Page 102 of Love Bomb

Rona didn’t like the sound of that at all.

The Semtex was in position. The charges were set. And the detonator had been programmed to the frequency he needed. They were ready to go. Bain dusted off his hands, stepped back into the middle of the circle that made up the bottom of the folly, and surveyed his work. It was good.

He’d placed a small quantity of explosive at equal intervals around the base of the folly. The charges were designed to blow in such a way that the big chimney would just collapse in on itself. Nothing should fly out, and there should be no damage to anything around it. The explosives were connected to each other, so they’d all blow at the same time. And he was the only one with the detonator.

It was time to get everyone back from the folly and bring the damn thing down. After picking up his work bag, he strode from the building and headed for Darach, pleased to see that his brothers had almost finished setting up the blast perimeter.

“We’re ready to go,” Bain told his brother. “Let’s make sure everybody is out of the way.”

“On it.” Darach pulled out his phone. “This is Red Lea—auch, forget it. You know who this is. It’s time for everyone to get behind the perimeter. I repeat, get behind the perimeter. If you want to watch the blast, go to the viewing area, which has been marked out with green cones. I repeat. Do not pass the orange cone line. Stand with the green cones.”

Bain glanced over at the women from Knit or Die, who’d come out of the church to watch, carrying mugs of hot tea. They were doing what they were told, for once. And they were all fully dressed while doing it.

As Kade jogged toward them, Bain looked around for his other brother.

“Where’s Conall?” he asked Darach, scanning the area near the graveyard.

“Must still be at the mausoleum,” Darach said. “I’ll call him.” He dialed their brother and frowned. “It’s ringing out. He’s probably forgotten to charge his phone again.”

“I’ll go get him,” Bain said. “You make sure nobody, and I mean nobody, passes the perimeter while I’m gone. I might have the only detonator,” he held up the remote, which looked like an oversized key fob for a car, “but someone could still set off a chain reaction in there if they messed with one of the blasting caps.”

“Gotcha. Nobody sets foot in the folly.” Darach looked threatening, which was easy when you were almost six-and-a-half feet tall and built like a bus.

Bain secured the fob in the pocket of his jacket, which had a zip for good measure, before jogging across the snow and through the trees to the edge of the graveyard. He’d just rounded the ugly Braveheart monument that Betty McLeod had built for her time in the ground, when he stopped dead. Conall was lying next to the munitions magazine, and he was bleeding.

Bain hurried over and crouched beside him. “Conall? Are you okay?”

Conall groaned as he slowly reached up to touch the back of his head. He winced and his fingers came away bloody.

“What happened?” Bain asked, lifting his brother to seat him on the metal box instead of in the snow.

“I don’t know.” Conall sounded woozy. “I was locking the box when…” He looked up at Bain, his eyes a little unfocused. “Where’s Rona?”

The world tilted.

A strange ringing sounded in Bain’s ears. It might have been an alarm.

“What do you mean, where’s Rona?” Bain took off his scarf and held it to the back of his brother’s head. Telling himself not to panic. Head wounds were notorious for bleeding a lot. It didn’t mean there was permanent damage. “Conall,” he pressed. “What about Rona?”

“Oh, aye,” Conall said, slurring his word. “She was just here.” He pointed to a spot between himself and the folly.

Bain glanced over and stilled. There was a paper plate on the snow, food scattered around it. His heart was thudding out of control now. His stomach clenched tight.

“Conall.” He grasped his brother’s shoulder. “Listen to me. This is important. What happened to Rona?”

Dazed eyes looked up at him. “Dunno,” he said.

Bain let out a stream of curses. “Hold this to your head,” he ordered Conall, pressing his brother’s hand against the scarf.

When he was sure Conall wasn’t going to fall over, Bain pulled his phone out of the pocket of his jeans and dialed Darach.

“What’s up?” Darach said in his ear.

“Call the doc,” Bain barked. “We need him. It looks like Conall has been hit on the head. I think he’s got a concussion. And Rona’s missing.”

His hand started to tremble, and he held the phone tighter as he examined the snow around the paper plate. It was impossible to tell if there had been someone else with Rona because there were too many footprints in the snow.

Darach sucked in a breath. “You don’t think Rona hit him…”