She tried to pull the mask off. She wanted to make sure Donald was okay as she pushed herself into a sitting position. Each move, each motion causing tiny pinches of pain around her body. She realized she was covered with little black tacks. She felt that they were meant to cause her pain but not to kill her. She knew that, she felt it was what the killer wanted…to cause her pain. The way her mind instantly thought that the killer was responsible shocked her.
“Stay still, Grace, you’re covered with this stuff. Keep the mask on until the room clears.” Sandman told her as he held her close to him.
She noticed he had only a few of the same black tacks stuck in his arm and he had begun to pull them out.
She could tell he was angry and knew he felt responsible.
Maybe he felt like he should have noticed the box being delivered sooner. But who would have thought the same person who was killing women would also send a bomb to Donald? Could this be something different? A coincidence?
* * * *
Grace could have been killed and I was supposed to be protecting her. I promised her she would be all right. He said to himself as John and Frank entered the room.
The air was clearing up and the paramedics were making their way to the office.
Donald had hit his head on the desk and was just regaining consciousness. He didn’t have any of the black tacks on him and they assumed the initial explosion scared him and as he jumped and dropped the box, the bottom of his desk took the hit.
Grace looked at the desk. He was sure that she could see the wood of the desk had hundreds of little indentations in it. The carpeting on the floor was covered with a bunch of black tacks that hit the desk, and then fell to the brown rug below.
Sandman and her brothers were kneeling in front of Grace looking over her injuries.
“Get these things off of me,” she said in a panic as she started pulling out the tacks.
“Be careful, baby, some of those are in there pretty good,” Sandman whispered, consoling her as he took her shaking hand to stop her from pulling out more tacks as her neck and arms continued to bleed. Her whole body was shaking, her lips were quivering and when she spoke her speech sounded shaky.
“Oh my God, Grace, what the hell happened?” John asked, filled with concern. Sandman couldn’t even imagine how he and Frank were feeling. This was their baby sister.
“We heard a large bang and then the place filled up with smoke. I couldn’t hear or see and then Sandman tackled me again,” she said in a quivering voice. He felt bad for hurting her, but he didn’t know what the explosion was or what would happen next. He went into protection mode instantly.
“There was a package on the desk. Donald was holding it, looking it over. I asked where it came from and as he looked up at me, it exploded,” Sandman explained to Frank and John.
“You saved my sister’s life again. We owe you man,” John stated very seriously.
“That bomb was just a message,” Sandman stated. “It wasn’t meant to kill anyone. He just wants us to know how vulnerable we are. He’s telling us he can get to Grace or whomever, whenever he wants to. He’s resourceful and I don’t like it one bit.” He got up off the floor and began giving orders to the crowd of officers and detectives.
The search was on for the person who delivered the package.
* * * *
The paramedics entered the room and Grace sent them to treat Donald first.
He was acting funny and she was certain that he had a concussion.
Grace on the other hand felt dizzy and light-headed. The paramedic told her it was a combination of the gas in the explosion and the trauma she was exposed to. No shit trauma.
He had no idea what trauma the past few days had brought her. She wondered why the killer did this. What could he want from her? Who could he be? Her head was pounding as two paramedics removed the little black tacks from her arms and neck.
“You were lucky that one of these things didn’t hit you in the eye,” said one of the paramedics as he carefully removed each tack from her body then finally the last tack from her neck.
When they were all done, both Grace and Donald refused to go to the hospital to be checked out thoroughly.
“You should go, Donald. You might have a concussion.”
He appeared so serious and scared. He was looking for something in his desk files, and when she asked him what he was doing he told her “nothing.” She didn’t think it was nothing, but she wouldn’t push the issue. He was in a state right now and was trying to maintain his professionalism. She got that.
Grace was relieved that Donald was safe. She didn’t want to see anyone else get hurt.
“I’m so glad you’re okay, Donald. I’m so sorry about this. You could have been killed.”