“How did you happen to be in the right place at the right time to get those photos?”
“This apartment is only a couple of blocks away from the university. I heard the explosion, grabbed my camera, and ran.”
“Toward a bomb blast? And those pictures just happened to put you in the running for a Pulitzer. Lucky you, huh?”
One of the other agents moved in close to whisper to their leader.
Georgie barely noticed. New shocks were quaking through her. The FBI wasn’t just looking at her for information. They were including her in their suspect list.
She reached again for her phone. “I really think I need to make a call to my attorney now.”
“If you insist, I’ll have to ask you to have him meet you downtown.”
She looked up. “You’re arresting me?”
“Let’s say you’re a person of interest in an ongoing investigation.” He let that thought sink in before he went on. “There’s just one other thing I’d like your permission to do before we take this to a more formal setting. I’d like your permission to call in a K-9 explosives detection team.”
“What?” Georgie looked around her apartment with eyes wide. “Did one of your people find something? A bomb?”
“It’s just a precaution. We have your permission?”
“This is insane.” She shook her head. “Okay. Sure. But I’m calling my attorney.”
While Special Agent Clinton made his own call, Georgie got her D.C. bureau chief on the phone to ask her to please send a staff attorney over who could represent her. She only said she had been burglarized and the police suspected it wasn’t random. She was afraid if she said FBI they might not be able to find anyone willing to take her case, no questions asked.
As Georgie finished her call she heard sounds of footsteps outside her door. One of Clinton’s partners went to answer the knock. The first thing she saw was the golden head of a yellow Labrador retriever nose through the door. By the time her gaze rose to the man holding its leash, she was ten feet down the rabbit hole and dropping fast.
“Philip?”
Chapter Three
As he made his way through D.C. traffic to his target site, FBI Special Agent and K-9 Bomb Technician Brad Lawson wrestled with his conscience.
Seconds ago details of his dispatch had appeared on the laptop screen inside his vehicle. Above the address was the name Georgiana Flynn.
“Shit!”
With a yip of concern, Zander pushed his big satiny yellow Labrador retriever head through the opening that separated the K-9’s backseat crate from the front seat of the FBI vehicle.
“Easy, boy.” Brad reached up and gave his partner a pat under the chin. He knew Zander was reading the pheromones streaming off him from his agitation. That wasn’t good. They needed to be mentally calm and absolutely focused.
“Zander. Platz.” Zander instantly obeyed the German command that was also a signal that they were on duty. He pulled his head back and lay down in back.
Brad took a deep breath. He couldn’t allow his feelings to cloud his judgment where his job was concerned. But he was up to his butt in alligators, and he knew it.
The last person he’d expected to have professional contact with again had just turned up a second time as a person of interest in an ongoing FBI investigation, this time that of a would-be bomber.
This was going to be a first-class shit show. And there was very little he could do about it.
He was an experienced twelve-year veteran of the FBI, recruited right out of college. By consistently giving 100 percent, he had quickly gained a reputation as tough, honest, and nearly impossible to deceive. His ability to compartmentalize and bring a laser focus to every task made him tops in his present line of work: K-9 bomb detection and assessment, plus special FBI assignment work that could take his team anywhere at a moment’s notice. With that job priority, he didn’t think it right to promise a woman anything more than right now. Most women accepted that arrangement. That meant he’d had no long-term relationship in years. He was fine with that.
That is, until the game of hide-and-seek with a shadowy figure had brought Georgiana Flynn to the FBI’s attention two months earlier.