Page 24 of Over the Flames

Cold worked up through her bare feet. She braced for the Ache to take control at the thought of what she was about to do, the worthlessness, but it didn’t surface. Rey wasn’t coming back, and there was nothing she could’ve done to keep her baby alive. Where thick tar had built up around her heart, now there was need. A need to feel something again, to be strong for herself, to unshoulder the pain she’d used as a crutch all this time. Arden battled to keep her hands steady as she placed the rope of twisted hair between the blades. Lawson had reminded her of the damage denying the emotions she’d refused to face had caused. The destruction of her marriage, the bitterness and anger constantly pulling at her—all of it had turned her into the cold, numb, emotionless ghost of a woman she hadn’t recognized. Raising her siblings while both of her parents had worked full-time, becoming a wife, and a mother had each given her the purpose she’d needed in their own way. Until now. Now she wanted more. Now she wanted something for herself.

Arden compressed the scissor’s handles and cut through her long rope of hair at her shoulder. The physical and emotional weight she’d carried fell away, and she closed her eyes in relief. For the first time since she’d watched the pallbearers lower Rey’s too-small coffin into the ground, her body felt like her own. Free.

The sound of the front door hissing as it opened reached her ears, and she opened her eyes. Lawson. Discarding the long rope of hair she’d cut off into the bathroom trash can, she stored the scissors and left the bathroom to meet him. She rounded through the bedroom and into the main living space as he set a white paper bag on the kitchen island with a drink carrier holding two coffees. Dark aromas of pumpkin and cinnamon roast hit her senses, and she nearly melted into a puddle in the middle of the floor.

“Arden?” He shrugged mountainous shoulders from his suit jacket before raising storm-gray eyes to hers. Shock contorted his features as he set his jacket over the back of one of the barstools, his bottom lip reluctantly parting from the top. He shifted closer, raising the hairs on the back of her neck with his complete attention. “Wow. You look…”

She threaded her fingers through the shortened length. Nervous energy skittered up her spine under his evaluation, and suddenly the robe she’d wrapped around herself wasn’t enough to hold onto the warmth from the shower. “Like I’m going to join a girl band after this case is closed?”

“I was going to say you look amazing.” His mouth curved into the same wicked smile he’d hit her with last night, and her insides immediately rocketed into her throat. Lawson’s shoes scraped across the hardwood laminate floor as he stepped into her. He skimmed calloused hands along her neck, careful of the bruising, and tugged on the freshly cut ends of her hair. “I can’t remember the last time your hair has been this short. I like it.”

“Thanks. I needed a change.” Dizzying confidence sprinted through her. Arden fisted his collar in both hands and pulled his mouth to hers. She swept her tongue along his, stirring a mere hint of the passion he’d shown her last night, and settled back onto the four corners of her feet. She smoothed his shirt, coiling his tie in one hand. “Is that a pumpkin latte I smell?”

“With cinnamon rolls.” That gut-wrenching smile was back, and the urge to pull him back into the bedroom heated beneath her skin, but she’d gone without food for more than twenty-four hours. They both had. Lawson pulled back, and his silk tie slid through her fingers. “Help yourself.”

“You sure know the way to a girl’s heart.” Reaching for the first bag, she unloaded two giant cinnamon rolls from the bakery on the main level of her apartment building and handed him a napkin as he took his seat at the kitchen island. Sticky cinnamon and sugar dissolved in her mouth at first bite, and she stifled a moan of pleasure that would outrank anything Lawson had heard last night.

His gaze locked on hers as he handed off one of the coffees from the drink carrier. “Not any girl’s heart. Just yours.”

Warmth that had nothing to do with her shower or the coffee stirred her self-confidence. They ate in silence for a few minutes, lost in the heavenly layers of butter, sugar, and coffee, and a new understanding settled between them. Not the understanding of an ex-husband being forced to work beside his ex-wife, or that of a federal agent partnering with an investigative journalist to hunt a killer. This was something new, something Arden had the feeling neither of them had experienced before. Something stronger, more significant. Healing. “Has there been any news from your computer forensics lab on the laptop Brent Hayward took from Phil Anderson’s basement? Anything that proved all three victims were working on another article together aside from trying to expose the Arsonist, or was there too much fire damage?”

“No, the fire wasn’t burning hot enough to melt any components, and the tech guys were able to recover the files Hayward deleted from the hard drive. When he said he’d destroyed them, he meant he’d emptied the digital trash can on the laptop, but they were still sitting in the hard drive’s memory.” Lawson licked a stray collection of sugar from his mouth then wiped the rest away with a napkin before raising his gaze to hers. His expression urged her to brace for the news, and she held her breath. “He was telling the truth, Arden. There were more files—more articles—Baldwin was writing along with Jacqueline Day and Phil Anderson, including a piece exposing a chemical warehouse on the island that has been dumping chemicals into the public drinking water as Hayward claimed.”

That was why Baldwin had been discussing the class-action lawsuit with his editor in the emails from his tablet. It hadn’t been for his own article but the group project he’d started with the other two victims. The cinnamon rolls turned solid and settled in the pit of her stomach, her appetite gone. She set the rest of her breakfast on the island and wiped her hands methodically. “Brent Hayward believed he’d gotten rid of the evidence linking him to Phil Anderson when he’d deleted the files and tried to destroy the laptop. He didn’t have any reason to kill Jacqueline Day or Baldwin. Which means…”

“We’re no closer to finding out who killed Baldwin than we were two days ago.” Lawson angled toward her on the barstool.

“What now?” The freshly cut ends of her hair caught on her robe as she forced herself to look at him. If Brent Hayward hadn’t killed her friend and mentor, who had? And who would they target next? “Am I in danger?”

“Baldwin, Jacqueline, and Phil were investigating something the killer didn’t want made public.” Warmth penetrated through the nausea churning through her as he set his hand on her knee. “Whoever we’re dealing with, he’s already murdered three victims to keep that from happening, and the deeper we dig into this investigation, the higher the chance we draw his attention. But I won’t let him hurt you.”

She blinked to break the spell his promise cast and turned to wipe the crumbs that’d fallen onto the countertop. Sliding from the barstool, she tossed her uneaten cinnamon roll in the trash and brushed her palms against her robe.

“There’s only one chemical warehouse on the island. Vashon Chemical. They manufactured fluoropolymer. If Baldwin…” She took a deep breath. The hollowed, burnt remains of the man she’d found in that warehouse weren’t Baldwin. Not in any way that mattered any more. She had to disconnect from the emotional consequences of losing her mentor. She had to look at the investigation without feeling. No matter how hard it was to separate herself from the case, it was the only way she’d be able to finish this. “Baldwin was asking questions about a class-action lawsuit against the company. It’s all in his email. If the victims were looking into a possible contamination of the island’s water supply, it’ll be easy to search public record for a list of plaintiffs and executives involved in the case. I can also go through the research your tech unit pulled from the laptop and any drafts the victims had written, see if one of the plaintiffs reads as a possible suspect.”

“I’ll put in the request to have the files the lab recovered forwarded to you and start looking into any other investigations our victims were running.” Lawson popped the last of his cinnamon roll into his mouth and tossed his napkin in the trash. He closed the distance between them, framing one hand along her jaw, and her heart rate spiked. Slower than she thought possible, he pressed his mouth to hers—all cinnamon, pumpkin, and man. His gaze never left hers. “I meant what I said, Arden. I’m not ready to lose you again, but last night wasn’t about—”

She set her fingers over his lips. Her pulse ticked hard at the base of her throat. Last night. Last night he’d gifted her the ultimate release—physically, mentally, emotionally. He’d metaphorically cut her open then held her as all the lies and self-sabotage spilled out into the open for him to see. What’d happened between them last night wasn’t simple biology. It hadn’t been created out of an adrenaline-induced danger closing in as she’d originally believed. It’d been a lit fuse sparking through the remains of their marriage, drawing closer to an unavoidable mutual destruction. She’d known this day was coming. She’d known Lawson would be the blaze she wouldn’t be able to escape, but how long would this new connection that’d risen from the ashes between them last once he solved the case? “I don’t regret anything, Lawson, and I don’t think it was a mistake. If anything, I think last night was something we’ve both needed for a long time.”

“Good.” He smiled against her fingers before wrapping her hand in his. Setting her palm over his chest, he kissed her again, and resurrected the coil of desire in her gut. “I’m going to shower. Care to join me?”

“You go ahead. If you want to change into something other than your wrinkled suit until you can get a hold of your overnight bag, I think I have a box of your things in the closet. There might be something in there that fits. I need to get dressed and catch up on some work.” Arden’s fingers burned with friction as he slid out of her grasp and headed into her bedroom. The bathroom door clicked closed, and the echo of water hitting tile reached her ears. Discarding her robe, she dressed in a soft pair of knee-torn jeans and an oversized top. With a glance toward the bathroom door, Arden collected her phone from her nightstand, unlocked it then rounded into the living room for her laptop. The notes she’d taken minutes before following the Arsonist into the woods surrounding Brent Hayward’s property materialized on the screen. She sent them to her laptop. Accessing the voice recording of the suspect’s official interrogation, she opened a blank document and hit play.

Chapter Twenty-Two

It didn’t matter how thoroughly he’d washed, he could still smell her on his skin.

Lawson stepped free from the shower and secured one of the towels on the hook around his waist. Off to his left, a wide walk-in closet displayed multiple rows of Arden’s clothing, shoes, bags, and coats. He flipped on the overhead light. She’d said she still had a box of his things. The only box he could find had been stored on the highest shelf where two walls met in a corner, the farthest from reach. After hauling the box down, he set it at his feet and pried the four cardboard flaps open. Dust kicked up around him and revealed Arden most likely hadn’t laid a hand on this box since she’d moved in a couple years ago. Why hang onto it at all?

He unfolded a T-shirt from the top of the pile, one of his favorites he’d been looking for since the divorce, and a handful of others. A few old pairs of jeans had been used as packing material around the edges of the box. He dragged the clothing out, piece by piece, and a dull thud reached his ears. Something had fallen free from the fabric. Light reflected off the glossy surface of neatly stacked photographs wrapped in a rubber band. White streaks cut through the subjects’ faces, but he didn’t have to look at the photos to know who they were of. Him, Arden, and Rey. He swallowed the dryness in his throat as he reached down to collect the stack and untwined the band in slow circles.

She’d kept them. Every photo they’d had framed or spread around their home. They were all here with his favorite raggedy shirt, a jar of seashells they’d collected on a family vacation to California, and the box that’d once housed Arden’s engagement ring when he’d proposed. Setting aside the photos, he ran his fingers over the chevron crocheted blanket at the bottom. Rey’s baby blanket. Arden hadn’t forgotten him, hadn’t forgotten their life together, their daughter. She just hadn’t been willing to face the truth. Neither of them had.

But that’d changed last night.

No amount of research, interviews, or consultations was going to explain how their daughter had been healthy one day and gone the next due to a tumor on her lung. Arden had helped him see that, helped him come to terms with the pure uselessness his hours of obsession and anger had proven to be. He hadn’t been able to save Rey, and the need—the compulsion—to figure out what’d happened had given him a false sense of competence but had only left him more helpless than when he’d started. None of it would bring her back. None of it would save another parent from going through the same experience. He’d lost two years of his life trying to compensate for his own guilt and blamed his wife for pulling away when he was just as responsible for the dissolution of their marriage as she was. Pulling the blanket from the bottom of the box, Lawson brought it to his nose and inhaled the sweet scent he hadn’t realized he’d missed. A mixture of soap and baby lotion crowded out the oxygen in his lungs as he studied the complicated deep purple stitches.

“I was hoping you’d never find out I’d kept your favorite shirt.” Her voice sliced through him, a lifeline in choppy internal waters. Consumed with the need to never feel the kind of loss he’d had with Rey again, he hadn’t heard her open the door. The soft pad of her feet across the tile ticked his pulse higher as she neared. Lowering herself opposite him against the arch separating the bathroom and the walk-in closet, Arden smiled as she collected the stack of photos from where he’d set them on the floor. Her bare feet pressed against his towel-wrapped hip. She circulated through the photos then pulled one from the stack and turned it toward him. Of Rey, passed out in Arden’s arms under a giant umbrella at the beach. “Do you remember she begged and begged us to take her to the beach for weeks because she’d learned about it from one of her TV shows, and when we finally did, she slept through the entire trip?”

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