“Are those marsalos?” Cris leaned forward and gave the paper bag Nick was carrying an appreciative sniff.

“Yes.” Nick extended the bag toward her in silent offer.

“Mmm.” She took one, widened her eyes in surprise as she bit in. “Wow. Where'd you get them?”

Nick didn't know why he didn't want to answer. He shrugged.

Always sharp, Cris took another bite, her gaze now focused on him. “You don't know where you got the best marsalos in the city? Marsalos Man himself?”

“A friend gave them to me.” He folded the bag--Cris was only getting one if she was going to interrogate him--and sat down at his desk. He set his screen in its holder and checked his messages.

“Where'd she get them?” Cris sat next to him and swung her chair in his direction.

Nick glanced at her, irritated. “She made them.”

Chris gave a happy sigh, and Nick noticed her smug grin.

Shit. He'd fallen straight into her trap. Now she knew the friend was a woman and she'd seen him early enough today to give him freshly baked marsalos.

He set his mouth in a thin, tight line and worked through the schedule of open cases he wanted to get through, flicking his screen to projection mode on his curved desk.

“Does she have a name?” Cris was still staring at him, making no effort to even look busy.

He grunted, then made a rude gesture with his hand.

“What?” Vreg ambled over. He had some kind of built-in radar. He always knew when something was going on.

“Nick has a girlfriend who baked him fresh marsalos this morning.” Cris leaned back in her chair, and ate the last bite of marsalos. “She's an awesome cook, too.”

“Wow. She must really be sweet on you. Marsalos? From scratch?”

Nick closed his eyes, tipped back his head. “Don't either of you have something better to do?”

“As of this second, everyone has something better to do.” Commander Drake stepped out of his office into the main working space, his eyes hard. “Suit up.”

“Another one?” Nick asked, his gut clenching when Drake nodded.

“An office building on the other side of the city. Explosion on the fourth floor.”

They ran through to suit up, each stopping in front of their personal armor and arsenal cubicle, and Drake stalked in behind them.

He was probably timing them.

Nick slammed his laz into its holster, grabbed his helmet and saw Cris was doing the same.

They ran to their hover.

“I'm with you,” Drake said from behind him as Cris keyed their usual four seater to open the doors in advance.

Nick turned to look at his commander over his shoulder, hoping his dismay didn't show on his face. “You want to sit in front, sir?”

Drake's response was merely a raised brow and then he slid into a front seat, and Cris, already on the other side, swung into the front next to him, shooting Nick a smug grin.

She programmed the route and the hover shot out of the launch tube. The moment they were out, Nick could see the smoke rising in the distance.

Below them, the track was busy, the EM vehicles stacked one behind the other as people realized the danger and programmed a change in direction away from the Hub.

As Cris took them high and fast toward the explosion, Nick resigned himself to another hellish day.

“Any link between this new building and the others?” Cris asked Drake.

Drake shook his head. “There are fifteen businesses in this new building. There were more than ten businesses in each of the other two buildings hit, some of them with a few hundred employees each, so the connection could be there, we just haven't stumbled across it.”

“Casualties?” Nick asked.

Drake shook his head. “Don't know yet.”

Cris circled the building, and Nick saw the fourth floor on the north side had taken the brunt of the damage. The building was a living garden, with plants growing up the sides in a riot of fruit and flowers, and the mark the explosion had left looked disturbingly like a physical wound on a living organism. As if it had been pierced in the side.

People were running out of the ground floor doors on all sides, and Nick was pleased to see there were City Watch officers at each exit, directing the survivors to an enclosed space where they could be questioned.

In every other incident, all those people had turned out to be genuine employees in the building, and none had explosives residue on them. But they never knew when they might get lucky.

A perimeter had been cleared around the building, and Cris landed in the pedestrian area in front of the door, empty of everyone except officials.

The three other Protection Unit hovers, each carrying two team members, landed beside them.

Drake was out before Cris had shut the engine down, striding over to one of the officials, his head bent in close as they spoke.

Nick got out slowly, taking in the debris scattered around them. He walked over with Cris to join the rest of the team, and after a minute, Drake called them to him.

“The officer in charge says the flow of people out the building has stopped. Everyone who can get out is out.”

That was their signal. Everyone checked their equipment.

Drake handed out instructions, and they broke into groups of two.

Nick got Vreg, and they went through the front doors, moving slowly through the massive foyer of the building. Vreg took the slim, silver search tool out of his pocket and tapped it, and the schematics of the building were projected in 3D in front of them. There was no one on the lower floors, although later someone would come through and check anyway, but there were definitely heat signatures on the fourth floor, the epicenter of the explosion, and a few stragglers higher up, perhaps afraid to come down.

Nick studied the information and then coordinated with the rest of the team, and he and Vreg took the stairwell on the north side.

As they moved toward the entrance to the fourth floor, a smell hung in the air--the bitter tang of the explosive.

He exchanged a look with Vreg before he pushed open the door, but they knew what they'd most likely find.

The teams checked in from their positions at the entry points on the same floor, and they began searching.

A soft exclamation from Cris over his earpiece told him she and Bagins had found the first body.

It took him and Vreg less than thirty seconds to find the second.

Three hours later, they stood beside their hovers, grim-faced and angry.

“Only three unharmed on the fourth floor,” Cris said, and she looked back up at the building. “Thirty injured.”

“And seven dead, more than in the other two explosions combined.” Bagins rubbed a hand against his temple.

“The question is, was it just bad luck this time, or are they escalating?” Drake appeared beside them, as grim-faced as they were.

Nick shrugged. “It was the same charge as before, same composition of chemicals, same amount of explosive. We may discover more from the survivors. If they were having a meeting it might account for the higher death toll.”

Drake nodded, looked over at the small crowd of journalists who'd gathered to hear whatever news they could get, and although his expression didn't change, Nick had the sense he was steeling himself for what was to come.

“Get back to the office.” Drake looked them over. “And start searching for the connection on how these assholes are targeting the buildings. Don't stop until you have an answer.”

* * *

Tila didn't take the stairs. She was too tired.

She'd stayed late to finish the project she was working on, so close to the end she hadn't been able to leave, but when she realized the lateness of the hour, and the fact that she'd been staring at her screen for ten minutes without reading a word of the report, she forced herself to pack up and go home.

At least she'd been so late she'd missed the EM logjam caused by the bombing of the Dalcart Building.

Speaking of which . . .

She pulled up short as she turned into her hallway, her gaze on the broad, slumped shoulders of Nick Bartega.

He seemed to be staring at his door.

She moved carefully to her own door, looking sideways at Nick as she ran her finger through the lock.

He stirred, lifting the strap of the big bag dangling from his hand onto his shoulder and turning to catch her eye. “Sorry, long day. I was just thinking something through.”

His voice was rough.

“Long day for me, too, but I bet yours was worse. I heard about the Dalcart Building.” She was tired, but making dinner for two was no more difficult than making it for one. “Have you eaten?”

He shook his head, and she gestured him into her apartment, walking in and letting him close the door behind them.

She set down her things, and moved to the kitchen, getting out the ingredients she planned to use.

The fact that he wasn't talking struck her after a while, and she turned to look at him.

He was standing close to the counter, bag gone, and she guessed he'd set it down inside his apartment before coming back into hers. He seemed to be completely closed in.

“Problem?” she asked.

He shook his head and sat at counter, watching her.

He looked exhausted.

His hair was slightly damp so he must have showered and changed at work, washing the evidence of his painful day off him. He smelled good, but she couldn't shake the feeling that however solid he looked, he was not himself.

She let him sit quietly as she put the food together. When she slid a plate in front of him, he looked up, blinking.

“Sorry, I--”

She shook her head, handing him his cutlery. “No apology necessary.” She took the seat next to him and they ate in silence. The tension she usually felt when he was around had gone, replaced by a quiet restfulness.

When they were done, she took the plates and put them in the washer, and when she turned, it was to find him lying on her long, deep couch, eyes closed.

She hesitated, unsure whether to shake him awake and force him off to his own apartment, or whether to leave him be.

But he was an officer of Commander Drake's Protection Unit, and leaving him to sleep peacefully was the least she could do, beside the more personal connection they'd forged since she'd made him breakfast this morning.

She took off his boots, covered him with a warm throw, and worked a pillow under his head before she made her way upstairs to shower and climb into bed.

There was no storm blowing outside, but as she closed her eyes and snuggled deeper under the covers, she realized she didn't need one to feel safe tonight.