Mitch snorted inelegantly and contemplated how that image contrasted with his life. Man, maybe he should’ve stopped at Flo’s before coming home tonight. Guys and gals from the precinct tended to hang out there between shifts. He probably just needed to get back in the swing of things.

The very thought lifted his spirits. “Shoot, how can a man feel down when he’s lucky enough to be behind the steering wheel of a sweet baby-blue fully restored ’68 Corvette?” Grinning foolishly, Mitch caressed the steering wheel. He nearly missed the flash of his headlights off metal ahead.

Chrome. Damned if there wasn’t a car without running lights parked in his lane. He’d worked too many drug busts to shrug off the significance of a car traveling without lights after dark. And this one was moving. Mitch could hear the sound of the other car’s engine, too. It was plain the driver didn’t have a hankering to stick around.

Mitch’s headlights barely pierced the swirl of dust kicked up by the fast-departing car. Mitch tried to make out its type, but as he peered out his windshield, he plunged into a curve in the lane.

Pressing on his gas pedal, Mitch was determined to read the license plate before the car reached his turnaround and came back at him with lights on bright. Only reactions long-honed by his police training saved him from plowing into something sitting in the road—a small suitcase. He braked and swerved.

Once he’d squealed to a stop, Mitch sat there a moment, sweat beading on his brow, his teeth clamped tight to stave off the pain he’d brought to his bad leg. Fighting off a wave of dizziness, he backed the hell up fast and scrambled to locate his cell phone.

Cursing, he watched the other car disappear and decided to relinquish the chase. Instead, he punched in the number of the precinct’s bomb squad. Why else would someone drop a suitcase on a private rural road at night? Especially as the drop coincided with an ex-cop’s arrival… If Mitch didn’t know for certain that the crazy who’d shot him was locked up tight, he might think Tony DeSalvo had come back to finish the job.

DeSalvo wasn’t the only creep he’d ticked off in his career, though. Just the latest. Tony was still safely put away—Mitch verified that first. He had no clue who’d left him a hot calling card, but he would damn sure find out as soon as the sucker discovered this road dead-ended.

“What the hell?” Mitch saw headlights bobbing across his west pasture. He slid out of the Vette, wincing at the stabbing pain in his left leg. Hands on hips, he watched the fleeing car slow midway in its run to intercept the 181 cutoff. Probably waiting to see him blown to smithereens.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he muttered darkly as the distant vehicle sped up again. He ought to notify the county sheriff, whose territory was intersected by Highway 181, but Mitch knew they couldn’t respond in time. The perpetrator could turn north and lose himself in Tucson’s winter-visitor traffic, or turn south and cross the border into Mexico at Agua Prieta. Either way, they’d shake a tail. So rather than give futile chase, he’d be better off seeing if his old department’s bomb squad could lift any prints from the suitcase. It shouldn’t be hard with the new computer system to cross-match prints to any of the bad guys he’d helped put away during his six years on the force.

It took fifteen minutes for his former co-workers to show up. Mack Rich and Pete Haslett wore gear that made them look as if they were headed to the moon. They seemed particularly eerie in the hazy spotlights they trained on the item in the lane.

“Wow, cowboy,” quipped a third member of the team. “You really know how to throw a homecoming. Since it could get hotter than your standard college bon-fire around here, I suggest you move that classic car before it gets torched, ruining your day and mine.”

Mitch, long used to being tagged “the Italian cowboy” by his comrades at the station, complied without taking issue with their friendly taunts.

“No audible ticking,” shouted the dough boy closest to the suitcase. “Could be she’s set to explode the minute anyone lifts her. Let’s give the case a shot with the X-ray camera to see the setup inside.” He turned to Mitch. “You said you saw a car drop the suitcase and leave the scene? Did you get a plate and a make?”

Mitch stood well back from the others while they readied a boom attached to a portable X-ray unit in the bomb van. “I saw a car,” he said with a grimace. “It was already in motion. I swerved to avoid the bag and missed getting details. I figured something was fishy. The car ran without lights and didn’t turn around at my ranch where the road ends. The driver took out across the field. Had to have torn out a section of my fence.”

“Doesn’t sound good, buddy. On the other hand, the X ray doesn’t show any wiring in the case. One metal object, and it’s not in the center as I’d expect to see with a bomb device. See, it’s off to the right. Looks like some kind of…vase.”

“A vase?” Mitch’s breath whooshed out in disgust. “Damn, who would’ve believed that? Sorry I called you out on a wild-goose chase. Shall I go ahead and open it?”

“Not yet.” Pete dragged him away. “Mack will pick it up with a grapple, drop it in a padded container and I’ll douse it with cryogenic foam. A layer of supercold compound will freeze any components if they’re assembled in that pretty little bottle just to throw us off,” he added by way of explanation. “The vase could be made of lead.”