Page 26 of Over the Flames

“Do you think it’s possible since they were unconscious, they didn’t suffer?” Bile burned in her throat as the odor of charred remains filtered through her memory. Gripping the edge of the desk, she shoved away the images of Baldwin’s body melted to the chair he’d been bound to. Arden stared up at him from her desk as hope spread behind her sternum. No one deserved to suffer that kind of pain, that kind of anguish, in their last moments. If the victims hadn’t been awake, there was a chance they hadn’t known what was happening at all.

“I don’t know.” His voice softened. Lawson lowered his attention to his phone and set it face-up on the edge of her desk. A hardness seeped into his expression. “But Sanders was able to uncover the owners of the warehouse Baldwin was killed in. Vashon Chemical. You’re right. He and the other two victims had been looking into accusations concerning the warehouse waste disposal.”

Awareness prickled down her spine as she read the list of names from his phone. Some she recognized from the documents sent over by the FBI, others she didn’t. All were island residents who’d become part of the class-action lawsuit against the company. “The water contamination story Baldwin, Jacqueline, and Phil were working on together. I’ve read through the article draft from the files the computer forensics lab forwarded. The victims must’ve started pooling their research together before Phil Anderson went missing. There wasn’t much to go off of, but you think that’s the story that got them killed?” She leaned back in her chair, arms folded across her chest. “They were looking into proving the contamination claims from the island’s residents and had started questioning Vashon Chemical executives on the source of the chemical contamination. As far as I can tell, they didn’t have anything conclusive that would make them a target from someone inside the company.”

“I don’t think anyone at Vashon Chemical wanted them dead, Arden.” He nodded toward the phone, drawing her gaze back to the list. “I recognized one of the names from an article you wrote a year ago for The Seattle Times. I think whoever is doing this wanted you to be the one to find Baldwin in that warehouse.”

An article she’d written? Her chair protested as she reached for the phone and ran down the list of Vashon Island residents involved in the lawsuit again. And froze. Nausea churned in her gut as the past rushed to meet the present, and the feeling of blood draining from her face notched her heart rate higher. “Salena Greer.”

His phone pinged with an incoming message, and Lawson’s eyes darted across his screen.

“I had the sheriff forward a background check after I recognized her name on the list of plaintiffs in the case. You publicly accused Salena Greer of poisoning her child in order to get attention from family members, friends, and medical staff. You labelled her mentally ill, suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy.” Lawson crouched beside her, but Arden couldn’t take her eyes off the name lost in the hundreds of other residents who’d filed complaints against Vashon Chemical. “Police arrested her because the boy’s doctors found heavy amounts of perfluorooctanoic acid in his toxicology reports. This was months before the class-action lawsuit revealed the water contamination by the warehouse. He was taken out of her custody until the investigation concluded and sent to live with a foster family.”

“You think she killed Baldwin in that warehouse to send me a message.” She gripped the edge of the phone as the world threatened to tip on its axis. Her thoughts stalled. Salena Greer had told police for months that she wasn’t the one making her child sick, but the boy’s social worker couldn’t ignore the signs. The police had been brought in, tests had been run, and Salena Greer had lost custody of her son. Now, there was proof she’d filed a lawsuit against the company accused of poisoning the drinking water. Had that really been what was making Salena Greer’s child sick?

“No, I don’t think she’s behind this.” He handed her his phone.

Arden read through the document on the screen, and gravity pulled the blood from her face and neck. “This is a death certificate for Salena Greer. This says she died of a self-inflicted wound a week after her release.” She glanced up to Lawson for confirmation. “She can’t be the killer.”

“It’s possible someone close to Salena Greer knows the truth, a family member or friend. They could’ve been biding their time since Salena’s death to strike back,” he said. “Killing Baldwin could’ve been part of her plan to get your attention, to ensure you knew Salena wasn’t the one who was poisoning her son.”

“Baldwin, Jacqueline Day, Phil Anderson—none of them were involved in that investigation. I did the work on my own. That story got me the job as an investigative journalist with the paper, and now you’re telling me it’s what might’ve gotten my best friend and his colleagues killed?” Arden pushed to her feet, knocking her laptop off center, and handed back his phone. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She pressed her palm against her forehead and closed her eyes, willing her nervous system to calm. This didn’t make sense. Three people were dead because of her? “I don’t understand. They had nothing to do with this. Even if a family member or friend is the one behind these murders, the victims were working together to prove Salena wasn’t responsible for poisoning her son. She would’ve been exonerated if the killer had let them publish. Why would anyone kill them?”

Lawson straightened. “There’s a motive we aren’t seeing yet. Could be because Baldwin was mentoring you. He’s the one who helped you get the job as a journalist and the other two have a loose connection, or the killer has decided all investigative journalists need to pay for what Salena and her son went through. Right now, going through Salena Greer’s life and relationships is the best lead we have until we get background checks issued for all the plaintiffs involved in the case. We won’t know anything until the King County Sheriff’s Department locates her next of kin. Until then, I’ve requested you be put under federal protection.”

“Wait.” The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She dropped her hand away from her face, turning toward him. “You’re talking as if Salena’s name on that list is more than a coincidence. Hundreds of Vashon Island residents filed against the chemical warehouse, Lawson, but you’re focusing on her. If you’ve already started looking into her friends and family, that means you have something solid. What is it?”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He slid his hands into his jeans pockets as though she couldn’t see through his defense mechanisms. Only this time, he didn’t have his suit as a shield of armor to protect him.

“That’s not what I asked.” She stepped toward him. “What else did Sheriff Sanders tell you on that call?” Hesitation contorted his features, and her heart jackhammered in her chest. There was more. Something he’d uncovered concerning Salena Greer he wasn’t sharing. “We agreed at the beginning of this investigation that we’d be partners. Everything that’s happened over the past three days is because we’ve been honest with each other. What aren’t you telling me?”

The muscles along his jaw flexed. “Sanders forwarded Salena Greer’s son’s death certificate, too. From what we can tell, he died in foster care while she was in custody. I’ve already sent a black and white to her sister’s last known address we had on file, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s been there in a while.”

Air caught in her lungs.

“Her son…died without her?” Her knees threatened to collapse right out from under her, and she stumbled back. The back of her thighs hit the corner of the couch, and she crumpled. She reached one hand behind her to steady herself. The numbness she’d held onto for so long dissipated as she considered the pain, the grief, the constant “what ifs” that’d run through her head after she’d lost Rey. Arden wouldn’t have wished that agony on anyone. If the Vashon Island mother hadn’t poisoned her son as Arden had theorized and was instead fighting an entire system of investigators, social workers, and warehouse executives, it would’ve been only a matter of time before she’d become crushed under the weight. The article had only added to the fire.

She fixated on specks of golden dust falling through beams of morning light coming through the window. “The social worker who came by the house after Rey… The medical examiner hadn’t done the autopsy yet, and she was assigned to interview me. You were at work. I didn’t know what to say. I could barely even remember my own name. She asked if Rey had ingested anything poisonous by accident or if I’d done anything to make her stop crying when she wouldn’t calm down or to get attention. I screamed at her. I told her mothers didn’t do that, and she countered with a report she’d filed against a Vashon Island mother making her son ill on purpose. When Baldwin offered to mentor me to become an investigative journalist, I remembered what the social worker had said.” She stood, shame crowding in from every direction. “I wanted to know what kind of mother could to that to their own child. I wanted Salena Greer know she’d taken every selfish moment she’d had with her son for granted, and I branded her a killer before the truth came out. I put my best friend at risk because I’d lost my baby, and now he and his colleagues are dead.”

Lawson pulled her into his arms, caging her against his chest, and the tears fell. He kissed the crown of her head and fisted a handful of her newly short hair. “You aren’t responsible for Baldwin’s death, and you’re not the reason Salena Greer’s son died while he was living in that foster home. If someone close to her is behind this, if they killed Baldwin and the others as some larger part of a revenge plan, they’re going to be the one to answer for that. Okay?”

Arden focused on the beat of his heart against her ear, holding onto the smallest portion of his confidence. Watery stains spread across his shirt. She pulled back, her fingers gripped in the material. She nodded. He was right. Salena Greer’s name on the plaintiffs list from the class-action lawsuit against Vashon Chemical could still be a coincidence. They wouldn’t know anything until they found the killer. Arden could help with that. She swiped her hand beneath her nose and pulled her shoulders back. “Okay. I can… I can reach out to the social worker who was assigned to Rey’s case and see if she might have an idea of where Salena Greer’s family might be. I think I still have her contact information saved in the official report she filed after that interview on my laptop, but I…I need a minute.”

“I know this hasn’t been easy for you, but we’re going to get through it. Okay? I give you my word.” He slid his hands down her arms, and a row of goose pimples rose in his wake. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Thank you.” Arden headed for the bedroom, craving the feel of photo paper in her hands and the echo of her daughter’s laugh in her mind. The box Lawson had dragged down from the closet was still open on the floor, and she repacked everything but the stack of pictures they’d gone through together. Crouching, she brushed her thumb over Rey’s wide smile, her own smile tugging at the corners of her mouth before she tucked the photos safely away and swallowed the guilt clawing through her. Salena Greer had just been a mother trying to protect her son, and Arden owned it to the woman she’d publicly torn apart to uncover the truth. If the FBI couldn’t find the killer responsible, Arden would. She’d pick up where Baldwin, Jacqueline Day, and Phil Anderson had left off with their investigation into Vashon Chemical and prove herself wrong. That was the only way to fix this.

She stepped into the hallway, catching sight of Lawson studying her laptop.

He raised his gaze to her. Fire burned in his eyes as he stared back. He took a step toward her, then another, as he had last night. Only this time, desire had twisted into something darker, more dangerous, and warning shot down her spine. He pointed back toward her desk. “You’ve been drafting an article about this case.”

Shame knotted tighter, but Arden pulled her shoulders back to face the consequences of his discovery head on. “Yes.”

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to help yourself, Arden.” He collected his suit and shirt from the end of her couch then unplugged Baldwin’s tablet from the charger on her desk. “This story was just too big to pass up. It’s a career changer, isn’t it? A story that guarantees you that job as a full-time investigative journalist for the paper?”

Her laptop. It’d been awake when she’d left the room. He’d found her notes on the case. He believed she’d broken their deal. “Wait. You don’t understand. I wasn’t going to—”

“What? You weren’t going to publish everything we’ve uncovered during this investigation? Is that why there’s a recording of Brent Hayward’s police interrogation right here on your desktop and an entire page of notes from the victims’ autopsy reports on your screen? You’ve detailed every step of this investigation, including who was involved, possible motives, and background information on me.”

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