From The Ashes (Golden Falls Fire Book 3)

by Scarlett Andrews

  “Maybe because of his guilty conscience.”

  She shook her head, pressed her lips together. Her head was buzzing. She felt affronted by Clyde’s theory. Not Bruce—not Jack’s dad. He would never. He’s been nothing but kind. It felt almost as if Clyde was accusing Jack, too, by association.

  “That’s reaching,” she said to Clyde. “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “His beloved wife of twenty-five years and the mother of his five children was dying of cancer. Conventional treatment had failed, and their insurance didn’t cover anything experimental. That must have made him feel pretty helpless. Pretty desperate.”

  “Stop.” Why was her heart pounding so hard? “He wasn’t even in town when it happened.”

  “He wasn’t in town when it was discovered,” Clyde corrected her. “But the fact is, no one knows exactly when that money was taken. You know where he was when the theft was discovered? On leave, down in Texas, getting his wife that experimental treatment his insurance wouldn’t pay for.”

  She looked away from him. A table of college students had sat down, and the waitress hadn’t yet taken their order. “I’m going to go see if they need anything.”

  “Stay here and listen to me,” Clyde said. “How do you think he paid for that experimental treatment, Elizabeth?”

  “How do you know that’s what it was?”

  “I checked the website and followed up with a phone call. That hospital in Houston was the only one in the country offering that particular gene therapy. They didn’t give patient records, of course, but they confirmed the cost might have been well into the multi-six-figure range, depending on the length of treatment.”

  “Bruce Barnes didn’t take the money.”

  “How’d he pay for the treatment, then?”

  “Who knows? Maybe they had investments or sold some property or mortgaged their house. Maybe they have a rich uncle.”

  He looked at her curiously. “Why are you resisting what I say about Bruce Barnes?”

  “Because I know Bruce, and I know he wouldn’t steal, and he wouldn’t let my dad rot in prison for fifteen years for something he didn’t do.”

  “Your dad didn’t rot in prison for fifteen years for something he didn’t do!” Clyde’s frustration came through. “He rotted in prison for something he did do, which was obstruction of justice. He did the crime, did his time. But the actual person who stole the money got away with it, and I’m saying it was Bruce Barnes. Remember how belligerent he got the other day when I said I was going to investigate? That was out of character.”

  “He didn’t want you to cause my family any grief.”

  “And didn’t you say he was over at your house helping Nate and Emmett make all those repairs so you can sell the house and your dad can move out of town?”

  “He’s being a friend.”

  “Because the alternative is Nate sticks around and starts looking into what happened, and he’s got a real incentive to keep looking until he finds the truth. Bruce and your dad were the only two captains on the police force at the time. Both of them had a key to the evidence room, as did the chief of police, as did the officer in charge of evidence. So they both had the means and the opportunity, but Bruce had the biggest motive of all. The love of his life was going to die in his arms unless he found the money to pay for her experimental treatment. Now, in the end, it didn’t save her, but not for lack of effort. That was the last hope they had.”

  This is all so awful, Elizabeth thought. And it can’t possibly be true.

  Except it felt true.

  It felt true to the core.

  “Thanks for the analysis.” She smiled weakly at Clyde, who was so enthused about his theory and had absolutely no idea how it would ruin her life if true. Which it is, the little voice inside her whispered. You know it is. It explains so much.

  An even worse possibility occurred to her. Jack had been a police officer, too, at the time. What if he was an accomplice to the theft?

  But he’d just made love to her! What kind of man would do that? A flush of memory overcame her. How whole she’d felt with him, how complete, for the first time in her life. She shuddered, remembering. Was she never to feel that completeness again? Was Jack, the good and decent man she thought she loved, just a figment of her misplaced hope and desire?

  Less than a week ago, Jack’s arms had held her as if he’d never let her go. Now, she felt dreadfully alone. Like she was standing on a stage naked with a spotlight on her and people laughing. And here we have the most pathetic human being on earth—a woman who will never find love.

  “Elizabeth?” Clyde studied her closely. “You see it, don’t you? How it has to be true?”

  Clyde felt so far away, even though he was just across the bar. He was too far away to prop her up if her knees gave out, which they very well might.

  “I’ll have to give it some thought,” she said and tossed the bar rag on the counter. “Excuse me. I need to get some lemons from the walk-in.”

  She almost ran to the cooler and let the big door close behind her. Only then did she double over, clutching her stomach, crying out in an agony that was not only emotional but physical, too. She felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Or knifed, or shot. Mortally wounded, in some way, shape, or form.

  Jack was her destiny; she’d not wavered from that belief since the first moment she realized it. But how could her destiny have done this to her?

  She told herself to hold it together. She couldn’t fall apart right now; she was at work and had to go back out and serve drinks and take orders and—

  Screw that, she thought. You need to find out if it’s true.

  Doing anything else was a waste of time. She wouldn’t be able to focus. Wouldn’t be able to think. Or smile. Or talk. Or breathe. All the pleasant thoughts she’d had of Bruce all these years—had he been playing her for a fool all this time? Playing her father for a fool?

  Anger for her father finally boiled up, anger on his behalf. She was glad for it because she’d felt disloyal for so long, refusing to feel sympathy for Nate. It felt good to experience anger for him rather than at him for a change. How awful for him to know she’d doubted him all these years and believed him to be a thief.

  Bruce Barnes was the thief, and something had to be done about it. He couldn’t get away with it for a minute longer.

  Then she remembered that at that very moment, Bruce was at her house with Emmett and her dad, helping replace the bathroom faucets. A fresh wave of fury came over her.

  She straightened up, took a few deep breaths to center herself, and went to Mark’s tiny office. He looked up at her entrance and gave her what was supposed to be a smile, but still seemed grouchy. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need to leave,” she said. “Personal stuff. Do you think you’d be able to cover for me?”

  He grunted his disapproval, but she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  “Mark, I’ve never left my shift before. Not in all the years I’ve been working here. You know I wouldn’t ask unless it was an emergency and—”

  “Okay, okay. Go ahead. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  She went to get her purse and coat from behind the bar.

  Clyde watched her. “No lemons?” he asked.

  “What?” She’d forgotten all about her excuse ducking away. “Oh, no. I’m actually heading home.”

  “Let me guess. You’re on the scent of my very correct theory, and you’re off to find out if it’s true.”

  She nodded, knowing it was pointless to keep it from Clyde, who was a bloodhound for information and would undoubtedly find out on his own anyway.

  “Good luck,” Clyde said. “And do keep me informed of what happens!”

  “I will,” she said, and left before she could talk herself out of it, and because she couldn’t bear to hear any more of Clyde’s theory about what had happened—lest it include Jack.

  26

  Elizabeth stared at the front door of the house she�
��d been ashamed of for so long. The walkway was clean of snow, the porch light was on, and the front door was painted a fresh, cheerful shade of red to appeal to a new family who wouldn’t have the same baggage as hers. Out with the old, she thought. And out with the lies, too.

  As she unlocked the door and turned the knob, the laughter she heard from inside felt like a punch in the gut. How dare Bruce befriend their family after what he’d done?

  Maybe he hadn’t done anything. Maybe this was all a form of perverted wishful thinking on her part. She’d never doubted Nate’s guilt before, and just because some well-meaning writer came up with a plot that would fit nicely in one of his mystery novels, that didn’t mean it was true. Now that she was out of range of Clyde’s relentless theorizing, she began to wonder if she was just vulnerable to the idea of her father’s innocence.

  Either way, she was going to find out.

  She stepped inside and saw Bruce, Nate, and Emmett sitting in the living room, each working through a bottle of Heineken, and there were three empties on the coffee table. As always, her heart squeezed a little to see Bruce, with his resemblance to Jack and the apparent kindness in his eyes. How could he have done it? Nothing fit—the logic of the theory versus the deep instinct that Bruce was a good man, just like Jack. For a moment she stood there, unsure of what to do or say.

  “Elizabeth!” Nate called boisterously, and the other two raised their bottles and called a greeting as well.

  At first, she was dismayed that the men had been drinking, but then she thought twice. If Bruce was a little tipsy, he might be less guarded. More vulnerable to admitting the truth.

  “Hey, guys,” she said, injecting her best happy-bartender tone into her voice. “How did the work go on the house today?”

  “It went great.” Nate proudly swept his arm across the breadth of the room. “This place is looking really good. I talked to the realtor, and she thinks it’ll sell a lot faster now that all this work’s been done. She’s coming by later to show us some comps and suggest a good listing price.”

  “Yeah, Dad and I were just talking to Bruce about the guy he knows in Anchorage and some of the opportunities there,” Emmett said.

  “Huh!” Elizabeth glanced from Bruce to her father. Clearly, Bruce had been working on Nate, encouraging him to move out of town. A fresh start. Now it felt like further evidence of Bruce’s guilt. “Well, I think that calls for another round of drinks to celebrate. I might even be able to rustle up some tequila.”

  “Not for me, thank you,” Bruce said. “I’ve still got to drive back home.”

  “Aw, now, come on,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll drive you home if need be.”

  Without waiting for an answer, she went into the kitchen—noticing the updated cabinets and fixtures, the new recessed ceiling lights, and the overall fresh, bright feeling of it—and gathered a mixture of random souvenir shot glasses, as well as a decent bottle of unopened tequila from the brewery’s employee Christmas party two years previous. She’d managed to keep it hidden from Emmett by sticking it in a dark corner of the pantry behind the cereal containers.

  Back in the living room, Elizabeth settled onto the unoccupied armchair and poured the tequila. She raised her glass first. She almost said, To new beginnings, but decided against it. She wanted the conversation to turn to the past, not the future.

  “To old friends,” she said instead.

  The men raised their glasses, and everyone drank. Elizabeth felt the acrid warmth of the alcohol spread throughout her body.

  Nate smiled. “The taste of tequila reminds me. Do you remember that time … it was after what-was-his-name’s retirement party, at that dive bar …”

  He and Bruce launched into reminiscing about shared memories from their police department days. As the easygoing conversation continued, Emmett and Elizabeth exchanged a glance. Since his release, they’d yet to hear Nate mention his days on the force. They’d assumed it was a taboo topic, but the alcohol must have loosened Nate’s tongue because he began talking about some of the craziest arrests they’d made when both he and Bruce were young patrol officers.

  “So you guys have been friends for a long time, huh?” Elizabeth said.

  “Actually,” Nate said, “We weren’t the best of friends. But this guy’s the only one who stuck with me through everything that happened. He’s the only one who believed in me.”

  “Why weren’t you friends at the time?” Elizabeth asked.

  Bruce shrugged. “Competitiveness, probably.”

  “You thought I was a jerk,” Nate said. “And I thought you were a goody-two-shoes.”

  Bruce laughed. “Not a jerk. Just a loose cannon.”

  “And I was, in the end,” Nate acknowledged.

  Heart pounding, Elizabeth asked the burning question. “So Bruce … why didn’t you believe my dad took the money that went missing?”

  She couldn’t bring herself to look at her father when she said it. All she could do was watch Bruce as he sat back in his chair and gave what seemed to be genuine consideration to the question.

  “I remember when that drug smuggler was arrested. He was part of a multi-state distribution operation, cocaine, and getting him off the streets was Nate’s biggest priority. The DEA was involved, and the state police, but Nate was the one who made the arrest, and it was a big win for us. For the community. The money that went missing—it fell under civil asset forfeiture, so it didn’t really belong to anybody, but I just didn’t think that Nate would mess up his career-making case in that way. I also didn’t think he was a dirty cop, not in that way. I had an issue with the way he pushed the limits of the law sometimes—but I knew him well, and I’d never seen him compromised or heard rumors of that kind. So—that’s it. I knew the case meant too much to him.”

  “Well, you weren’t around when it happened,” Nate said. There was a hint of emotion in his voice, perhaps something like gratitude. “You weren’t influenced by being in the heat of everything, looking for the easiest person to accuse.”

  “True,” Bruce said.

  “Where were you again?” Elizabeth asked, as if she didn’t know.

  “Houston,” Bruce said. “Cancer treatment for my wife.”

  She might have imagined it, but Elizabeth sensed a new edge to his voice. A let’s-not-go-there edge. Sorry, Bruce, she thought. We’re going there.

  “So you exhausted all your options and needed to go to Houston because your wife could get experimental treatment there?”

  “That’s right.” He drank from his bottle of beer. “It didn’t work in the end, unfortunately.”

  “Must have been expensive.” She gave him a forthright, challenging look, meant to make him uncomfortable.

  He shifted in his chair. “It put a dent in my savings, that’s for sure.”

  She turned to Nate. “So, Dad, what’s the timeline between when you made the arrest and when the money was discovered missing?”

  “Lizzie, what’s gotten into you?” Nate asked. “What are you getting at?”

  Elizabeth glanced at Bruce. He looked like he wanted to bolt. Emmett sat forward on the couch, listening intently. His presence spurred her on. He’d sacrificed so much for her; he was owed the truth.

  “I’m just curious,” she said. “I was too young to really remember, you know.”

  “Well, let’s see. The arrest was in late June. I remember because there were a bunch of illegal fireworks found in the drug house, and I felt really good on Independence Day that the bastard wasn’t going to get a chance to fire them off. And then Bruce took his leave … when was that, Bruce? I don’t recall. You were gone for a while, though.”

  “We went to Houston just before Labor Day.” He shook his head. “I remember because Helena was sorry to miss the kids’ first day back to school. We had a tradition. Big pancake breakfast. Lined them all up by order of age on the front steps for a photo.”

  “How old were your kids at the time?” Elizabeth asked, wanting to know about Jack.r />
  “My oldest was nineteen, and my youngest was thirteen. Jack and Josh, oldest and youngest.”

  “And Jack was on the police force by then?” she asked.

  “In his rookie year,” Bruce said. “He’d just finished at the academy.” He glanced at his watch. “You know, I’d better get going.”

  “So you were actually there, though, for two months while the money was there, too,” Elizabeth pressed on. Nate quirked his head as she spoke, finally picking up on the intent behind her questions. “And you had a key to the evidence room.”

  Bruce gave her a long look. “I don’t think I like what you’re suggesting.”

  “I don’t either.” Nate’s voice was sharp, raised. “This guy was—”

  “Dad, stop,” she said, deciding to go for broke. “I know Bruce took the money.”

  Bruce immediately reddened. It could have been fury at the accusation or shame at the truth of it.

  “Elizabeth!” Nate interjected, slamming his beer on the coffee table a little too hard. “That’s crazy. What are you even talking about?”

  “He needed money for his wife’s treatment, and his insurance didn’t cover it,” she said. “Bruce, there’s no way you had the savings for it. Clyde Harrison—the journalist—has been researching the case and he looked it up. The cost was several hundred thousand dollars. There’s no way you had that kind of savings, what with you being a cop and your wife off work because of the cancer, and you raising five kids. No way you had that kind of money.”

  “We took out a second mortgage.” His voice was tight. “And my financial affairs are none of your business.”

  She smarted a little at that comment because it was true under any other circumstance, but when she looked at the bewildered, suspicious expressions on Nate’s and Emmett’s faces, she gained the courage to continue.

  “Clyde looked up the assessor’s records, and your property came in at seventy-five thousand back then. Even if you didn’t already have a mortgage, which is doubtful, the absolute most you could have taken against the house would have been about sixty. I guess that’s something that could be verified with a credit report. How much was that second mortgage for?”