From Winter's Ashes: Girl Next Door Crime Romance Series - Book Two

by Amy Leigh Simpson

  What kind of Sling Blade horror movie had she been cast in? Rusty blades of all shapes and sizes hung from hooks on the walls. A blood-soaked wooden table against one wall held the lantern and a length of chain. The place reeked of rotting carcasses. But animal or human, she couldn’t say.

  When she was done scanning what could only be described as a butcher shed, she blinked up and saw the source of her pain.

  She was the next animal to be slaughtered, it would appear. Her hands were strung above her head. Suspended from the beam that traversed the pitched ceiling of the fifteen-by-fifteen death lair, she hung from bound wrists, one of which craned at an awkward angle and was surely broken. The other wrist appeared intact, but as she let her eyes slip the length of her arm, she saw that this arm was much longer than the other. Almost as if her shoulder no longer connected her arm to her body.

  The agony was unlike any she’d ever felt. The physical pain could match and possibly surpass the emotional devastation of her tragic life. Each torturous moment felt like an eternity of suffering. Each breath a desperate hold on consciousness.

  And yet, even as the delirium threatened to steal what she assumed would be her last waking moments on earth, she felt warm, unafraid. The drafty shed was no match for the hostility of the December wind, and the insulation of her designer gown wasn’t much warmer than a slip, but somehow, when Old Man Winter’s icy fingers raked over her skin, the chill that should have frozen her bone deep was overcome by a strange hug of heat.

  “I’m not alone.” She closed her eyes to erase the surrounding threat. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  Her breath emerged shaky, a wellspring of hope bubbled up in her chest. “I can feel you.” Her lips formed a tremulous smile. Tears coursed down her face. “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand a lot of things, really, but I’ve been so lost and alone for as long as I can remember. I wanted … needed someone to love me. And now you’re here. Just in time to carry me home.”

  Beloved.

  Love whispered, possibly a mirage born of delirium, but as sure as the pain ravaging her body. In the stillness, it came again.

  Beloved, I have held you in your darkest moments. Carried you to safety. Fought for you and won. I have loved you from the very beginning.

  As if viewing a highlight reel, Joselyn was back on the icy road that fractured her family, seeing the explosive flames pass over without touching her. She was then wandering the streets for Yia-Yia, somehow knowing exactly where to turn to bring her home to safety. And then still, about to swallow a handful of Gloria’s sleeping pills after prom, when Erwin came in from the stables early with heartburn. And finally, she was resigned to die in a fiery prison when Finn came to her rescue.

  “Oh, God.” She closed her eyes and prayed, the locks breaking open and the words in her heart the sweetest surrender.

  “He’s not gonna save you.”

  Joselyn’s eyes shot open. The door that slammed behind her killer made her flinch—sending another circuit of misery through her body.

  Shaking the pellets of ice from his derelict onyx hair, he tossed aside a dripping sheet of gray tarp and what looked like a spool of ribbon.

  “Already has.” The pain was no more manageable, but an unlikely peace ascended on her and took the edge off enough to clear the haze from her eyes.

  He looked familiar, but she struggled to place him. His midnight hair and unruly beard hinted at a rugged lifestyle, but it was the untamed fury in his wild, obsidian eyes that made him belong here in this horrifying shack.

  “Wrong. You’re gonna die today.” His eyes flashed hot with rage. “Soon as the rain stops and I remove the tarp keeping this place dry. I’m not taking any chances this time. Guess you can thank your precious God for the storm delaying your inevitable fate.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She felt strong. More confident than she’d ever felt. Even in the face of certain death, she was no longer afraid. “I’ll be home. You, on the other hand, will rot in prison for the murderer that you are, or you will live haunted by the life you robbed from me. But it’s not too late.”

  “I am not a murderer! I am a servant of justice. Your life is the price to be paid for retribution. An eye for an eye. Even God himself knows about that one.” The man pumped his hands into fists at his sides. It was an odd gesture, but it triggered a memory.

  “Vengeance, huh? That’s what this is all about?” Something clicked. “Wait, I do know you. Tobin, right? You used to work for my father.” And though he was harrier, and lined with stress not from advancing age but from despair, she could see the man who’d been her father’s prodigy. The brilliant young inventor who would usher Whyte Enterprises into the brass ring—the cutting edge of technology. She remembered him when she’d once dropped in on her father at work on her birthday bearing cupcakes and a foolish hope that she might get a morsel of his time.

  But there’d been nothing sweet or special about that day. Instead of the moment of connection she’d craved, she’d witnessed her father tearing apart a team of young scientists in lab coats, one absently squeezing his hands into fists while he received the brunt of the lashing. When they’d been thoroughly dressed down and demoralized she’d watched them leave. One woman had tears in her eyes. Several other faces had been lined with distress. But one, the man with the white-knuckled fists in rapidly clenching hands, had walked past and looked directly at her. His eyes unfathomably cold and empty, she remembered feeling the chill in them sweep through her like a winter wind.

  Then her father had come to the open door of his office, and everything in her shook from the uncertainty she felt squishing around in her tummy. Fear. Longing. And a spark of hope that died when he looked on her with annoyance and said, “I don’t want you here. Leave.” before he slammed the door in her face, not hearing her sniffle and whisper, “But it’s my birthday.”

  The headline came to her mind next. “Family of Whyte’s head of R&D, Dr. Tobin Devore, dies tragically in their Chesterfield home.”

  The man was broken. Just like she had been. Joselyn’s voice softened, and though her physical misery was powerful enough, her heart began to ache for this man. “Your wife and your four-year-old daughter. I remember. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  Her father was known for overworking his employees. Guilting or threatening them into excessive overtime. Slinging money at roadblocks and problems as if it could solve anything.

  Because he was a man of incalculable influence, she’d often pondered the potential domino effect of her father’s greed. Rather, she wondered how exactly it affected others. She knew all too well how it affected her.

  But then last year after Devore’s family died in a house fire while he worked late into the night, she’d seen the depth of her father’s cruelty. About a month after the accident that robbed Tobin Devore of his family, a major project he’d been working on had fallen apart, and Declan Whyte had fired him. It was heartless. Unconscionable.

  Her life would now serve as the ultimate repercussion of her father’s selfishness.

  An eye for an eye, Devore said. He’d lost his wife and daughter. Now Declan Whyte would too. And the worst of it was, he wouldn’t care.

  Devore worked in silence, unrolling the white ribbon and scattering it in the room.

  “This isn’t going to heal your pain, Tobin. Nothing can. Nothing but love. And not the kind that can be lost in the fire. It’s not too late.” The truth swelled within her, resurrected from the deep recesses of her mind. And then the verse from Isaiah unfurled from her heart like a captive being set free.

  “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine … When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”

  “Stop!” Tobin hissed on a ragged breath. Flinging down the last of the ribbon, he stormed to where Joselyn hung from the beam and withdrew a gun.

  The barrel stared Joselyn down, point blank. She swallowed down a tr
emor. “D-Don’t y-you s-see? Even if you d-do this, you can’t escape it. You’re already redeemed by blood that won’t wash away with your mistakes, even this one. I know you’re hurting, but this won’t bring your family back. Nothing you do to me will erase the pain of losing them. Just like, in all my lonely years, nothing I did could bring back my mother or win my father’s love.”

  The gun shook in Tobin’s hand. Heaving hot white air into the frigid space between them, his jaw jutted to one side, his eyes filling with barely leashed emotion.

  “But you’re not alone, Tobin. And if you think back, past the heartache, you might realize you never were.”

  Backing away, Tobin’s eyes were unseeing, looking through Joselyn as if he’d already made her a ghost. The gun still absently trained on her head.

  Oh help. I don’t know what else to say.

  Just then Tobin’s retreating backside collided with the bloody table. The lantern crashed to the floor, and before the faint flicker of darkness settled, the floor ignited, the snaking pattern of ribbon erecting walls of blinding white fire all at once.

  Like an explosion, without the bang.

  Too numb with the shock of pain to move, Joselyn heard her own scream sail over the villainous roar of the flames eating up the empty spaces, teasing the flesh of her bare feet, slithering over the beam that held her from the instant inferno below.

  The heat consumed her—her eyes stinging from the smoke and sweat pooling in her pores. And she knew with certainty, there was no escape.

  This is it. Finn will never know that I’ve forgiven him. That he is so much stronger than he realizes. And, that despite my efforts to hate him … I really, truly loved him like crazy.

  Satan’s hands reached up from hell, his fiery talons clawed at her feet. Through the burning wreckage, Joselyn saw Tobin pressed against the only portion of wall relatively untouched by fire. The door was only a few steps to his right, but he remained in place. His eyes coated with the drunken daze of the smoke. He squeezed them tight, uttered something she couldn’t hear or read through the wild dance of the flames consuming the shack.

  And then he raised his gun. Aimed at her.

  Pulled the trigger.

  The split of the round silenced the hiss of the flames for a mere moment before the hellish inferno rose from beneath her dangling feet. She had a fraction of a second to recognize that the bullet must have severed the rope before crash-landing onto the molten floor. Immeasurable agony flared out to each offending limb. The falling catch of air in her dress huffed away a scant scrap of flames now more eager to backtrack and devour her.

  Like Devore’s mystical arson ribbon, the full force of the pain exploded through her body tenfold. The scorch of each kiss of fire on her skin manifested in a blood-boiling scream that choked from her throat over and over.

  Reenacting her fight to survive from the fire that started it all, Joselyn struggled to stand, the blazing board beneath her feet rapidly disintegrating to ash. She leapt forward. The searing heat melted through her dress, each layer of flames lapping at her skin. The smothering scent of smoke and burning flesh called her to death, mocking her coming defeat.

  And yet, something pressed her forward. The fabric burned at her feet, but she was almost to the door. The air was useless, but she couldn’t remember breathing. A flash of gun metal to her right caught her eye. The snub nose poised where it would do the most damage.

  Tobin’s face streaked with sweat, soot, and tears.

  “NO!” Joselyn lunged at him.

  But it was too late.

  Chapter 45

  Finn Carson

  “There!”

  The winding back roads were a labyrinth of dead ends and deserted hunting cabins. Even though they’d made record time, they were still wandering around blind.

  The chopper had yet to report a sighting of fire, which meant maybe they weren’t too late.

  A small break in the trees revealed a ghostly funnel of smoke winding up to mingle with the night sky. One blink, and then it was gone, but the call of the fire was strong, beckoning him to the heart of the flame. Joselyn was there.

  “Are you sure? I didn’t see anything.” Archer asked the question but whipped onto the gravel road before Finn could respond. The thick wall of towering pines blocked what lay ahead.

  Dispatch kicked in over the sound of rocks spraying like a gunfight. “We’ve located the fire.” The precise location followed.

  This is it. Anticipation and terror raged in his chest.

  Archer stomped his foot down on the accelerator, and a torch of vibrant light began to peek out through the dense trees otherwise shrouded in darkness. Finn unlatched his seatbelt and grasped the door handle, ready to charge. They drove as far as the road would allow until they were blocked by the swell of the forest.

  Before the car came to a complete stop near the Honda, Finn had tumbled out and was in an all-out sprint toward the burning shack some 300 yards ahead.

  “Finn!” Archer’s scream was muted by the descending whir of helicopter blades.

  He had no doubts Archer was in pursuit, but Finn’s adrenaline enhanced his stride, leaving everyone behind.

  The heat sliced through the icy air, spiking with each step until the heat of the sun crashed into him. He charged ahead driven by a reckless kind of love. The kind that could move mountains, part seas, sacrifice it all.

  “Come on. Come on.” Finn chanted to himself, the sound of his words siphoning away as the taunting flames screamed with laughter.

  And then he heard it, piercing through the night air, shattering the hope rising within him.

  A gunshot.

  “Joselyn!” His scream was wasted as the roar of the fire snatched away his panicked cry.

  But for the first time since the Monroe fire, Finn found that his courage hadn’t left him. There was no hesitance. No fear of the fire. His armor held strong—stronger than ever.

  His heart, however, was crumbling fast.

  Launching up the three steps, Finn kicked down the burning scrap of the door. The splintered wood disappeared into the consumed shack like a scrap of paper lost in an instant to the blaze.

  Before his shoe could cross the threshold into the fiery hell, something lunged at him. He stumbled back, his heel teetering on the edge of the small burning stoop.

  And like an angel cutting through the curtain of Hades, Joselyn barreled into him.

  Despite the torment of the fire on his face and the blistering touch of his prize, his relief was so great that he let them fall.

  Before he could take inventory, he swept Joselyn up, cradled her to his chest, and ran like the fire might chase after them.

  When he was sure they were safe, he let his pace slow and looked down to the soot-stained beauty in his arms. “Joselyn.” Leaning down he pressed his mouth to her cheek. “Joss, wake up!”

  Taking a moment to look over her still and lifeless form, his blood became sluggish, and nausea washed over him until his legs nearly buckled.

  Crimson red blood—the exact hue of her dress—drenched one side of her face and neck, yet he couldn’t discern a bullet wound. The arm not pressed against his chest was covered in ash.

  “Help!” The dehydrated word croaked from his throat, and even before emerging in its entirety, someone was snatching Joselyn from his arms and spreading her on a stretcher. It was then he saw the awkward angle of her wrist and the sagging joint of her dislocated shoulder that had been crushed into him.

  His body shook when he thought about how much he must have hurt her by merely touching her.

  Finn stepped toward the stretcher, but one of the medics forced him away, each of them working methodically to tend to her injuries, or keep her alive. Finn couldn’t compute what was happening.

  He needed answers. Right now. But no one would talk to him. Helpless, he took a few steps back to let the medics work and saw Archer step away from the team setting out to scour the area for Devore. Archer marched over to Finn,
pulled him into a tough hug, and held him for a long moment. Then slapping his back, he set Finn an arm’s-length away and let his hands rest on Finn’s shoulders. “You got her, buddy. It’s over.”

  Archer’s eyes didn’t miss a thing. They were assessing Finn’s stability, weighing his thoughts on wiretap in his FBI brain, and calculating the actions bubbling up through Finn’s firefighter rationale.

  Finn released a pent up-breath, dragged a cool, cleansing breath of oxygen into his stricken lungs, and willed his heart to reboot.

  Archer was right, he got her. But with Joselyn being carried away on the stretcher, it still seemed far from over. Faced with a momentary decision, Finn shrugged out from Archer’s grasp and ran full out to catch up with the retreating medics.

  “Wait!” He sprinted until he caught up with the chopper. “Let me ride along. Please.” Without a thought, he reached out and covered Joselyn’s cold, little hand. It moved, and his heart frogged to his throat when her fingers curled around his.

  “Oh, sweetie, I’m here.” The oxygen mask hid her mouth, but her eyes slivered open and seemed to almost smile. “I thought I lost you.”

  Tears of relief and joy poured down Finn’s face. He was a mess, but he didn’t care who saw. Joselyn’s thumb stroked his hand, and he knew everything would be all right.

  “Okay, fine. One ride along,” the medic said.

  “Then it’s going to be me.” The accented voice cut in a moment before the whirring blades of the helicopter thumped out an ascending rhythm.

  Declan Whyte.

  “No way. I’m not leaving.” Finn shouted his challenge and slid in beside Joselyn.

  Joselyn’s father was not easily deterred. Against the medic’s protest, Declan shoved through the door. Joselyn’s fingers tightened on Finn’s hand, strengthening his resolve to stay, though he had no need for additional persuasion.