No Good Deed Read Online Free PDF

children to safety.
    Giving Nicole and her men enough time to escape.
    They could have killed everyone and still had time to escape. Why put the bomb on the bus? Was it more than a distraction? Was there another reason to set off the bomb?
    Donnelly reported that only two individuals, a man and woman, boarded a helicopter right after the explosion. Was the bomb also a way to distract first responders from hunting them down? If Isaac had time to alert anyone before he rescued the kids, there was a slim chance Nicole could have been apprehended en route to the helicopter. But she didn’t give him the time. And after a disaster—like an explosion—all resources and personnel would rush to the point of origin.
    When had the gunmen boarded? They couldn’t have been hiding on the bus—there would be no place that the children wouldn’t see them. They must have boarded with the last of the children—or hijacked the bus near the end of the route when the missing boys were supposed to be picked up.
    She took out her notepad and scribbled her observations. In all likelihood, the lead agents were already following this avenue of investigation, but she didn’t want to miss anything. With emotions running high and an escaped felon on the loose, they may not have thought beyond tracking Nicole Rollins’s footsteps.
    Lucy glanced at her small, neat block letters. While others were running on anger, grief, or determination, she was standing here methodically—coldly—putting together pieces of a puzzle. It had to be done, and she knew she was good at it, but her lack of emotion disturbed her. She blocked out everything except the evidence and the psychology. It bothered her because it was becoming harder and harder for her to connect with people. There seemed to be a wall between her and everyone else. Like Kenzie. She liked Kenzie, but sharing her feelings—like her happiness about her engagement—felt unnatural.
    Analyzing the crime scene, getting into Nicole’s head, figuring out how all the pieces fit together—that felt natural.
    There was something wrong with her.
    No. It’s not wrong. It’s who you are. Accept yourself as you are.
    Just this morning she was thinking she had. And then something like this happened and she once again felt disconnected from everyone else.
    Only Sean didn’t make her feel abnormal. She closed her eyes and remembered their weekend. Remembered that it was okay to be different. That her unique skills would help the FBI and DEA find Nicole Rollins. She breathed deeply and let the calm take over.
    “Lucy,” Brad said.
    She opened her eyes. Brad was both angry and grieving, but keeping his emotions under tight control.
    “You said you had something,” he said.
    She handed him the paper with the names of the two missing boys and their grandmother’s address. “They didn’t get on the bus. Father Mateo didn’t know why, he thought they might be sick. He spoke briefly with their grandmother when his head count didn’t match the number on the bus.”
    “I’ll send someone to check it out later.”
    “Why didn’t they get on the bus?”
    “Who cares?” Now Brad’s irritability came through. She couldn’t blame him.
    “What if someone related to them is involved? Nicole knew about the bus, knew the route, knew where and how to get on and how the bus intersected with the prison transport—or how to divert the bus without drawing attention. They could have created the plan by observing the bus routine for a few days, but it would be easier and more reliable to have someone on the inside. How? At the last stop? What if these boys were supposed to be at one of the stops but the driver didn’t know they wouldn’t be and the gunmen hijacked the bus?”
    “Shit.” Brad ran a hand over his face. “Okay, I see it. We’ve pulled all the security feeds and our tech people are putting them together, but that takes time and equipment, so it’s all going back to headquarters for