“Oh, I’m Zane’s assignment,” Portia talked over him.
Shit, he shouldn't have risked taking her along.
“Assignment?” Quinn’s head turned slowly and his gaze crashed into Zane’s glare. He lowered his voice. “This is your charge?”
The warning was clear in the tone of Quinn’s voice. After what he’d seen last night, he would assume the worst. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Where have I heard that before?”
“Can we talk about the explosion now?” Zane gritted between his teeth.
Quinn narrowed his eyes. “Fine. But this discussion isn’t over.”
Police sirens blared in the distance.
“Let’s get out of here before the police arrive,” Quinn suggested.
Zane couldn’t agree more and pointed toward his Hummer. “Get in.”
As soon as they’d all climbed in the car, Zane started the engine and drove down the Embarcadero. At a quiet spot, he parked the car and turned in his seat, looking at Quinn who occupied the back seat.
“Now give me the lowdown. What happened?”
“The locker was rigged with an explosive device. I smelled it, but that stupid station agent pulled the handle before I could stop him and the whole thing blew apart. We were lucky nobody got injured. I think your assassin planned for every eventuality.”
“Assassin?” Portia echoed. “Somebody is trying to kill you?”
Zane turned his attention to her. He shouldn’t have brought her. There was no reason for her to know all this. Yet, at the same time he wanted her to know what his life was like, the dangers he faced daily, the dangers she would face if she were with him. Was it so she would run the other way, or was he trying to gather sympathy from her? What the fuck was he trying to do?
He shrugged. “There’s always somebody out there who wants to kill me. What else is new?”
“But, that’s terrible.” Her hand clamped over his forearm. Shit, she was offering sympathy. He should have known that this kind of news wouldn’t make her shy away from him.
“It’s not all,” Quinn added, undeterred. “Somebody was watching. I saw him just after the explosion.”
“Human or vampire?” Zane asked.
“Vampire, possibly Hybrid. I couldn’t tell from that distance. But he saw me, and he knew I was trying to get at the contents of the locker.”
Zane clenched his jaw. “Do you think they sent him after Brandt didn’t come back?”
“Very possible. They probably knew what he was planning and had instructions to come look for him if he didn’t come back.”
Zane was afraid that Quinn was right. “Then they know now that we’re onto them. They’re warned.”
“Who are they?” Portia interrupted.
She already knew too much. He wasn’t going to tell her anything else. “You don’t need to know.” Then he looked back at Quinn. “Anything salvageable from the locker?”
“I lifted a cell phone. It’s all mangled and melted.”
Zane twisted his lips. “If he left his cell phone in the locker, I’m guessing he rigged the locker himself.”
“Could have been the vampire I saw after the explosion.”
“We both know how these things work: you go on a mission, but you don’t want to be traced in case things don’t work out. So you stash away any items that could identify you or where you came from, and you protect them.”
“With a little bomb,” Quinn interjected.
“Right. If everything goes well, you disable the bomb and get your stuff back. If it doesn’t, you make sure your enemies get blown to bits if they find the locker.” Zane made a movement with his hands, indicating an explosion.
“I would tend to agree with you. Unfortunately, there’s no way to know now if the bomb he planted could be easily disabled by Brandt. Therefore, we can’t rule out the possibility that the vampire I saw planted the cell phone and the bomb so we’d get a false lead.”
“In either case, we need to follow this lead.”
Quinn nodded in agreement. “I’ll give the cell to Thomas. Maybe he can get some info from the chip, if he can pry if out of that mess.”
“It’s worth a try. Can you have him look at it without telling him what it’s for?” All he needed right now was Scanguards finding out what shit he was in right now. Besides, this was private. It had nothing to do with Scanguards.
“He owes me a favor. He won’t ask any questions.”