Ultimate Kill (Book 1 Ultimate CORE Trilogy) (CORE Series) (18 page)

Concerned, he stepped back into the living room. When he didn’t find her in there, he checked both bedrooms and bathrooms.
 

Where the hell was she?

No longer just concerned, but downright worried, he reentered the kitchen, checked for her in the backyard, then stopped and listened. The faint sound of a TV came from the short hallway off the kitchen. He hadn’t been down this hallway and had assumed it was where her laundry room was located.
 

“Naomi,” he called as he rushed into the hall and discovered two doors. He opened one, saw the washer, dryer and utility sink, then left the room and opened the other door.
 

A small flat screen sat on a stand in the corner of the room airing what appeared to be a newscast. He let out a sigh of relief when he found Naomi hunched over a small desk and typing furiously at the computer keyboard. “Naomi?” he asked as he approached her. “Everything okay?”

When she didn’t answer him, he moved to the edge of the desk and touched her wrist. She stopped typing and kept her head down.
 

He dropped to a knee and nudged her chin, forcing her to look at him. When she did, and he caught the horror in her eyes, he immediately gripped her shoulders. Alarmed, he stared at her flushed, tear-soaked face and gave her a slight shake. “What happened?”

She drew in a ragged breath. Her face crumpled and more tears sprang from her eyes.
 

“Please, baby,” he said, trying to keep his tone calm and soothing. “Talk to me.”

Her watery gaze shifted to the TV. He turned and looked at the small screen. Disgust, grief and fury swept through him as he started at the news footage. “Oh, my God,” he murmured as the camera panned out, revealing what was left of the entrance of a school.
 

Flames engulfed a large portion of the building. Firefighters aimed their hoses at the blaze. Black smoke spewed from a gaping hole filled with debris. The camera switched scenes. Adults and older children ran through the parking lot peppered with police cruisers, ambulances and fire trucks. Injured, frightened kids, their faces streaked with tears and smoke, sobbed and wailed, their wide terrified eyes searching frantically. Men and women—parents he assumed—ran through the chaotic scene, checking one kid and then the next, likely looking for their child. Unable to stomach the fear and sadness on the parents’ and kids’ faces, Jake looked to the caption below the footage.
 

“Bombing at Idaho middle school. Five dead, dozens injured.”

He rubbed Naomi’s arms. “That’s horrible, hon. I hope to God it was accidental and not—”

“This was no accident,” she said, her tone flat, bleak. “Look.”

He glanced to the computer screen. At the top of the page she had typed in a search for Rose Wood. Below that were pictures of a restaurant that looked as if it had also been bombed. A yawning cavern had replaced the roof, revealing charred singed rubble. The front of the restaurant was covered in soot and ashes, the glass from the large front windows broken and scattered along the sidewalk patio. Part of the sign, which must have once hung along the front of the building, had broken in half. One part remained suspended and barely clinging to the brick, while the rest lay in pieces on the concrete front walkway. He read the caption beneath the images,
“The Rosewood Bar & Grill, an iconic San Francisco restaurant known for its good food, atmosphere and celebrity appearances, exploded this morning (4:00 AM PDT). Fortunately no one was injured. The cause for the explosion is currently under investigation.”

He glanced away from the screen and met her red-rimmed eyes. “What does this restaurant have to do with the school?” he asked, looking back to the TV. When he caught a fireman carry a woman’s limp, soot covered body from the building, he quickly turned away. He’d been in the Marines, had witnessed and personally experienced bombings and explosions in Iraq. To see this kind of destruction—at a school—brought back haunting memories he’d thought had been put to rest.
 

Instead of answering, she scrolled down the search page, then stopped at another set of photographs. Shocked, he stared at pictures of flames shooting out of what looked like a high-rise hotel, at the billowing black smoke streaming from the shattered windows, at the bloodied and injured people running from the building. Before he read the caption below the photos, the news anchor reporting the school bombing said, “We’re going to do a split screen to help keep you up to date on the other devastating explosion that took place a little over an hour ago in Henderson, Nevada.”

Jake met Naomi’s gaze, caught the sadness and, strangely, guilt in her eyes before focusing on the TV. “At five o’clock this morning, Pacific Daylight Saving Time, an explosion ripped through the Sun Valley Hotel and Convention Center,” the reporter said, motioning to the decimated building behind him. “The hotel was at full capacity due to the large IT conference scheduled this week. Fortunately it was early in the morning when the explosion happened.” The reporter shook his head. “With the amount of people expected, one hour later and the devastation would have been significant, killing hundreds. As it stands, we’ve been told seven have been confirmed dead and at least forty people have been injured. The cause of the explosion is yet to be determined. Firefighters are still working on putting out the blaze and making sure everyone has been evacuated from the building.”

The news anchor thanked the reporter, then the screen was dedicated solely to the middle school. “Just like with the Sun Valley Hotel and Convention Center, the explosion at Coolridge Middle School could have resulted in more deaths and injuries. During the night, a water main break had knocked out power, delaying the opening of schools and many local business by an hour throughout Rosewood County, Idaho.”

Goose bumps crept along Jake’s skin. He quickly looked back to the computer screen, at the search Naomi had typed. He took over the computer mouse and scrolled down further, read through the article about the convention center explosion, then sucked in a breath. “7854 Rosewood Court,” he said, staring at the convention center’s address.

“I have to go,” Naomi said, her voice shaky. “
You
have to leave.” When she tried to rise, he pressed on her shoulders, forcing her to remain in the office chair.

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded. The Rosewood connection definitely knocked him off guard. While the coincidence was uncanny, he couldn’t understand why or how she would have even tried to make a link between the three explosions in the first place.

With more strength than he expected, she shoved him away. Knocking the chair back, she stood and hugged herself, tears streaming down her face. “Leave, Jake. Just go and don’t call me again.”

Confused and angry, he grabbed her by the upper arms. “Fuck that. I let you walk away once without an explanation, I’m not about to let it happen again. You owe me—”

“Stop,” she shouted. “You don’t understand. This is
my
fault.” She pointed to the TV and computer screen, her breath hitching with a sob. “All of those people, their deaths, their injuries…it’s my fault.”
 

“You’re not making any sense. How could explosions in California, Nevada and Idaho have anything to do with you?”

She hugged herself tighter and stared at the TV with so much pain in her eyes it made him ache. He loved her and hated that whatever she thought, whatever ridiculous conclusion she’d come up with and firmly believed, left her frightened and ready to run. Ready to push him out of her life again.
 

“Please, just trust me. You have to go.”

“No, damn it. You’re scared shitless and I want to know why.”

She dropped her hands and paced the small office. Her breathing grew labored as she ran her hands through her hair and pulled on the strands. When she let go of her hair, she swept her arm along the bookshelf near the TV, knocking everything to the floor. She moved to the next shelf below, upending its contents, then did the same to the shelf beneath until finally dropping to her knees. Hands covering her face, she wept.
 

He rushed to her side and pulled her in his arms. Running his hand down her back, he cradled her. “Please, baby. Tell me what’s happening. Don’t shut me out, let me help you.”

She shook her head against his chest and fisted his shirt. “You can’t. No one can. No one can stop him but me.”

He forced her to look him. “Who? Your stalker?”

Nodding, she swiped at her eyes. “He’s sending me a message and I don’t think he’ll stop hurting people until I go to him.”

Trying to reign in his patience, he cupped the back of her head with a gentleness that belied the anger and turmoil coursing through him. “How can you be sure he’s sending you a message?”

Chin trembling, her eyes filled with immense anguish, she gripped his shoulders. “Because my real name is Rose Wood.”
 

PART II

It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one.

— George Harrison

Chapter 8

Bloomington, Indiana
 

8:40 a.m. Central Daylight Saving Time

VINCENT D’MATTO POURED Fruit Loops into his four-year-old son’s cereal bowl.

“Don’t forget the milk, Daddy.”

He glanced down at his son, Gustavo, focused on his chubby cheeks before looking into his big brown eyes. His mother’s eyes. “Never, little dude. How ‘bout some worms and spiders with that milk?”

Gus’s eyes grew big and round, before he looked down at the Spider-Man costume he wore—the same costume he’d been wearing regularly since Halloween. “Do you think it’ll help?”

“Help what?” Vince asked, topping the cereal off with two percent milk.
 

“Fight bad guys.” Gus hopped off the chair and flexed the foamy, built-in muscles of the Spider-Man costume. “Sandman is going down,” he said, his expression fierce and determined.
 

Vince rubbed his son’s short brown hair before kissing his head, then looked up when his wife, Anna, entered the kitchen carrying their youngest son. “Morning.” After giving Gus’s head a final pat, he held out his hands to take the eighteen-month-old from his mother’s arms. “How do you feel today?” he asked Anna, his gaze drifting from her tired eyes to her swollen belly.
 

The baby, Benito, grabbed Vince’s cheeks to keep the attention on him. “Loop,” Benny said, staring at him as if they were negotiating a million dollar deal rather than cereal.

Anna poured the Fruit Loops into a small bowl and set it on the baby’s highchair tray. “She kicked up a storm last night.” His wife placed a hand on her stomach. “Sorry if I kept you up.”

Vince set Benny in the highchair and secured him. “You didn’t,” he replied, opened the fridge and pulled out his lunchbox. Anna’s tossing and turning hadn’t kept him awake, worry had. If the cysts the doctors had found on the baby’s brain remained, and she was born with—he shut the refrigerator door. He couldn’t go there. They’d deal with whatever came their way and make it through.
 

Somehow.

He flinched when Anna ran a hand over his tense shoulder. “You’ll make it to the ultrasound?” she asked, her voice laced with uncertainty.
 

Glancing at her, catching the concern in her eyes and wishing he could absorb every one of her fears, he set the lunchbox on the counter and quickly pulled her into his arms. He hugged her as tight as her protruding belly would allow and drew in a deep breath through his nose. Despite the severity of their situation, he grinned. When he’d first met Anna, her perfume had reminded him of sunshine and wildflowers. Now she smelled like baby lotion and diaper rash cream. And he loved it. Loved that she’d given him two beautiful, healthy sons, that she’d sacrificed her own career to raise their children. That she’d been cutting corners and coupons to help make sure every extra penny from his paycheck went toward paying for his degree.
 

He loved her.
 

One day, in the not so distant future, he’d give Anna the bigger, newer house she deserved. For now they’d make do. And if the ultrasound showed that the baby girl Anna carried was—

He hugged her tighter, smoothing his hand down her back and tangling it in her long, thick, silky soft black hair. “Nothing could keep me from missing it. I’ll meet you at the hospital at three.” He kissed her lips. “Who’s watching the boys?”

“My sister.” She glanced at their sons, who, completely oblivious to his and Anna’s anxiety over the new baby and pregnancy, continued to stuff their faces with Fruit Loops. “She said if we needed to…if things don’t go well and we need…” Tears filled her eyes. She blinked several times and pulled away.

He held her tighter. “Don’t go there. We’ll deal with whatever God gives us. Okay?”

“Come on, Vin,” she said, gripping his arms. “We’re scraping by as it is. Your insurance is okay, but it won’t be enough to cover—”