Page 8 of Over the Flames

“For a price.” Warning trickled through him as he leaned back against the counter. The tablet was the only piece of evidence recovered from Baldwin Webb’s death scene. As she’d said, if it could give him an idea of why the investigative journalist had been there in the first place—what had lured him there—Lawson would be one step closer to finding his killer. “Tell me what you get out of this arrangement if you’re successful in unlocking the tablet.”

“We’re on the same side.” She set her mug onto the counter beside her. “You think there’s this never-ending competition between the media and law enforcement, between you and me, but we both want the same thing: to find the truth. You know as well as I do, you don’t have time to wait for the storm to clear so you can take Baldwin’s tablet back to your tech guys. Even if you manage to get it into their hands today, it could take weeks for the decryption software to work. You need my help.”

“We might both have the same end goal, but you want the truth for a story to sell and to advance your career, and I want to get a violent killer off the streets to protect the people on this island.” He curled his grip around the mug’s handle. Lawson had trusted the media once and paid the price. He wouldn’t let it happen again. “There’s a difference, and I don’t need your help.”

Arden narrowed her gaze on him. She shook her head, that perfect mouth of hers slightly parted as though she expected him to roll over and give her what she’d asked for. Access to evidence in a murder investigation, complete freedom to spin the story whichever way she needed to gain more readers. “This isn’t about trusting an investigative journalist with details from a homicide investigation. It’s that you don’t trust me.”

He didn’t answer.

“You still blame me for the end of our marriage.” She lowered her voice, and a sickening wave of nausea knotted his in his gut.

“You are the one who filed divorce, remember?” he asked. “If you would’ve talked to me, let me know what was going through your head, maybe none of this—”

“None of this would’ve happened? No, Lawson. I couldn’t talk to you.” She shook her head. Closing the distance between them, she stared at an invisible spot on his T-shirt, refusing to look directly at him. She pressed her mouth into a straight line as though trying to control the chaos bleeding into her gaze. “You threw yourself into your work by taking on more assignments. I had no idea if you were in the state most of the time, or if you were coming home, and I had…nothing. Nothing but her empty room, an empty house, and an empty marriage.”

His fingers tingled to reach out to her, but Lawson didn’t know how. Physically, mentally, emotionally. She was right. He hadn’t been there after they’d buried Rey. He’d pulled away in an attempt to contain the rage from losing his only child, and he’d left his wife to deal with that same pain on her own.

Maneuvering around him, Arden headed straight for the clothes she’d laid out in front of the fireplace the night before. She turned her back to him and stripped out of the T-shirt and sweats he’d lent her and tossed them onto the couch before pulling on her jeans and an asymmetrically cut shirt. “I’ve spent the past two years building a career I care about and a life without you, but you’re never going to let me move on, are you?”

“Where are you going, Arden?” They couldn’t keep doing this, couldn’t keep having these short bursts of emotion and truth then moving on as though nothing had ever happened. They couldn’t bury their mutual grief forever. It had to be let out. He motioned toward the windows. “The storm hasn’t let up, and the ferries are still closed. You can’t go home.”

“I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t care. I’m tired, Lawson.” Arden flipped her hair out from beneath her collar and tugged her boots on. She collected her bag from the end of the couch and headed for the door. “Do whatever you want with Baldwin’s tablet. I’ll find who killed him on my own. With or without your help.”

Lawson intercepted her as she reached for the doorknob and pressed his hand into the door. Thunder rumbled through the woods and shook the ornate mementos above the fireplace, but he couldn’t let her leave. Not like this. “Say her name.”

“Get out of my way,” she said.

“Say our daughter’s name. Once, and I’ll let you go.” He pressed his hand into the door, the tips of his fingers biting into the wood. The past twelve hours played through his head, starting with the moment he’d laid eyes on her at the crime scene. “I know why you want to investigate this case, why you chose to finally use your journalism degree years after graduating and go into investigative journalism after the divorce. I know the reason you can’t stop working, even when you’re exhausted beyond belief, and refuse to slow down for your own good.” He slid his hand down the door and settled his fingers around hers on the knob. Her hand shook beneath his, and every word he’d rehearsed as he’d considered facing her again vanished to the back of his mind. “I know you haven’t slept more than a couple hours each night because the possibility of dreaming about her is too much to take. You’ve pushed away anyone who’s brave enough to get close and put on a face to convince the world you’re stronger than you really are.”

“Stop talking as if you know me. You don’t.” Arden stared at their hands, his pressed over hers, but didn’t pull away. She shook her head. “Not anymore.”

“I know you better than anyone else.” He soothed slow circles into the space between her index finger and thumb. “And I know you’re never going to be able to move on with your life if you keep running from the pain or pretending her death never happened. Say her name.”

“I can’t.” A tear streaked down her face. She ripped her hand out of his and turned away. Her sob clawed at the hole in his chest she’d left behind as years of pent up hurt and rage tore from her. She swiped the back of her hand under her nose, tremors racking down her back, but Lawson held his ground. “I’m not pretending we never lost her, Lawson. She was everything to me, and if I let that pain consume me again, I’ll be right back where I started. I’ll be nothing.”

Chapter Seven

She hadn’t said the words out loud before. Not to anyone.

The neuroblastoma on her daughter’s lung had been an anomaly nobody could’ve seen coming. The abrupt onset of symptoms brought on by the opsoclonus-myoclonus syndrome couldn’t have been predicted. But as much as she wanted to agree with her therapist, her family, and her regular physician that she was more than a mother, that she would someday be able to move on and build a life independent of that role, Arden knew the truth. She’d lost her entire being when the pall bearers had lowered that casket into the ground.

Heavy footsteps reverberated through the hardwood floor as Lawson closed the distance between them, but she couldn’t turn around, couldn’t face him. Strong fingers rested on her arms from behind, an anchor to the chaos raging through her. His exhale trailed along the back of her neck as he leaned in close. “I miss her, too.”

Arden grasped for the inner numbness that’d wrapped her in its protective embrace since that day, but it felt so out of reach this close to the edge. This close to the man she’d once trusted with her life, her happiness. One step. That was all it’d take, and her entire world would shatter all over again. Having to bury her only daughter on a storm-driven day like this had nearly killed her. If he forced her to face what they’d lost a second time, she wasn’t sure she’d survive.

Warmth penetrated through her shirt the longer he held onto her. The steady, rhythmic beating of his heart counted off the seconds. She should’ve pulled away, ignored the desperation to press herself against him. He’d been right before. She couldn’t let herself slow down, couldn’t focus on anything more than the job. If she stopped, the grief, the fear, the worthlessness—it’d it would all catch up, and she’d find herself staring at the unrecognizable woman she’d left behind. She had to keep going. There was no other option.

She caught sight of the tablet she’d recovered from Baldwin’s death scene and found a bit of emotional detachment by counting the lines of cracked glass across the screen. “The four dirtiest sections on the tablet translate to the four most used numbers Baldwin used.”

“Most likely when he had to put in his password. I know,” he said.

She swallowed past the thickness in her throat and control returned with measured, steady inhales. Of course, he knew. He’d handled dozens of violent crimes—including homicide investigations—over the years. Stepping out of his hold, Arden crossed to the coffee table and collected the device. “There are more than ten thousand combinations the keypad as a whole can produce, but only twenty-four of those combinations correlate to the four numbers he used most often.”

“The problem is picking the right combination in three or fewer tries.” Lawson countered her retreat and nodded toward the tablet. “It’d be better if I handed it over to the tech squad. That way the device doesn’t lock us out and delete the memory if we’re wrong.”

“I knew Baldwin better than anyone.” She compressed the power button, careful not to let the front camera read her facial ID. She could still feel the heat where Lawson had touched her, tunneling past her thin shirt, through skin, and deep into muscle. It’d been a long time since she’d let anyone get close enough to touch her. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed the contact. Missed him. “If we’re wrong, we can still access the information after that directly from Baldwin’s laptop.”

Lawson stepped into her peripheral vision, head cocked to one side, seemingly trying to see past her expression and into her head. “That’s why you wanted off the island so bad, right? Why you were willing to leave Baldwin’s tablet behind a few minutes ago? Once the storm let up, you were going to go for his laptop.”

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