Thr3e Read Online Free

walked down the slope toward the car.
    The forensic scientist at the trunk was a woman. Black, petite, maybe Jamaican. She looked up and lifted an eyebrow. Pretty smile. But the smile didn’t alter the scene behind her.
    It was hard to believe that the twisted pile of smoldering metal and plastic had been his car.
    “Whoever did this had one heck of a chip on his shoulder,” she said. A badge on her shirt said she was Nancy Sterling. She looked back into what was left of the trunk and dusted the inside lip.
    Kevin cleared his throat. “Can you tell me what kind of bomb it was?”
    “Do you know bombs?” she asked.
    “No. I know there’s dynamite and C- 4 . That’s about it.”
    “We’ll know for sure back at the lab, but it looks like dynamite. Leaves no chemical signature that ties it to a specific batch once it’s been detonated.”
    “Do you know how he set it off?”
    “Not yet. Remote detonation, a timer, or both, but there’s not too much left to go on. We’ll eventually get it. We always do. Just be glad you got out.”
    “Boy, no kidding.”
    He watched her place tape over a dusted fingerprint, lift it, and seal the faint print on a card. She made a few notations on the card and went back to work with her flashlight.
    “The only prints we’ve found so far are in places where we would expect to find yours.” She shrugged. “Guy like this isn’t stupid enough not to wear gloves, but you never know. Even the smartest make mistakes eventually.”
    “Well, I hope he made one. This whole thing’s crazy.”
    “They usually are.” She gave him a friendly smile. “You okay?”
    “I’m alive. Hopefully I don’t hear from him again.” His voice shook as he spoke.
    Nancy straightened and looked him in the eye. “If it’s any consolation, if this was me, I’d be in a pool of tears on the sidewalk. We’ll get this one, like I said; we always do. If he really wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. This guy’s meticulous and calculating. He wants you alive. That’s my take, for what it’s worth.”
    She glanced up to where Detective Milton was talking to a reporter. “And don’t let Milton get to you. He’s a good cop. Full of himself, maybe. Case like this will send him through the roof.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Publicity. Let’s just say he has his aspirations.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. Like I said, he’s a good detective.”
    As if on cue, Milton turned from the camera and walked straight for them.
    “Let’s go, cowboy. How long you here for, Nancy?”
    “I have what I need.”
    “Preliminary findings?”
    “I’ll have them for you in half an hour.”
    “I need them now. I’m taking Mr. Parson in for a few questions.”
    “I’m not ready now. Half an hour, on your desk.”
    They held stares.
    Milton snapped his fingers at Kevin. “Let’s go.” He headed for a late-model Buick on the street.

    The station’s air conditioner was under repair. After two hours in a stuffy conference room, Kevin’s nerves finally began to lose the tremble brought on by the bomb.
    An officer had fingerprinted him for comparisons with the prints lifted from the Sable, then Milton spent half an hour reviewing his story before abruptly leaving him alone. The ensuing twenty minutes of solitude gave Kevin plenty of time to rehash Slater’s call while staring at a large brown smudge on the wall. But in the end he could make no more sense of the call than when it had initially come, which only made the whole mess more disturbing.
    He shifted in his seat and tapped the floor with his foot. He’d spent his whole life not knowing, but this vulnerability was somehow different. A man named Slater had mistaken him for someone else and very nearly killed him. Hadn’t he suffered enough in his life? Now he’d fallen into this, whatever this was. He was under the authorities’ microscope. They would try to dig into his past. Try to understand it. But even Kevin didn’t understand his past. He