Page 29 of Over the Flames

“My son died because of you!” The killer’s scream filled the warehouse and echoed off the exposed girders above. Rose tossed the gasoline can out of sight and stepped back, her voice even. “All the other children survived, but his liver… His immune system was too damaged. It couldn’t fight back. I wasn’t there for him when he needed me the most. I wasn’t there to tell him I loved him, that it would be okay, or to take care of him. The foster family social services placed him with didn’t care. They didn’t get him the help he needed. The prosecution never found evidence I’d poisoned him, but your accusation was enough to ensure I never got the chance to tell him I wasn’t the one making him sick.”

A sob built in Arden’s throat. She pressed her ankles into the zip ties, but she’d been unconscious when she’d been restrained. There was no room for escape.

“He died believing I was the one who was killing him.” Rose pressed her index finger into her own chest, blonde hair escaping from the tight bun at the back of her neck. Spots of gasoline spread across the gray tank top under her oversized button-down shirt. The minimal amount of sunlight reflected off the line of tears in Rose’s eyes. The muscles in her jaw ticked in rhythm to Arden’s racing heart rate. “He died thinking I was hurting him.”

“I’m so sorry.” Arden shook her head as sorrow and a flood of grief tore through her chest. “I shouldn’t have written that article. I was wrong. I know that, and if I could take it back, I would, but killing Baldwin, killing Phil Anderson and Jacqueline Day, killing me—none of that is going to bring your son back.”

A hollowness infused Rose’s words as the anger drained from her face. “You lost your daughter to an illness you were trying to fight. Even at two years old, she was your entire world, wasn’t she? There wasn’t anything you wouldn’t have done for her, nothing that would’ve stopped you from saving her if you could have.”

Warning shot through her as Rose reached into her pocket and pulled a metallic lighter from the depths. She flicked it open with her thumb and hit the spark wheel. A flame burst from the hood and illuminated a soft glow across the floor. The light chased back the ring of darkness closing in as the day wore on outside these walls and revealed two more gasoline cans nearby. Rose’s gaze brightened as she stared at the small flame in her hand. “Killing Phil Anderson, Jacqueline Day, and your mentor had nothing to do with my son’s death. They were working on an article under a pen name together. They wanted to expose Vashon Chemical for poisoning the island’s water supply and prove I wasn’t the one who killed my son, but I couldn’t risk them discovering I was still alive.” Rose raised her attention to Arden and took a single step forward.

“So you faked your death and picked them off one by one and asked a nanny to give a false statement to support your alibi.” That was what this was all about. Revenge. Every cell in Arden’s body braced for the woman to drop the lighter. She pressed her back into the chair, feeling it give slightly. A flutter of bright yellow perimeter tape left from Baldwin’s crime scene reached her ears. “First Phil Anderson, knowing all three victims met at his home and that he would be the only one with copies of the research they’d conducted, then Jacqueline Day outside the National Newspaper Awards, and finally Baldwin. You used his cell phone to lure me to this warehouse.”

“I wasn’t ready to kill you when I discovered they were working together, but I am now. Your mentor should’ve left well enough alone after his partners disappeared, but he kept pushing, kept looking for details about the lawsuit. I warned him months before I confronted Phil Anderson by accessing Baldwin’s cloud storage and using his own work against him for the plagiarism claims. He wouldn’t stop. Determination is a key drive for any investigative journalist searching for the truth, but this time, Baldwin only ended up paying the same price as Jacqueline and Phil.” Rose skimmed her palm over the lighter and closed the lid, cutting off the flame. Turning toward the two other cans of gasoline, she collected them both and retraced her path back toward Arden. “I was going to kill you that night. I was going to give you the chance to die with someone you obviously cared about, but when I saw you step out of your car while Baldwin burned to death behind me, I knew you deserved to die alone. Just as my son had.” The drop of metal on concrete that night. The killer had been there all along, watching her. Rose cocked her head to one side as though trying to read her mind. “Tell me, do you think Agent Mitchell will miss you as much as he missed your daughter after she died?”

Her gut knotted. Lawson. Their last conversation replayed through her mind. His parting expression had burned a hole straight through her and tore her down to nothing all over again. He’d lied to her from the beginning. He’d promised they’d get through this investigation together—that he’d be there for her—but had run at the first sign of trouble. She hadn’t been enough for him. She’d never been enough. Not when they’d been married, and he’d spent most of his time obsessed with his investigations. Not after Rey had died, and she’d needed him the most. Not when she’d helped him move his investigation forward, and the honesty of that realization crushed her from the inside.

She’d made Lawson a deal not to publish the details of this investigation, and she’d kept her word. The notes she’d compiled throughout the case hadn’t been to move her career forward, but she’d wanted to honor Baldwin after everything he’d done for her by finding his killer all the same. Only now, the truth would never come to light. Lawson and Sheriff Sanders would find her body, as she’d found Baldwin’s, and she’d never have the chance to tell him how…valued she’d felt working the case with him. Despite the pain they’d put each other through, he’d done that for her, and she’d fallen in love with him again for it.

He’d shown her that self-worth couldn’t be achieved through being needed by others or dependent on goals but by fulfilling her own emotional needs and decoding what she wanted for herself. Her heart’s desire had been set on being the parental figure her siblings had needed, the mother Rey deserved, the wife Lawson could rely on for so long, and she’d lost that the day she’d buried her daughter. She’d forgotten who she was, what she’d been put on this earth to accomplish. Until she’d walked into this same warehouse three days ago and realized the man she’d been using as a crutch as these years couldn’t help her anymore. Arden leveled her chin parallel with the floor. She hadn’t been enough for Lawson, but she sure as hell was enough for herself, and nothing—not Rey’s death, not her ex-husband’s betrayal, not Rose Hindley’s wrath—would take that away from her.

“No. I imagine your ex-husband saw you for who you really are, and that’s why he left you unprotected in your apartment.” Rose uncapped the end piece covering the nozzle of the second gas can and raised it above Arden’s head. Clamping a free hand around Arden’s jaw, Rose forced her head back and her mouth open before tipping the tank forward. Clear liquid splashed into Arden’s face and up her nose.

The bitter chemical taste burned across her tongue and down her throat. Arden wrenched her head from side-to-side, desperate for breath. The ties cut into her wrists as she struggled, but there was no escape. She spit the accelerant out as fast as she could, and time distorted until her attacker had emptied the entire can.

Rose released her.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She spit again. Arden blinked to clear the gasoline from her vision. The fumes absorbed into her lungs, making it so much harder to breathe. A rise of anger replaced layers of grief, regret, and betrayal, and she pressed back into the chair a second time. Her over-exaggerated inhales growled through her chest. The wood at her lower back protested a split second before the left connection to the seat splintered. “And you don’t know me.”

Shoving off with her toes, she rocketed herself onto her back and slammed into the floor. Her head snapped back and hit the cement. Pain exploded across her skull, but she had to keep moving. She had to get free. The chair shattered under her weight and momentum as Rose Hindley tossed the second gas can and lunged, wide eyed. The zip ties around her ankles slipped free from the chair’s legs, and Arden tugged the wrist ties down the wooden arms. She pressed her heels into the floor and hauled herself to her feet. Clutching a length of wood, she scrambled into the darkness as fast as she could. Her attacker’s scream—a mixture of rage, agony, and desperation—cut straight through her as she searched for an exit.

Her heart threatened to beat straight out of her chest. Her fingernails broke against the cinderblock walls as she felt her way around the space. Rose Hindley had killed three people in an effort to get to her. She wasn’t going to stop until Arden was dead.

Arden swallowed to counter the panic flaring in her chest and forced herself to breathe deep. The fumes weren’t as heavy here. Cool steel shocked the nerve endings in her palms, and she clawed for the door’s handle. Chains rattled against the thick metal, and Arden turned back to face the shadows. The dirt-caked and boarded windows were too high for her to reach. There was nowhere to run. No where she could hide. She turned to face the way she’d come.

Rose Hindley’s outline materialized, the flame from the lighter casting shadows below her sharp features. “You labeled me the poster girl of your own inability to deal with the loss of your child, Arden. This is for my son.”

The killer tossed the lighter to the floor, and the flames erupted.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Car alarms battled to be heard over one another and ripped him back into consciousness. Lawson forced his eyes open, the taste of salt thick in his mouth. Blood. Black smoke and bright orange flames bellowed from the pickup truck he’d been chasing. He pressed his palms into hot asphalt and pushed himself upright. Pain ricochet around his head as he dragged his legs out in front of him. He set the crown of his head against the car behind him and watched both the pickup and his own SUV burn.

Sirens and screaming tires broke through the shouts filtering in and out around him. The flames climbed higher, threatening to spread with the amount of accelerant left in the back of the truck’s bed before the explosion. Arden. His eyes drooped closed, but Lawson leaned into his right side and forced himself to stand. He had to find Arden. He stumbled forward as red and blue patrol lights converged on the scene. Two EMTs jumped from an ambulance rig and made a beeline for him. He waved them off. His wife was out there. Alone. Scared. Unprotected. Because of him. “I’m…fine.”

Lie. The hammering in his head intensified with every step he took until his weight collapsed out from under him.

One of the EMTs caught him around the middle before Lawson hit the ground. “Take it easy, Agent Mitchell. You were obviously near the explosion when it occurred. There’s a chance you have a concussion. We need to make sure you haven’t sustained any internal injuries.”

“She’s still out there.” He used the EMT to get to the back of the ambulance and slid onto the cold bumper. The ringing in his ears grew louder as emergency personnel set to work. They were right. He wouldn’t be any good to Arden if he’d suffered from more than blunt force trauma to his head when the improvised bomb had gone off. He’d let the EMTs do their job, then he’d find the bitch who’d taken his wife. A flashlight shined directly in his eyes and immediate pain lanced through his skull.

“Definite concussion.” The outline of the second EMT centered in front of him. “Agent Mitchell, do you know where you are?”

“Seattle.” Flames arched and stabbed out from the pickup truck in his peripheral vision. Two engines from the Seattle Fire Department rolled onto the scene and immediately set to work to control the blaze’s spread. The ringing in his ears faded slightly, details registering that hadn’t before. The truck’s cabin had been empty right before the explosion had decimated any evidence that might’ve been left behind. Whoever had taken Arden wouldn’t have been able to get far unless they’d had another vehicle waiting for them. He focused on an empty parking spot three cars ahead of where the pickup had been sitting in the middle of the road. Arden’s abduction hadn’t been random. She’d been the killer’s ultimate goal. He’d just gotten in the way.

Just as the victims had. Lawson pushed off the back of the ambulance. Phil Anderson, Jacqueline Day, Baldwin Webb—none of them had been the initial targets. They’d threatened to expose the killer’s true intentions by investigating Vashon Chemical’s water contamination claims. The proof was in Baldwin’s correspondence with his editor right up until he’d been fired from the paper. With Phil Anderson missing for more than two months, his partners must’ve continued the work. They’d uncovered too much, and not willing to risk an immediate connection between all three investigative journalists, the killer had bided their time. Waited for the opportunity to present itself. Jacqueline Day had made a mistake in making a public appearance the night before her death, and what better way to force Baldwin Webb into the light than with a plagiarism claim that ensured the end to a twenty-year career? “I need a phone.”

The EMTs cleaned and bandaged the laceration across his temple. “Agent Mitchell, you’re going to need stitches in at least two more of these wounds. We can’t let you leave—”

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