Two days to Thanksgiving. They hadn’t found the bomber, nor had I got any response from…well…them.

I couldn’t even think of them as what they might be, as who they might be. Just…the people I hoped would join me for Thanksgiving. Maybe that was bad of me, but it was the way it was. For now, at any rate.

But there was so much tension and I knew I wasn’t off the hook as a suspect. In fact, I suspected I was rather on the hook. Talking to Mike about it might seem to be a good pre-emptive idea, but I knew better. It would only, at this point, make them wonder more about me.

If Martin had still been around…no, he wouldn’t have cared if anyone got hurt, as long as it wasn’t me. I was sure this wasn’t supernatural stuff to the point of trying to leave it to the cops.
Trying. Pipe bombs. A hole in the ceiling. They would be fixing it for a while. I couldn’t just ignore it, because, well, it could have nailed me. It could have hurt me.

Worse, it could have hurt Kanesha. Or even Barry. I knew it wasn’t Barry, he wouldn’t do stuff like this.

“Gods,” I murmured over my homework, then gave up. I finished it hurriedly and headed out until curfew. I normally ignored it. Right now, I didn’t dare, even if there were vampires to hunt or demons on the loose. I couldn’t hunt anything if I was avoiding the cops or breaking out of jail.

They could never hold me, I thought. But…and then Thruor pulled up next to me.

“You look like you have a lot to think about.”

“You’re actually around?” I’d been looking for her for days.

“Sadly, I’ve been…busy.”

I didn’t want to think about that. Or ask her where…I didn’t need to. There were the usual brush fire wars all over the place. Plenty of things to keep a valkyrie busy. “Somebody blew up a history classroom.”

“I saw that. Nobody hurt.”

“They pulled the fire alarm then set off the bomb. Either they didn’t want to hurt anyone, or somebody had second thoughts.” I let out a breath. “But they haven’t eliminated me as a suspect. I don’t have a great alibi.”

“Let me guess. You were at home in bed.”

I nodded. “Whoever did it, did it between 2 and 4 am. When everyone was at home in bed.”

Thruor rolled her eyes. “I’ll see what I can find out, but I’m not a detective.”

“And no sign of Loki, as usual, when I could actually make use of him.”

She laughed. “Of course not. He’ll show up right after you resolve it. You watch.”

“Better be sooner than that.”