NYPD Red

Chapter 81

I was flat-out wrong. I felt a little stupid, but it’s a hell of a lot better than being dead wrong.

Not only do I not know squat about explosives, but I totally underestimated the New York City Department of Buildings.

Somewhere, somehow, someone, bless his bureaucratic little heart, foresaw my predicament, and had the vision to insist that all garbage chutes in the city of New York must extend six feet above the roof and be equipped with a safety valve called an explosion cap.

The ball of flame I was afraid would travel up the chute and burn us both to hell never did. Instead, a deafening explosion rocked the building and released a pressure wave of hot expanding gases, most of which blew straight through the roof.

Some of the blowback billowed through the hole in the wall we had created, but at least the little incinerator room we were trapped in hadn’t turned into a blazing coffin.

Neither of us moved for a solid fifteen seconds as ash, soot, and chunks of hot garbage fell around us.

And then, silence.

My mouth was pressed to Kylie’s ear.

“Are you alive?” I whispered.

“No,” she said.

“Me either,” I said.

I rolled off her, and the two of us sat up. We weren’t quite ready to stand.

“You have absolutely no bomb experience, do you?” Kylie said, shaking plaster dust out of her hair.

I stood up and grinned down at her like an idiot, thrilled to be alive. “I do now.”

I helped her to her feet, and she put her arms around me, clasping her hands behind my neck. I wrapped my arms around her waist, and, as the dust settled around us, we stood there, gazing into each other’s eyes.

I remember the first day I saw her at the academy. She was heart-stoppingly beautiful back then and, ten years later, with her face marbled with grime and her hair streaked with gray ash, Kylie MacDonald was still the most beautiful woman in the world.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “If you hadn’t stopped me from unlocking that front door, Spence and I-and you-we’d all be-”

She either couldn’t finish, or she just decided that words weren’t enough. She leaned into me and kissed me gently.

Kylie has the softest, sweetest lips I’ve ever kissed, and feeling them pressed against mine brought on that rush of anticipation I felt back in the days when I knew the first kiss was only the beginning of a night of tender, passionate, soulful lovemaking.

But that was ten years ago. Right here, right now, I knew that it all would begin and end with a single kiss.

“You’re welcome,” I said, lowering my arms from around her waist.

She stepped away, and the moment was over.

“Wish I could stay,” she said, “but I’ve got a homicidal maniac to catch, and my poor husband’s got both feet nailed to the floor.”

“How many times have I heard that old excuse?” I said as I followed her down the hallway so I could aid and comfort the lucky bastard with both feet nailed to the floor.