Page 9 of Over the Flames

“I told you I wasn’t going to stop searching for the truth. Not until I find his killer and figure out why he was targeted in the first place.” She pressed her thumb into a crack in the device’s glass to keep herself in the moment and not to focus on the phantom feel of his hands on her. “He kept all of his drafts and research on this device, but there’s a chance he backed up his work to his laptop in his apartment. There might be something on there that tells us what Baldwin was working on and what it had to do with Jacqueline Day. Something his killer didn’t think to destroy.”

“And you believe the laptop will magically be easier to break into than his tablet?” he asked.

“Baldwin wasn’t as protective of his laptop as he was with this.” Arden tore her attention from the too familiar agent determined to uncover every secret she might be keeping from him and focused on the device they had access to right then. She unclenched the single sheet of paper she’d rolled into her hand and settled on the edge of the couch where he’d spent the night. Unfolding the damp creases, she handed him the list of combinations she’d been able to come up with from the four original numbers. “We only have three tries. I narrowed it down to the top three most frequently used combinations based off of convenience and what I know about Baldwin.”

Reviewing the list, he took position on the edge of the coffee table, his knee brushing against hers, and the hairs of the back of her neck stood on end. “You haven’t given me much choice here, Arden. I need the information inside this tablet, and you are the witness who brought it to me, but I need you to remember this device is evidence. I am a federal agent hunting a violent killer who’s already murdered two victims, and the only thing I care about is keeping the son of a bitch from doing it again. If we manage to uncover who killed Baldwin and Jacqueline Day, I need your word you won’t make that information public knowledge. Ever.”

What? She pressed her grip around the edges of the device. “What are you—”

“It’s the only way I can trust you.” Facing her, he settled storm-gray eyes on her, the flames from the fireplace adding to the warmth in his gaze. “Tell me the truth, Arden. Are you searching for Baldwin’s killer to get the information you need for your next story, or are you doing this to find justice for him?”

A soft gasp slipped out of her control. She didn’t know what to say, what to think. He was asking her to choose between the work that had made it possible for her to survive spiraling grief and depression and her admiration for a man who’d helped her get there in the first place. There was no division between those two choices. Not for her. Uncovering the truth about these murders would give her everything she’d wanted tied into a neat little package, but Lawson knew that. He was using it against her. If she couldn’t publish the story, she’d be committing to staying in the same place she’d been since she’d lost everything she’d ever cared about. Committing to remaining the empty shell of a woman she’d battled to leave behind. Committing to giving up on moving forward and ignoring the truth Baldwin had always urged her to uncover. She’d be stagnant. Insignificant. Worthless. “You’re asking me to choose between my career and my friend.”

He handed her the sheet of paper, the numbers she’d written heavier than a few minutes ago. “When you simplify it like that, the choice shouldn’t be hard.”

Her pulse thundered behind her ears. She stared down at the row of combinations. Any one of them would give her the answer to the questions burning at the front of her mind. Who had persuaded Baldwin to go to that warehouse in order to kill him? What connection did his death have to Jacqueline Day’s? Would the killer strike again? Heat skimmed across the exposed skin of her neck and collarbone. “Baldwin is the one who got me the job at the paper. He didn’t have to. I was a rookie who had no idea what she was doing in a spaghetti-against-the-wall job, but he took the time to show me the ropes, helped me develop my own sources inside certain circles, forced me to dig past the lip service, and read between the lines. He encouraged me to keep pushing for the truth even when there were attacks against the media.” She pressed her thumb along the edge of Baldwin’s tablet as memories of darkness and pain twisted the knife deeper in her chest. “He stood next to me when I went to our daughter’s gravesite on the anniversary of her death. He changed everything for me.”

“You don’t have to do this, Arden. You can still back away from this case. You can go home when the storm clears, continue working for the paper, and be happy.” Lawson lowered his voice, adding the right amount of concern behind the words. “You can move on with your life.”

“Is that what you want? For me to give up? Leave so you can push me out of sight, and you don’t have to be reminded of your mistakes?” Exhaustion hung heavy between her shoulder blades, but she wouldn’t give into the emotional hollowness trying to escape the box she’d built at the back of her mind. “The first thing Baldwin taught me when it came to this job was to continue fighting for the truth, even if I was the only one. I’ll agree not to publish the story for my own benefit, but I am working this case with you. I knew Baldwin better than anyone, and you need me to put you in contact with his sources, colleagues, editors, and anyone else who might have information that will help you find his killer.”

His eyes glittered in the firelight, and an unwelcome explosion of heat licked along her spine. “Deal.”

She tried the first combination to unlock Baldwin’s tablet, and a shot of disappointment took control as the bubbles at the top of the screen shook back and forth slightly then reset. Wrong four-digit code. She only had two tries left before the device automatically backed up to the cloud then erased the data. There was still a chance she could recover it from Baldwin’s laptop, but until the storm cleared, this was their only shot at uncovering who might’ve killed her friend. Arden held her breath as she punched in the second combination.

The screen went dark.

“I’m in.” Surprise coiled through her. She’d cracked the tablet. Swiping through the apps Baldwin had left open on his device, she focused on the messages icon sitting in the dock at the bottom of the screen.

The couch dipped under Lawson’s weight as he took a seat beside her, the length of his body brushing against hers. The combination of aftershave and man chased back the remnants of smoke she couldn’t seem to dislodge from her lungs, and she breathed in a bit deeper. Corded muscle pressed into her arm, almost as though he intended to use all that compelling strength to convince her to see things his way. Not to intimidate but to seduce, and Arden’s heart jackhammered against her ribcage. “Let’s see what brought Baldwin to that warehouse before he died.”

“There should be a record of any messages he’d received here if he connected to the internet or Wi-fi for the devices to sync.” She accessed the messaging app, and her gut knotted tighter. Arden shook her head. She didn’t understand. “There’s nothing here. Everything’s been erased, even the message I received.”

“You said you heard something in the warehouse after Baldwin was already dead. Possibly his killer was trying to destroy this device.” Lawson skimmed his hand over his beard, the bristles protesting in her ears. “There’s a chance they forced him to unlock the tablet in order to erase the message that’d lured Baldwin there in the first place.”

“If that’s true, then the killer would’ve deleted everything that might led back to him.” She listened as branches scraped along the back window of the small cabin. This investigation, the storm, having to stay in this place, and be forced to face the demons she’d buried with her daughter—none of it was within her control. She stared down at the wooden coffee table. The same stain had given her daughter’s casket a deep, warm shine, and suddenly she imagined standing over that small hole in the ground. Her holding a single white rose, digging one of the thorns into her palm. She’d felt out of control then, too. Arden tugged her cuff into her palm. “Baldwin documented all of his research while he worked an investigation and set up his word processor to automatically email him every night in case his files got corrupted or he wasn’t in Wi-Fi range to back up to the cloud. If we can access his research notes, we might be able to retrace his steps leading up to the past few days before he died.”

“Hit the email app.” The soft rumble of Lawson’s chest against her arm hiked her awareness of how close he’d gotten into overdrive, and her pulse thudded harder behind her ears. He pointed at the screen, the light coming off the tablet accentuating the smooth curves of his cheeks and the outline of his mouth. He hadn’t changed much since the last time she’d seen him. He was still the same man she’d fallen in love with all those years ago, still handsome as ever, only more rugged, more…detached. “There.”

Arden forced herself to focus on the screen, but the subject line of the email he’d pointed out didn’t make it hard. She opened the email and read through the first few sentences. Shock knocked the air from her lungs, and she sat back against the couch. No. That couldn’t be right. She locked her gaze with Lawson’s. “Someone was accusing Baldwin of plagiarism.”

Chapter Eight

“No. That’s not possible.” Arden pushed to her feet, tossing the device into Lawson’s lap. Her long blonde hair fell down her back as she stalked toward the window. She twisted around and pointed toward the tablet. “Baldwin would never steal anyone’s work. His job was the only thing he had. He wouldn’t put that in jeopardy, and he didn’t have any motive to do it.”

Lawson read the claim for himself. An investigative journalist here on Vashon Island—Rose Hindley—had emailed side by side comparisons of her work against Baldwin’s. She’d included a dozen samples sent two days before Baldwin had been murdered from an article published a few months ago covering the story of millions of dollars in CIA funds disappearing overseas. “You can’t ignore the fact plagiarism saves a lot of time in your industry. Why spend months investigating a story when you can publish one faster by using the work of another writer? On top of that, this woman has multiple examples from an article she wrote for the Beachcomber, showing up word-for-word in an article Baldwin published with The Seattle Times one week after hers.”

“That doesn’t prove he plagiarized her. Publishing schedules for every paper are different. He could’ve written that article months ago, but it’d only appeared in the paper recently. Editing, fact checking—all those things take time after we’ve submitted the piece to our editors. Nearly every major newspaper in the country has tried to get Baldwin to leave the Times to write for them. He didn’t need an unknown journalist’s work to bolster his career.” Arden carved a path between the front window and the fireplace. Back and forth. She shook her head. “She has to be lying.”

“Maybe it was the pressure to keep his position at the top of the investigative world that made him desperate.” Lawson skimmed through the rest of the emails cached in Baldwin’s inbox. “Either way, it’s a possible motive for what happened in that warehouse. I’m not sure how Jacqueline Day ties in, but it’s a start.”

“You didn’t know him.” Her voice softened, and Lawson couldn’t stop himself from looking up. Pain cut through her exterior guard and revealed the hurt rising to the surface, and his chest got tighter. Arden was an investigator, same as Baldwin. Opinions and emotion had no place in her line of work. They had to stay realistic. Detached. “He taught me everything I know. He taught me to show up and shut up, to lean into the awkwardness of silences during interviews, that success is never final, and a lot more. Baldwin was dedicated to this job. He loved it. This doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s possible you didn’t know him.” Lawson pressed his thumb into the edge of the tablet, and the screen cracked more under the pressure. “How well do we really know the people closest to us?”

“Do you have any idea what a plagiarism accusation can do to a journalist’s career? How many law enforcement investigations could be compromised? How many corrupt businesses could be let off the hook for poor working conditions or flagrant dismissal of environmental concerns? Baldwin Webb broke some of the country’s most pivotal cases over the past twenty years, but none of that will matter if this claim goes public.” Her breathing hitched as the reality of that statement seemed to solidify.

“Is preserving his career more important than finding the truth?” Because in his experience, there was never just one claim. Rose Hindley’s accusation might’ve only been the latest, and once again, Lawson found himself staring at a woman who’d committed herself to a career he couldn’t trust. The media distorted the truth to fit their narrative and told straight-faced lies to force the public to agree with their agenda. Didn’t matter if it was the truth. Didn’t matter if the information they reported put innocent lives in danger. It was manipulation and an attempt to control the masses on a large scale, and Arden had willingly slid into their ranks.

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