Page 32 of Over the Flames

He bent at the knees in order to wrench the back door of Sheriff Sanders’s cruiser open. Maneuvering her inside, he ignored the strain in his back and knees as he set her across the seat. The upholstery caught against the blisters on the backs of her calves. Fumes in Arden’s hair churned nausea in his gut, and he rubbed a small section of the shortened locks between his fingers. Her hair was still damp. Son of a bitch. Rose Hindley had covered Arden in gasoline, lit a match, and closed off any chance of escape with chains, padlocks, and tape around the doors. The killer had tried to burn his wife alive. He shucked out of his suit jacket and settled it over her as gently as possible.

“Lawson.” She tried to reach for him, crusted blood cracking across her palms.

“I’m here, baby. You’re safe. Help is coming.” His name on her lacerated, dry lips pooled rage at the base of his spine. He caught her hand and smoothed his thumb across the thin, heated skin along the back with one hand as he withdrew his radio with the other. He compressed the push-to-talk button. His eyes burned with the combination of smoke and an anger so volatile, he wasn’t sure he could hold onto it. Didn’t want to. Rose Hindley had tried to murder the most important woman in his life, and he’d make damn sure she didn’t get away with it. Movement registered through the windows of the cruiser as Sheriff Sanders finished her initial search for the suspect, weapon drawn. “Agent Mitchell, 22701, to Dispatch.”

Static filtered through the radio. “Dispatch. Go ahead, 22701.”

“I need a bus and fire response at Vashon Chemical. One casualty. Caucasian woman, thirty years old, burns over approximately five to ten percent of her body.” He struggled to control his breathing in order to get Arden the help she needed, but there was so much blood, so many blisters and burns. “Suspect is Rose Hindley, alleged to be an alias for Salena Greer, and is still on foot. We’re in pursuit. Alert the special agent in charge backup is requested for the search. Over.”

“Acknowledged, 22701. Ambulance, fire, and backup are on their way. Eight minutes out. Over,” the dispatcher said.

He clipped the radio to his vest, set Arden’s hand on her stomach as she drifted into unconsciousness, then rounded the front of the cruiser. This wasn’t over. Arden had survived the fire, but Rose Hindley had planned every element of her revenge meticulously. She wouldn’t stop until she got what she wanted, and Arden would spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder, living in fear. Always prepared for the worst. No. She’d already lost too much. He wasn’t going to let Rose Hindley take the rest of her life. Lawson waved the sheriff back to the vehicle. As much as he trusted Sheriff Sanders to get the job done, hunting killers was what he’d been trained for. What he’d spent his entire career preparing for. This ended today. Lawson unholstered his weapon as Sheriff Sanders bent at the waist to catch her breath. “Backup and fire are en route.”

“Good. I lost her about fifty yards into the trees. These woods cover a good twenty percent of the island. We’re going to need to call in the search team.” The sheriff locked her carefully guarded gaze on Arden in the back of her cruiser. “How bad is it?”

“She’s alive.” And he was sure as hell going to make sure she stayed that way. He released the magazine in his weapon, counted the rounds, and loaded a bullet with a pull on the slide. Heading toward the trees he’d seen Rose Hindley disappear into, he called over his shoulder. “Stay with Arden. Anybody comes near her other than EMTs, shoot them.”

“What are you going to do?” Sheriff Sanders called from behind.

“Protect my family.” The fire consumed the entirety of the warehouse, the heat tunneling through his clothing and deep into bone. Hell, he couldn’t imagine how much pain Arden had been in to withstand it with nothing between her and the flames. Rose Hindley was going to pay for that. He jogged toward the trees, his senses on high alert. Gravel protested under his shoes as the landscape thinned into dry brush and dead grass. Pines thickened overhead and cut visibility in half as he breached the tree line. Shadows reached toward him, the roar of the fire and Sheriff Sanders’s call into dispatch suddenly cut off.

His shoes slipped along the frost built up over the past few weeks, and he battled to keep his balance. Exhales clouded in front of his mouth as silence descended around him. The snow had melted and refrozen in these woods, leaving no tracks to follow. A chuck of ice snapped under his weight, and he studied the pattern. Cracks tendrilled from beneath his shoe. He might not have tracks to follow, but it was impossible for Rose to hide from him completely. She would’ve mapped out an escape route before abducting her victim. She would’ve planned for every scenario. He scanned his memories of the area. A few more warehouses, two residential neighborhoods, and…a private dock accessible to a handful of cabins, one of which he’d rented for the duration of this case. A photo from Rose Hindley’s home flashed across his mind, of Rose and her son before he’d passed. Smiling faces, a falling sunset, miles of ocean spanning out behind them, and a boat. “You’re not getting away from me that easily.”

Lawson angled his radio closer to his mouth and opened the channel. “All units, be advised suspect is heading toward the private docks on the east side of the island, presumably to gain access to her personal boat.” He increased his pace, following the cracks in the frost a few feet at a time, his weapon heavy in his hand. Branches and pine needles scratched at his face and neck. His legs burned with exertion, but he only pushed himself harder. Blood drummed hard in his ears as his body temperature dropped.

The cracks in the ice faded, and Lawson slowed.

Turning in a tight circle, he searched the ground for signs of which direction Rose Hindley had gone. He couldn’t have lost her. Not yet. Not unless… Not unless she’d realized she was being followed.

Tension climbed up his spine, and he pulled his shoulders back. “I know you’re out here, Rose.” He turned to face a dense section of trees, his fight or flight instinct at an all-time high. “Or do you prefer I call you Salena?”

“Call me whatever you want, Agent Mitchell.” Her voice wove between the pines, out of reach and near at the same time. A trick of the snow clinging to the trees which absorbed the sound and the ice reflecting it back to him. Ice cracked under pressure to his right, and he spun to face the woman who’d burned three investigative journalists alive and nearly claimed a fourth. Rose Hindley took a step forward, her boots perfectly balanced on the rough terrain. She’d been out here before, was familiar with the landscape and all its secrets. “A name is nothing to me. Salena Greer died the day an officer came to her cell while she was awaiting trial and informed her she’d never see her son again. Rose Hindley was created to get close to her prey. Tomorrow I’ll be someone else, but I’ll still be the one to make Arden Olsen pay for what she’s done.”

“Whoever the hell you are, you’re under arrest for the murders of Phil Anderson, Jacqueline Day, and Baldwin Webb, and for the attempted murder of Arden Olsen and a federal agent.” Lawson raised his weapon and took aim. “We can add more to the list once you’re in custody.”

“I’m not going into custody, Agent Mitchell. I think you know that. Why else would you have come out here alone with no witnesses, no backup?” Rose took another step, and Lawson planted his left foot behind him in case she attacked. Beautiful green eyes narrowed at the corners, her thin lips tugging into a smile. Her dark, form-fitting green bomber jacket accentuated the blade in her left hand. The tight ponytail at the back of her neck highlighted the severe angles of her face. This wasn’t the woman he’d met in the small yellow cottage on the north end of the island trying to provide for her son on a single-mother’s income. This was someone else. Someone dangerous and unpredictable. “You’re not looking to arrest me. I went after the one person you have left in this world. No. You want to make sure I’ll never have that power over you again, the power to make you feel as helpless as you felt when you lost your daughter. It’s the same way I felt when they told me my son died. Helpless, useless, incapable.”

His gut twisted, and Lawson readjusted his grip on his weapon. “I have about as much in common with you as I do a cockroach.”

“I can understand why you’d think so, but the truth is we’re more similar than you realize.” Rose stepped to the side, circling him while shortening the distance between them. “You and I, we’re both afraid of loss. There are very few people we trust, and if we lose those people, the world doesn’t make sense anymore. If Arden dies, you’ll do whatever it takes to find me, to hunt me down, to make sure I pay. You’ll plan every moment until you find me. You’ll lose sleep over fantasizing about the moment you get your revenge—as I have—and there’s nothing in this world that would stop you.”

Faster than Lawson thought possible, Rose Hindley threw the knife in her hand end over end. The blade sank deep into his right shoulder straight to the hilt. Pain splintered down his arm and across his chest as a scream tore up his throat. His gun fell from his grip and hit the ice with a solid thud. Rose sprinted forward and kicked it out of reach, then withdrew the blade in his shoulder with a hard shove to his chest.

Another roar of pain escaped past his lips, and Lawson fisted the killer’s jacket and threw her as hard as he could. Rose tripped on an edge of thick frost and slammed into the ground. Her moan punctured above the crack of ice. Pressing a hand to the knife wound, he came away with blood coating his fingers. Rose Hindley wasn’t a mother who’d lost her son. In the time she’d disappeared, she’d professionally trained to fight, to kill. His breathing echoed in his ears as she got to her feet, her unnatural, desperate scream piercing his ears.

Rose charged, landing a kick straight to his chest. He rocketed into the tree behind him. His head scraped along the bark. He fought to keep his balance as she rushed him again, this time pressing her thumb deep into hole in his shoulder. Clenching his back teeth, he bit back the agony ripping through his arm and chest. “I’m going to find her, Agent Mitchell. I’m going to kill her. I’ve spent too long fantasizing of the moment it happens. Because of Arden Olson, my son died believing I was the one who made him sick.” The killer’s shadow spread over him as he sank a bit lower against the tree. “She deserves to pay for what she’s done.”

“No.” The single word barely made it past his mouth. Lawson threw a fist out, but Rose was faster. His opponent dodged the hit. Momentum threw him forward as she released her hold in his wound, and he stumbled forward. Pain lanced down his neck with a swipe of her blade, and his knees buckled right out from under him. He collapsed to the ground, ice and dirt collecting in his mouth as he landed face first. His lungs struggled to keep up with his thundering heart rate. Cold burrowed through his clothing and Kevlar vest and straight into his chest, and he traced his thumb along the hard edge of steel under his injured shoulder. His gun. “She didn’t have the facts. Are you so deluded with rage and revenge that you can’t see the truth? Arden never would’ve published that article if she’d known the water supply was responsible for making your son ill.”

Rose’s footsteps drowned out the chaotic echo of the warehouse burning to the ground. “It’s too late for that, Agent Mitchell. Before I’m finished with her, your wife will feel every ounce of anguish I felt when my son was unfairly taken from me.”

“She already has.” Lawson flipped onto his back and pulled the trigger. The killer froze mid-step, shock contorting her features. The weight of his Kevlar pushed the oxygen from his lungs as her breath steamed in front of her mouth. Dark green eyes lowered to the spread of blood staining her jacket, and he lowered his weapon. A low, continuous thump reverberated through the trees as Rose Hindley fell to her knees.

Struggling to his feet, Lawson pressed a hand over the wound in his shoulder. He stared down at the woman determined to burn the world down around her in honor of her child, and in that moment, he felt nothing but empathy. Spotlights spilled across the glistening ice as the chopper hovered above them. Color drained from her face, but Rose Hindley—Salena Greer—would live. Shouts and heavy footsteps echoed through the woods as backup closed in on his position. “Arden already paid for her sins, Rose. Now it’s your turn.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ice flooded under her skin and cooled the blistering burn clinging to her nerve endings. Her exhales clouded behind the oxygen mask over her mouth, a low hissing filling her ears. Arden blinked to clear the drugging haze of unconsciousness. She was in a hospital. The soft beeping of the machine to her right signaled steady stats, but her pulse ticked up a notch as she studied the results of the fire.

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