Page 4 of Over the Flames

Her bottom lip parted from the top, a slight but profound crack in her defenses.

“The killer used your friend’s phone to lure you to that warehouse before tossing the device into the flames.” Straightening, Lawson folded his arms across his chest. She didn’t move, didn’t answer, and for the first time since their divorce a hint of the woman he’d known broke through in the collapse of her expression. “They wanted you to be the one to find him, Arden, and I want to know why.”

Chapter Three

DNA from any remaining tissue or bone, dental records, the pocket watch—it would all come back with a positive ID. She was sure of it.

Baldwin Webb—her best friend—had been murdered.

Arden closed the file folder holding the preliminary report from the medical examiner and set it back on the table. Baldwin had been killed thirty minutes prior to when she’d pulled into warehouse parking lot. Lawson had been right. Baldwin couldn’t have sent her that message, which meant his killer had lured her to the scene. He’d wanted Arden to be the one to find her mentor.

Her mouth dried as she dragged the corner of the evidence bag—the one with Baldwin’s pocket watch—under her thumbnail. Why Baldwin? Why not any of the other journalists working for the paper? Why Jacqueline Day? The weight of her mentor’s tablet in her bag settled against her stomach. There had to be a connection.

Tears burned in her eyes as reality crushed the last remnants of air from her lungs. Her friend had been violently bound and doused with an accelerant to ensure not a single inch of him survived the flames. The stench of death and smoke still clung to her clothing, but worse, the images engrained in her head played on a sick loop every few minutes. Baldwin had been there for her from the beginning, showed her the ropes, helped her develop her sources and contacts across the city. His only long-term relationship had been with the career with The Seattle Times that’d stretched over two decades. He’d been there for her at the lowest point in her life. He’d offered her a shoulder to cry on after the year anniversary of her daughter’s death and made sure she’d survived the divorce. He’d been her closest friend, her confidant, the one she bounced ideas off of when the story didn’t make sense. The father figure she’d wished she’d had when she was growing up. What kind of monster hunted down and murdered a man like that? Why him?

The conference room door protested on old hinges as Lawson came back with two coffees. One for each of them. “Cream, two sugars.”

She pulled her hand back from the evidence bag, folding her arms across her chest as he set the disposable cup in front of her. Hesitation kept her from sliding her palms around the hot cup. He’d remembered her coffee order. “Why am I still here? I’ve given you my statement. There’s nothing left for us to talk about.”

“I have a deputy driving your car back to the station from the scene as we speak. As soon as he pulls into the lot, you’re free to go with the detail I’ve arranged for you.” He took his seat, the chair threatening to buckle under his lean mass. He’d filled out a bit more since she’d last seen him that day at the gravesite, put on more muscle. Without a wife and child at home, she imagined his cases kept him busy enough, but he’d obviously been devoting more time to the gym than when they’d been married.

She’d be lying if she tried to convince herself she didn’t admire the results of all that hard work, but that was as far as this forced interrogation would go. They’d gone down this road before. While falling in love with the special agent sitting across from her had once been a fantasy come true, the reality had been much more heartbreaking and isolating than she’d imagined. Her insides clenched as he flicked his gaze up to hers. His last words registered. “What do you mean ‘the detail you’ve arranged?’” Realization hit. “You’re not serious—”

“Baldwin Webb was targeted, Arden. The details of Jacqueline Day’s autopsy report haven’t been made public, which means only the medical examiner and the killer would know traces of gasoline were found in the first victim’s stomach. He used that detail to lure you to your friend’s death scene.” He locked mesmerizing gray eyes on her, and the entire world threatened to rip straight out from under her. “As far as we’ve been able to discern, you’re the last person to see or talk to Baldwin Webb before you found him in that warehouse. Did you honestly believe I was going to let you walk out of here on your own without getting the truth from you first?”

“You think I’m lying.” The same dread she’d experienced when she’d asked him for another baby after their daughter had died, asked him to make her a mother again so the pain didn’t gut her day in and day out, pooled in her stomach. Shoving her coffee across the table, Arden stood and gathered her coat. Baldwin’s tablet knocked against the table, drawing Lawson’s gaze down the length of her body, and a quick, hot trail of awareness burned in his path as though he’d physically touched her. “I’ve told you everything, but no matter what I say, you’re going to see shadows and lies where there aren’t any. You’re going to create this competition between us that doesn’t exist to try to find a reason to keep me here just as you did during the divorce proceedings. Because you refuse to move on with your life. Our daughter is dead, Lawson. Our marriage is over. I’ve moved on.” She walked toward the door before he could stop her a second time. “It’s time you finally did the same.”

The entire station quieted around her as she strode toward the station’s front doors. The weight of Sheriff Sanders’s attention drilled a hole between her shoulder blades, but unless Lawson was willing to arrest her, she had every intention of getting the hell off this island.

Rivulets of rain plastered onto the outside of the double glass doors, and she took a moment to thread her arms into her coat before hurrying outside. Water pelted her exposed skin, the smell of the atmosphere thick, but not nearly enough to chase the odor of smoke and burnt flesh that’d sunk into her every pore. The images branded into her memory, of Baldwin silently screaming out in pain, pounded to escape the box at the back of her mind she’d crammed them into. She’d covered plenty of death scenes from outside the perimeter of crime scene tape over the past year, but none of them had been this personal. None of them had involved her ex-husband. She published facts. That was her job, and emotion couldn’t have anything to do with what she was about to do next.

Arden took cover under the small lip of roof diverting water away from the station and stared out into the parking lot. Eight months. Eight months since she’d had to face Lawson after they’d signed the divorce papers. It’d been raining exactly like this. She hadn’t been prepared to see him at the gravesite, but she hadn’t tried to avoid him either. He’d looked…as broken on the outside as she’d endured on the inside, and she’d wanted nothing more than to fix what she’d done. She swiped water from her face. She should’ve known that microscopic piece of hope had been a phantom emotion of what they’d had. Before they’d both been too damaged to make their marriage work.

Headlights flashed across her midsection as a vehicle swung into the parking lot. Through the heavy wall of rain, she recognized her car and the deputy climbing out from behind the wheel and left the cover of the roof to meet the officer halfway.

“Thank you.” She retrieved her keys from the deputy and headed for her vehicle. She recognized heavy footsteps falling into line behind her, but she wouldn’t turn around, wouldn’t let him put her through more than he already had.

“Arden, wait!” Lawson said.

“No.” Tension ran the length of her spine as she forged ahead toward her vehicle. She clutched onto her bag and the single piece of evidence that might lead her to Baldwin’s killer. “I don’t have anything left to say to you, Lawson. I’ve been working all day, I found my closest friend’s body burned beyond recognition, and you accused me of lying to the FBI. I want to go home.”

“Arden.” He threaded his fingers through the space between her ribcage and arm and spun her into a wall of muscle. Lawson stared down at her, his mouth parted as his eyes bounced between her left and right eye. Her skin heated where his hand curved around her bicep. His heart thudded hard against her palm. So real. Reassuring. Water skimmed down the sharp angles of his cheekbones. “You were right, okay? I haven’t moved on. I spend every hour I’m not on the job searching medical journals, sitting down with physicians, interviewing parents who’ve gone through similar experiences, all in an effort to find out what happened to our daughter, but I haven’t found any answers.”

Her sharp inhale burned the back of her throat. She swallowed to counteract the tears stinging her eyes. “What are you doing? Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I can’t let her go. I know it’s been two years. I know I can’t bring her back, but she was ours.” Rain cut through his dark, styled hair as he shook his head. “And when you asked me for another baby, it felt like you were giving up on Rey. Like you didn’t want to know if there was anything we could’ve done to save her and ran—”

“I don’t want to know.” She wrenched her arm out of his hand and put a few feet between them. Pain exploded through her chest. Didn’t he see how hard she’d worked to leave the past behind, that she needed to focus on the future? Losing her only child had nearly killed her. She couldn’t go back to that, couldn’t go back to being that ghost of a woman again.

Lightning flashed overhead, and she snapped her head up. The storm was getting worse. Wind picked up. Thunder rumbled under her feet and pulled her back into the moment. “We couldn’t save her, Lawson. The doctors couldn’t save her. I don’t want to read up on the latest research anyone has used to explain her rare type of cancer. I don’t want to remember how she was fine one day then unable to walk the next. I don’t want the only memories I have of her to be the last few days of her life, and I don’t want her death to define me for the rest of my life. Do you understand?”

His expression settled into the guarded mask she’d gotten used to since they’d buried their daughter. Rain pelted the smooth skin of his neck and face and drenched his suit. He stared at her as though trying to read past the blockades she’d built since the divorce, pressurizing the air in her lungs. “What’s in the bag, Arden?”

What? Nervous energy skittered up her spine. She had to get out of here. Every second she wasted not looking into Baldwin’s tablet was another second his murderer walked free.

“If you have more questions for me pertaining to the investigation, send Sheriff Sanders.” Pulling back her shoulders, she wiped tendrils of water from her face. Steel cut into her palms from clenching her keys too hard in her hand, and Arden turned her back on him and fled for her sedan. She ripped the driver’s side door open and collapsed inside. The constant sheet of rain did nothing to cut through the weight of Lawson’s gaze.

She twisted the key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot. Her windshield wipers worked overtime as she wound her way toward the north end of the island. The next ferry to the mainland departed in twenty minutes. If she had any hope of making it off this island before the storm shut down the docks, she needed to be on it before then.

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