Detached (Saphera Nyx #1) - Elicia Hyder Page 0,1

and grinned at me. “Beefing up your resume with an armed-robbery capture?”

“Yeah, I’m sure the board will be very impressed by a suspect armed with a zucchini.”

“Huh?”

“It wasn’t a gun. It was a zucchini inside his sock.”

Jones bit down on the insides of his lips.

“You said it was a squash,” Teek said.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

“You got him?” a woman yelled from the door of the convenience store.

I waved. “We got him, Sally!”

“Thank you, Nyx!” Sally Penrod, the night-shift clerk, held up a thumb and walked back inside.

“Where’s everybody else?” I asked Jones.

“Called to handle a ‘delicate matter’”—Jones used air quotes—“at the Drexler. So, of course, everyone is headed that way.”

“You going too?”

“Bet your ass.”

I chuckled.

With lakeview chalets going for over $10,000 per night, the swanky resort, golf course, and casino drew an always-interesting clientele. The last time we were called to handle something “delicate,” a hammered and naked Hollywood A-lister (not naming names) was tearing up the hotel golf course with a Bugatti.

Needless to say, no one was missing out this time.

Jones looked down. “Where’s his shoe?”

I tugged on Teek’s arm. “Did you stash it somewhere around here?”

Teek lifted both shoulders and his eyebrows.

“Guess you’re going to jail without it. Come on.” I walked Teek to my unmarked black patrol car and opened the back door. He stepped into my back seat, and as I reached to hold his blond head . . .

Kaboom!

All our heads whipped in the direction of the lake. Smoke billowed up through the moonlight from somewhere around the Drexler Resort and Casino.

“That wasn’t me,” Teek said, breaking our stunned silence.

“Officer down!” Corporal Mason Baker yelled, breathless, over the frequency.

My heart stopped.

“Explosion at the Drexler, north side, near the chalets. We need medical!”

Jones tossed what was left of his corndog into his car.

“Who else is there?” I demanded as I hurried Teek into the back seat.

“Sarge and Rivera, I think,” Jones replied, getting in his driver’s seat.

Everly was still frozen to the concrete. “Get in your damn car!” I yelled at him as I got behind my wheel.

“I’ve never driven Code Three by myself.” His eyes were as wide as the moon above us.

“Go!” I slammed my door and flipped on my lights and siren. Then I floored the gas pedal.

My radio beeped as I followed Jones onto the highway. “Delta One,” a deep, winded voice said.

My heart eased a bit.

“Go ahead, Delta One,” dispatch replied.

“All officers are OK and accounted for,” Sergeant “Sarge” Essex said.

I exhaled fully for the first time since the explosion.

“Roll medical and fire. Possible casualties inside Chalet One-Ten on the golf course.”

At ninety miles per hour down the winding mountain pass, Jones, Everly, and I peeled through the entrance of the Drexler before Sergeant Tyler Essex even stopped reporting over the radio. In my back seat, Teek wailed along with the siren, the perfect soundtrack for the adrenaline surging through my veins.

“Holy shit!” I said when I rounded the steep curve toward the back of the golf course.

The chalet, once a bi-level, wood-and-stone marvel that faced the sixteenth hole on one side and Sapphire Lake on the other, was now split down the middle. Raging flames devoured the crevice, pumping black-and-gray smoke toward the few visible stars. Even at the bottom of the hill, the smoke stung my eyes, giving the flecks of rising embers a watery glow.

I parked beside Sergeant Essex’s unmarked black SUV and opened my door. “Teek, sit tight.”

He didn’t answer; his face was plastered to the polycarbonate front wall of my caged back seat, the flames dancing in his pupils.

I pulled my undershirt up over my nose to block the acrid smoke. “Everly, watch Teek!” I yelled as I ran past him toward the scene. Jones was right behind me as the first fire truck pulled in.

The silhouettes of two men, one significantly larger than the other, were coming down the hill toward us. The smaller one was limping. When I was close enough, I made out a black police uniform and a black suit. The officer was my boss, and the giant dressed like a penguin was my older brother, Ransom, head of night security for the hotel.

Ransom had grown a short beard since last I’d seen him, and his dark-walnut hair had some kind of faux hawk thing happening in the center. Something I’d definitely give him shit about later.

For now, all I cared about was that he and Essex were safe. “You all right?” I asked both of them,