after rereading it
twice -- judged it finished about fifteen minutes later.
Cade signed it and presented it to Avery, then pulled his DragonCon
'registered guest' badge out of his jacket pocket, clipped it to his collar, and
headed into the hotel to see if this year's convention was still underway after
all the excitement.
In the second-floor con suite, it seemed that a number of other people were
wondering the same thing. They filled the con suite practically wall-to-wall as
Cade squeezed in and looked around.
No answers there; Cade left the con suite and headed for the registration
ballroom on the first floor, taking the cell phone he'd been issued out of his
pocket and dialing the Atlanta number he'd been given for the mission.
A woman answered with, "Zero-eight-two-six."
"Dragonfly here."
"Go, Dragonfly."
"I filed a police report. Nothing to add. Am I offline?"
"Yes. John says 'good job' and you're on standby."
"Okay, thanks."
"You're welcome. Enjoy your stay in Atlanta."
She disconnected. Cade slipped the phone back in his pocket as he approached
the elevators. As usual, there was a herd of people waiting. Some began chanting
in unison as if that would somehow make the right elevator light come on.
"Down, down; we wanna go down!"
As he waited, Cade's mind returned to the moment that the blonde had dragged
the car out of the hotel's driveway. A Crown Vic's roof came almost even with
his shoulders. She'd been tall enough to easily see over it, so that made her
between five-seven and five-ten.
And her legs. By God, she'd had magnificent legs. Even from across the
street, he'd seen that she'd had the long, solid legs of a fitness diva.
How had she happened to be on hand to deal with the car bomb? He'd never
seen or heard any reports of flying blondes in Atlanta. Chances were she'd been
on tap just like more than half of the other people he'd met during this
operation. That would make it likely that she'd been in town at least a few
days, stashed somewhere as an ace in the hole.
It had to have been one hell of an explosion up there. Cade wondered if
she'd still been hanging onto the car when it blew. Yeah, probably. She couldn't
very well let go of it. Damn.
Motion in the lobby below caught his eye; the guy who'd been taking pictures
in the street was cradling the camera and leading a small herd of people through
the dense throng