Page 121 of Ink and Ashes
“Yeah.” I finish typing out a text to Holland. “Just drive faster.”
He nods, picking up speed. I keep my eyes trained on my phone the entire drive back, waiting for her to give me something.
But nothing comes.
We’re back at the station four minutes later, pulling into our spot.
“Holland!” I call out the moment I hop off the truck. I notice that the light is still on in the conference room, so I head up there. “Hol!”
“Lieutenant! We gonna talk?” Langley calls after me.
“In a minute!” I respond as I race up the stairs, taking them two at a time. I reach the door at the end of the hall and swing it open. “Hol,” I say, only to find the room empty.
All her stuff is still here, so I walk inside and round the conference table, glancing at the pages spread across it. I’ll admit, as resistant as I was when Holland first started showing her face around here, she’s damn good at what she does, and I’m relieved that soon, hopefully, this will all be over with.
Though, I’m still not sure what that means for Holland and me once it is.
I wasn’t messing with her when I said I wouldn’t let her walk away. But we haven’t exactly talked about what’s going to happenbetween us once this is all said and done.
Will she go back to Toronto? I’m sure this will be enough to redeem herself with the Foundation, and she’s never going to find the same level of cases here that she would there. We haven’t talked about it yet, but I don’t see myself ever leaving Ember Grove either—especially not for a city as big as Toronto.
I guess that’s a bridge we’ll have to cross when we get to it.
“Hey, Col?” Beau says, knocking on the door.
“Yeah.” I look up from the pages on the table. “What’s up?”
“The guys are getting antsy.” He jerks his chin toward the table. “Where’s Holland?”
I shrug, my brows pulling together. “I’m…not sure?” I look back down at her things. Pulling out my phone, I find that my last text is still unseen and unanswered. I walk toward Beau, shaking my head as worry begins to wash over me. “I think something’s wrong.”
“Hold on a minute. How do you know?” Beau asks, trying to keep me from jumping to the worst conclusion I can think of.
I type out another text, my heart rate skyrocketing. This can’t be happening.
When that message goes unseen too, I look up at Beau, keeping my voice low as I say, “She left me a message while we were on that call. She found the arsonist.”
“Whoa, what?” Dom says from behind Beau. “Holland figured it out?”
I grit my teeth, nodding as I pray that the typing symbol will pop up on the screen. It doesn’t. “Yeah. But I think it might’ve been too late.”
Dom blows out a breath as Beau comes closer. “We need to fill everyone else in.”
I dial Holland’s number, putting the phone to my ear.
Voicemail.
Inhaling deeply, I say, “Yeah. Yeah, where’s Cass? Dom, find Cass and tell her to call Holland and keep calling until she picks up.”
“On it,” Dom says as he takes off back downstairs.
I shift my gaze to Beau. “Who’s not here? All I know is that it’s a firefighter—she kept her suspicions of who private because she didn’t want me to start mistrusting the crew like I did with Ollie.”
His brows pull together. “Morgan, McAllistar, Carver, Turner, Chambers, and Sharpe are all off shift today.”
“We know it’s not Sharpe, so it’s gotta be one of the others. Call them all in. Whoever doesn’t make it must be the arsonist.”
“I can do that, but are you sure about this?”
