by Morgan Blaze
“Got it.”
Adam opened his own door and hopped out, snagging the bulky pack of emergency supplies from beneath the passenger seat on the way. Engine One screamed down the road toward them as he raced after Dom, who’d already rounded the squad car.
Suddenly, Dom stopped short and blurted, “Jesus!”
Adam went cold. He forced himself to keep moving, to haul one strap of the jump kit over his shoulder and out of the way as he darted past the hood of the cruiser. When he caught sight of the smoldering wreckage rammed against a massive tree, his first thought was that maybe the vic would make it, because he’d seen worse. At least it was still recognizably a vehicle.
Then he actually recognized the vehicle. A rust-red El Camino. Only one like it in town.
Dom faced him, shaken and pale. “Isn’t that…”
“Oh, God,” he said hoarsely. “Ben!”
He pushed past to where Nick Donovan stood beside the car with one arm reaching through the shattered driver’s side window. A few small flames danced around the edges of the ruined hood—not engaged yet, but it could flare out any moment, catch the oil pan or a gas line and burn like a mother. “Hose’ll be down in a second, but I’ll have them bring the foam,” he said. “Can you get him out?”
The deputy moved slowly. He stepped back from the vehicle and maneuvered his arm clear of the window, still blocking the view with his body. His hand was smeared with blood. “Adam,” he said in careful tones. “You know the victim?”
“That’s Ben Schaeffer’s car.” Something in the deputy’s delivery gutted him, but his mind refused to acknowledge it. “He worked Valley Ridge. Just retired. We have to get him out of there.”
Nick managed to look grim and sympathetic at the same time. “I’m sorry, Adam,” he said in that same careful tone. “He’s gone.”
“No.” Sudden fury surged through him, and he dropped the jump pack on the ground and shoved the deputy aside. “Goddamn it, get him out of there!”
He knew it was hopeless, even as he seized the handle of the crumpled door and yanked at it. The figure inside the car was utterly motionless—drenched in blood, face covered with cuts, head bent at an impossible angle. Still, he pulled and wrenched at the door, ignoring the fragments of metal and glass that tore at his gloves and punched through to slice him, until at last the door moved with a tortured squeal.
Adam shoved through the gap, yanked a glove off. “Come on, Ben,” he muttered, reaching for the man’s throat, his fingers seeking a pulse he knew he wouldn’t find. The skin was cold, the flesh rigid. “I told you we’re not going to put you in the ground just yet. Your time’s not up. Ben…give me something here, damn it!”
A hand on his shoulder made him flinch. “Move back, bro.” Dom’s voice was choked and low, barely recognizable. “Come on, you’re bleeding. Let Aldridge and Fletcher take care of him, okay?”
Shivering, Adam shifted slowly out of the wreckage. Everything in him wanted to scream, tear things apart, collapse the world around him the way he’d fallen apart inside. But he couldn’t afford to lose it. He had a job to do here. “Get that fire out,” he said, managing a semblance of his normal voice. “Tell Luke to forget the hose for now, use the foam first. I won’t let him burn in there.”
Dom frowned. “Adam…”
“Do it!”
He watched Dom take off, and then turned to the deputy. “You talk to the sheriff?”
“He’s en route,” Nick said. “Ten minutes out.”
“Good. I want a full investigation.” Adam glanced at the wreck and shook his head. “This shouldn’t have happened, and I want to know how it did.”
“I’ll tell Sheriff Tanner,” Nick said. “Adam, maybe you should—hey!” The deputy broke off suddenly and stared down the road, past the flares and emergency vehicles. “What the hell’s Karl Jessup doing out here?”
Adam snarled an oath. He knew what was going on before he caught sight of the unmistakable orange pickup pulling up beside Rescue Four. Of course she hadn’t listened when he told her to stay at the station. “It’s not Karl,” he said. “I’ll take care of this.”
Jaw set, he strode across the scene to have it out with Winter.
* * * *
Winter climbed out of the truck slowly, trying to separate the scene in front of her from the long-ago one that had been seared into her memory—flashing lights, shouting people, the heavy smell of burning. But this was day, not night. Covendale, not Greenway. And her sister wasn’t trapped inside the house at a second-story window, screaming as she burned.
That was then, this was now. And she was going to do her job.
She’d just closed the door when she noticed a figure striding toward her in full turnout gear. Adam—she recognized his shape, the strong line of his jaw. He probably wouldn’t be happy she’d come to the call. But she’d just explain that she was here to observe, to make sure the fire department had the right procedures in place. Witnessing an accident cleanup would go a long way toward bringing this investigation to a close, something they both wanted.
He reached her and stopped short. Before she could get a word out, he said, “I told you to stay at the station.”
The fury in his voice chilled her. “I’m just here to—”
“I don’t give a damn why you’re here. Get back in that truck and leave.”
“I will not.” The first stirrings of her own anger fueled her resolve. He was overreacting again—whatever had him so upset, it wasn’t business. “I know you have a job here, but so do I,” she said. “I’m investigating your department’s accident cleanups, and I’m here to observe.”
“Accident cleanup.” His voice tightened around the words. “You’re…observing an accident cleanup.”
“Yes,” she said with far less certainty, watching his fists clench hard at his sides. She’d just noticed he was only wearing one glove. His bare hand was cut and bleeding, smudged with black, either grease or soot. More blood on his sleeves…probably not his, she realized with a horrible start. But she swallowed and pressed on. “If I observe your procedures, we can get this investigation closed faster.”
His blue eyes darkened, narrowed. “Procedures,” he spat. “Figures. Is that all you care about, Winter?”
“It’s my job. I have to—”
“This is not your job!” he shouted, forcing her to recoil. “That’s Ben Schaeffer over there, and you’re not investigating him.”
“Ben?” she whispered as startled tears welled in her eyes. “Oh, no. How is he?”
“Dead.”
No. She shook her head, as if it would keep that horrible, flat word from penetrating. The sweet old man she’d met just last night, Teddy’s friend…he couldn’t be dead. She was meeting him at the diner tonight. He wanted to talk about the investigation. This wasn’t right.
She shivered and stared at the blood on Adam’s sleeves. Ben’s blood. “Dead?” she echoed in hollow tones. “I didn’t know…”
“Well, now you do. And you’re not going to reduce my friend’s death to a pile of numbers for the insurance company.” He glared at her, folding his arms across his stomach as if he were trying to hide the blood. To deny its existence. “You take that frozen heart of yours, and go do your job somewhere else.”
She blinked once and turned away fast, heading almost blindly for the truck. If it wasn’t bright orange, she wouldn’t be able to see it. She didn’t look back. Didn’t care whether Adam was standing there watching her, or walking away unaffected by his own cruel words.
She refused to let him see her frozen heart breaking.
Chapter 8
Pete’s Diner turned out to be Winter’s kind of place—clean, low lighting, and mostly deserted. Exactly what she needed right now.
She’d gotten directions from Sandy at the bed and breakfast, and come here a little before ten, the time she was supposed to meet Ben Schaeffer. Somehow it felt right being here, even if Ben couldn’t make the appointment. She was sti
ll hurt and stunned over the horrible accident.
Adam too, but she’d decided not to waste her time thinking about him.
It was the end of another long and fruitless day, and she was still no closer to closing the investigation. She’d gone back to the station after getting her emotions under control. Spent some time going through the file cabinets again, found no sign of the missing documents. Eventually she’d started the individual interviews.
That hadn’t gone so well. She’d only gotten through four of them, each one worse than the last. Luke Aldridge was a sweet young man, but fairly clueless. Vermont Ward, a close friend of Ethan Goddard’s, had leered at her the entire time and said nothing of use. Dominic Shepherd was downright hostile, and Chief Mike Smallwood brief and distracted—Ben had been a close friend of the chief’s, as well.
Adam had taken the rest of the day off, apparently at the chief’s insistence. As bad as she felt for his loss, that had worked out well for her. She didn’t think she could be impartial with him.
Right now she intended to relax, if she could. She’d brought her files and interview notes to the diner, ordered a salad and a barbecue burger with onion rings, and was currently working on a thick, heavenly chocolate milkshake while she read through what she’d written about Vermont Ward.
“Don’t you ever stop working?”
The deep, familiar voice startled her, and she nearly spilled her shake. She refused to even look at him. Part of her questioned why he was here, whether he’d come looking for her, but she chalked it up to this being the only diner in a small town. The coincidence wasn’t that far-fetched. “I’m busy, Mr. Rhodes,” she said. “Good day.”
“You mean good evening.”
The half-teasing note in his voice infuriated her. She glared at him and said, “I mean goodbye.”
“Yeah, I bet you do.” He gave a sharp sigh and rubbed the back of his neck. “Would it help if I said that I’m a complete idiot, and I’m sorry?”
She wanted to tell him no, it wouldn’t help. She wanted to say go to hell. But what came out was, “Sorry for what?”
“For being such a bastard to you,” he said. “Honestly, you caught me at the worst possible time. I was devastated, furious…not at you. But that’s still no excuse.” He sighed again and fixed on a point beyond her. “You didn’t know what happened, and I didn’t bother telling you. So I’m sorry for that, too.”
Her anger was melting away, despite her desperate attempt to hold onto the feeling. It was so much easier to be angry at him than to face the rest of what she felt—a tangle of powerful attraction, hopeless longing, and practical cynicism. But she just couldn’t bring herself to hurt him any more than he already was. “All right,” she said. “And I’m sorry for showing up there.”
“Don’t be.” His gaze found hers and locked on, driving away the rest of her reservations. “You were doing your job, and I should’ve let you.”
“Yes, well…” She shivered and stared at the table, waiting for him to end the conversation with some trivial goodbye and leave. He didn’t. Finally, she said, “Is there something else you want, Mr. Rhodes?”
“Actually, there is.”
She had to be imagining the rasp in his voice. “What is it?”
“Please call me Adam.”
“Right,” she muttered, looking up at him. She was really going to regret this. “Would you like to sit down…Adam?”
“You don’t mind?”
“No, I suppose I don’t.”
He hesitated for a moment, and then slid into the booth across from her.
Before he could say anything else, the waitress who'd served her approached with a salad in one hand, a pad in the other. “Here you go,” she said, placing the salad in front of Winter. “Let me know if you need more dressing, okay? Hey, Adam. Get you anything?”
Adam smiled faintly. “Hey, Piper. I thought you quit this dump.”
“A few more weeks. We have a nice, long vacation planned, and when we get back...” The waitress trailed off, blushing, and smiled at Winter. “You know this guy?” she said. “My condolences if you do.”
“Well, I...uh...”
“This is Winter,” Adam said smoothly. “She's in town on business, and we're working together. Winter, this is Piper. She's engaged to an old friend of mine.”
“Hi, Winter. I love your name.”
She couldn't help smiling. “It's nice to meet you,” she said. “I love your name, too. Congratulations on your engagement.”
“Thank you.” Her blush returned for a moment. “That whole nervous bride thing is a myth, by the way,” she said. “He's jumpier than I am. Fussing over everything. I don't think the poor caterer's going to survive the wedding.”
Adam laughed. “I have to see this. Just can't picture Jonah Dawson being nervous about anything,” he said. “I'd love a cup of coffee. And tell Jonah I said hey?”
“Will do.”
The waitress left, and Winter flashed a skeptical smile. “Do you know everyone in this town?” she said.
“Well, not everyone. Just most of them.”
“I see.”
“It's not a big place.” He glanced at the bowl in front of her. “So, are you one of those salad girls?” he said.
“Excuse me?”
His answering laughter was insulting—until she realized he wasn't laughing at her. “You know,” he said. “Everybody goes out for dinner, and one girl always says, 'Oh, I'll just have a salad.' The salad girl.”
“Oh.” She didn't know, but it was probably one of those social norms she was hopeless at understanding. Was it good or bad to be the salad girl? “Well, I'm afraid that's not me,” she said. “I ordered a barbecue burger and onion rings, and I'm getting pie, too.”
Adam grinned. “You really are a fascinating woman,” he said. “Where are you going to put all that?”
“Do I have to answer?”
“No. You don't.” His smile faltered, and his expression grew serious. “Look, Winter...we really got off on the wrong foot. I mean—you know. This time. So could we start over?”
“What do you mean?”
“Let's just pretend we haven't been at each other's throats the last few days,” he said. “Clean the slate. Act like we're colleagues who can get along and discuss things like adults, without letting—er, personal issues interfere.”
“All right,” she said. “We can try that.”
He smiled. “Good.”
“But before we get to business, there's something...kind of personal I want to say.”
Adam frowned. “Are you sure? We don't have to—”
“Not that,” she said quickly. And had she imagined the disappointment in his eyes? Probably. But this was more important, something she'd wanted to tell him even when she'd been furious with him. “I just wanted to say that I'm so sorry about Ben.”
He reeled a bit, shivered briefly. “Thank you,” he murmured. “I...still don't know what to think, what to do. It's like—well, it couldn't have really happened. I was there. I saw it, saw him, and I still don't believe it.”
Something told her now wasn't the time to offer a clinical definition of shock. “I didn't know him very well, but he was a good friend of a friend of mine. And that tells me he must've been a good man.” She faltered as fresh tears threatened. “In fact, I was supposed to meet him here tonight,” she said.
“Your friend?”
“No. I was meeting Ben.” She folded her hands together tightly. “I don't know why I came, really, after...the accident,” she said. “It just felt like the right thing to do.”
“You were going to meet Ben?” Adam said in a strange, hoarse tone. “Here, tonight?”
She looked at him, brow furrowing. “Yes. He asked me to.”
“At ten?”
Her heart gave a painful thump. “Yes,” she whispered. “Why?”
Adam shoved a hand in his pocket and came out with a folded scrap of paper. “He gave me this,” he said, handi
ng it to her. “Last night at the party, just after you left.”
Suddenly worried, she unfolded the paper and read the few words scrawled on it: Pete's Diner, 10 tomorrow night. An involuntary gasp escaped her.
Ben had wanted to tell them both something important. Something secret—so secret that he hadn't even risked talking to them at the same time about meeting him here. And now he'd never be able to tell them. In that moment, any lingering suspicion she'd held toward Adam vanished.
And she knew there was a lot more at stake here than some misplaced funds.
* * * *
Adam had barely begun to process that Ben had asked her to the same secret meeting for whatever he wanted to tell them, when Piper returned with his coffee and the rest of Winter’s order. He managed to exchange pleasantries with the waitress, all the while thinking about Ben’s final request—to keep Winter safe. From “people” who’d do “a hell of a lot” to keep her from finding out…something.
It would’ve been real damned helpful if he’d been able to fill in a few details.
When they were alone, he looked at her and sighed. “All right. Now what do we do?”
“I have no idea.” She picked up her fork, shoved her salad around a bit, and then pushed the bowl aside. “This is definitely an onion ring problem,” she said, dragging the plate Piper had brought over to the center of the table. “Help yourself.”
“Oh, I like the way you think.” He grabbed one, but didn’t eat it yet. “Maybe this is what we should do,” he said. “Pool our resources. What did he say to you, exactly?”
She frowned. “Not much. Just that he knew what I was looking into, and he had information I was going to need.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes, and he asked me to meet him here,” she said. “He was very quiet about it, nervous. He seemed to think someone was listening.” Her mouth parted slightly. “Ethan Goddard was there, watching us. He didn’t look happy.”
“Christ. I thought he left.” Adam fell silent, considering Ethan—and how to tell Winter what Ben had said to him. “I didn’t hear a lot from him either, but he was serious about what he did say.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Ben asked me to watch out for you. He said what you’re investigating has been going on a long time, and he couldn’t stop it. And he thinks whoever’s behind it is out to get you.”
