.”

  Their eyes met. They smiled at each other.

  Everything would work out after all.

  At least he hoped so.

  Chapter 8

  Corporal Hammock entered the small room, handed Sarah a coffee, then walked back to the open door where she waited, her fingers tapping gently on the door’s frame.