Sign of the Maker (Boston Crime Thriller Book 4), Brian Shea [free reads .txt] 📗

on it, keeping pressure on the wound and trying to ebb the flow of blood. It had started to work, but now, with each pulse, he felt the pounding in his head worsen.

He asked for some Tylenol, but the medics said anything that would thin his blood would exacerbate the bleeding. The wound was superficial but painful, and the medic recommended that he get stitched up as soon as possible. Kelly nodded, but he was not in the mood to be transported to a hospital and wait. There were far more injured people who needed care right now, and he'd been banged up worse than this in the past.

Hell, his face was littered with the damage of his boxing career. An extra scar on his forehead would make no difference to him. Barnes was nearby, her green eyes looking down on him with worry.

"I told you, it's nothing."

"Still, better you get checked out. I mean, you could have a concussion or something too."

"Won't be the first time on that either," Kelly said dismissively. The fact was, he just didn't want to be out of the fight yet. It wasn't like he'd lost a limb, like the guy he'd helped at the first scene. Some people fought through a hell of a lot worse, and the bomber was still out there—unless Hodges had decided to kill himself with the last bomb, which made no sense whatsoever.

They'd received word from the crime scene technicians clearing the scene that four bodies were inside. Hodges and McLaughlin were among the dead, as well as the woman who walked in with them, identified by her driver’s license as Sally Perkins. The last victim was the waiter, Tommy Coogan, who, unbeknownst to him, delivered the bomb. They'd debriefed some of the surviving staff members, who said a cake box had been dropped off earlier in the day. The description of the person who dropped it off matched the one given by Chaz the bartender. The man had asked that it not be refrigerated and was adamant that it shouldn’t be opened until McLaughlin arrived.

The bomber said it was a surprise birthday cake, and the staff had been more than happy to accommodate the request. They didn't have much to offer in the way of an enhanced description. They said he was very polite, but soft-spoken. The staff member who had contact with him noted the teardrop scar. The bomber left the cake with specific instructions that it be brought to the table at exactly 6:30 p.m. He told the waitress the time was important, something about it being related to the birthday. The staff had no reason to assume an ulterior motive. People made strange requests all the time to restaurant staff.

"You'd think they would've been a little more cautious with a mad bomber running around the city," Langston snarked when he'd heard the person describing the package. There was truth in that statement, but this was outside of Boston, in Hingham. And things that happened in the city didn't necessarily carry the same weight and worry for those in the suburbs. Although the bombings were terrifying events, up until this point they were all localized to either the city or an extension of it. So the surrounding suburban towns and areas probably didn't feel the same fear. Most people watching the news across Massachusetts and the rest of the country would be able to distance themselves from the direct threat. True fear was always mitigated by distance.

Halstead walked up to Kelly and inspected the blood-soaked bandage pressed against his forehead. "I think it's time you take a little break on this one, Mike. Head on in and get stitched up. We'll be okay without you pushing this for a little bit. Take a break and reset."

"Take a break and reset? Are you kidding me?" Each word spoken rattled his throbbing head. "This is nothing, seriously. I've taken worse abuse in the ring."

"That's fine. We know you're tough, Mike, but..."

"But what? There's still a bomber on the loose."

"Well, five of six of his targets are dead, and if everything we have up to this point is true, then the sixth one is safely tucked away in solitary at a maximum-security prison. So, yes, I think it's safe for you to take a minute to get fixed up."

Kelly understood what Halstead was saying, but just because the likelihood of the bomber being able to knock Collins off the list was slim didn't mean it wasn't a possibility. The bomber had managed to elude them and accumulate a sickening body count in the interim. There was no way Kelly would drop his guard. But the real reason he couldn't get on that ambulance and head to the hospital was because he felt partially responsible.

He hadn't seen it coming. Everything he and Langston had conjectured was proven wrong when the fifth bomb went off. McLaughlin and Hodges were both dead. With that, the potential direction for the case was now completely derailed. They were back to square one. But McLaughlin’s death didn't change the fact that Kelly still believed Collins about his involvement with the IRA.

They'd been right about the platform, about avoiding the diversion at Downtown Crossing and heading to Braintree. McLaughlin had ducked both bombs. Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was planned. Kelly still wasn't sure. The decoded message left at the site of the inert bomb at Downtown Crossing had been confirmed to be the exact time the train McLaughlin rode in passed through the station.

That meant the bomber knew exactly when McLaughlin would be arriving at the station yet chose not to detonate. Kelly couldn't figure out why. Maybe it was to draw law enforcement’s attention, get them away from all the other platforms, redirect assets so that he could hit him with the other bomb. But these bombs were all timed devices, so everything had to be perfect. According to the last conversation Langston had with Hodges, he had somehow convinced his boss