“It—we had other family help us—Helena’s parents—” But Bruce’s lie became obvious at that point.
Elizabeth watched as Nate’s expression turned to one of a cop’s suspicion.
“Don’t tell me,” he said. “Do not tell me …”
“Bruce took the money,” Elizabeth said simply. “Didn’t you, Bruce?”
Bruce sputtered for a moment, but then he clamped his mouth shut. Set his jaw. Looked down at the floor. His face was drawn in lines of pain.
“I don’t think you meant for my dad to take the fall for it,” she said. “Maybe you even intended to pay it back before anyone noticed it was gone, but that’s not how things played out.”
“You bastard.” Nate was up, off the sofa, roaring forward. He grabbed Bruce by the collar and yanked him out of the armchair. “You set me up!”
After a decade-plus in prison, and as a former cop incarcerated with criminals, Nate had been in his fair share of physical fights. And he was strong, damn strong, from lifting weights in the prison gym every day. Elizabeth watched in stunned horror as he threw Bruce across the room.
Bruce crashed onto the small dining room table and slid over it, toppled a chair on his way down, and landed hard on his left shoulder. He cried out in pain.
“Dad, don’t!” Elizabeth cried.
She was aghast, then, of what she’d wrought by her questioning. She could only watch as Nate broke every condition of his parole, the potential ruination cascading through her mind: assault, battery, retired police chief … deadly weapon? She glanced in terror at the beer bottles on the coffee table.
Emmett, too, was on his feet and tried to restrain Nate. But Nate wasn’t done. He shrugged Emmett off and crossed the room. He hauled Bruce back up and threw him again, this time into the heavy buffet, sending the two lamps on it toppling over.
“Seventeen years I rotted in prison!” he yelled. “Seventeen years you stole from me!”
“Listen to me! Just listen!” Bruce gasped.
“Admit it You stole the money!”
Bruce cowered as Nate readied to land a punch on him. “I—she was dying, man! She was dying!” His voice cracked. “I couldn’t let her die, Nate. You understand. I know you do. You remember how we were. She was everything to me. Everything.”
Standing by the couch, Emmett grabbed Elizabeth’s wrist and squeezed. Bruce had admitted it. The bastard just admitted it.
Nate’s face was black with rage. “Yeah? Well, my kids were everything to me! I rotted in prison while you became police chief. People think you’re honest? Upstanding? You’re nothing more than a fraud and a thief!”
The punch Nate landed on Bruce’s face sent him sprawling across the floor, choking and gasping. Blood sprayed everywhere.
“Dad!” Emmett lunged forward, this time near-tackling their father, dragging him away from Bruce.
Elizabeth stayed where she was, frozen with shock. A part of her felt that Nate was in the right to respond however he wanted.
Bruce lay on the ground, bleeding profusely from the nose and mouth. He pressed his hand against his jaw, and Elizabeth saw he could be badly injured. He could have lost a few teeth or broken his jaw or his nose—or maybe even all three.
Emmett pulled his dad away and kept him at bay while Bruce moaned and bled on their brand new floor. “He needs an ambulance,” Emmett said.
“No,” she said. “I’ll drive him to the hospital. If the cops get involved …”
“I want the cops involved!” Nate pushed past his son and yanked Bruce up from the ground. “You’re going to rot, just like I rotted. You know what they do to cops in prison? I’ll tell you what they do! Hell, I’ll show you!”
Nate hauled Bruce over to the front door and threw it open, intending to toss him outside, but he stopped short at the shocked, terrified face belonging to Misty Rhodes, the realtor, who held a file folder in one hand and her cell phone in the other. Her eyes widened at the sight of Bruce’s injuries, and she locked eyes with Nate.
“What the hell, Nate?” Misty said. “What’s going on here?”
“He stole the money. Bruce stole the money!”
“What are you talking about?”
“He stole it,” Nate said quietly, sounding near tears. “He acted like a friend all this time, but he’s the reason I got sent away.”
Bruce made a noise. It sounded like a muffled apology, but it was impossible to tell.
“I’m calling the cops,” Misty said, shaking her head, not as ruffled as Elizabeth might have expected. Misty turned from the door and a few seconds later could be heard speaking on her phone.
Bruce, meanwhile, slumped back into the armchair.
Elizabeth bent down next to him. His eyes were full of tears, whether from the pain or the guilt or both, she couldn’t tell.
But she had to know.
“Did Jack help you take the money?”
Bruce shook his head, or tried to. His voice was more of a wet wheeze. “Knew … nothing.”
“Jack didn’t know?” Elizabeth asked again, with more urgency.
Bruce shook his head again.
“Elizabeth, if Dad’s here when the cops show up, I don’t know what’s gonna happen to him,” Emmett said.
“Right. Yeah.” She turned to her dad. “Listen, Dad, just get out of here for now. We’ll take care of this.”
“Hell no, they need to know the truth!”
“They will. But for now, please. Just take a walk somewhere, okay?”
Nate lifted his head at the sound of sirens, and that seemed to bring him back to the realization of what had just happened, of the assault he’d just committed while on parole. “Okay. Yeah.” He pointed at Bruce. “But you and me? This isn’t done.”
After her father left out the back door, wearing the new parka she’d bought him, Elizabeth stood in her living room, shaking as she waited for the law to come down on her yet again. She turned to Emmett. “Emmett, you need to leave, too.”
“Not a chance. You’re not doing this alone.”
“You’re drunk. The cops will think you did this.”
Bruce made another noise, but Elizabeth ignored him.
“Lizzie Bean, I’m not letting you—”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I know better than to say anything. If I’m arrested, I’ll call Theresa. Just follow Dad and make sure he doesn’t do anything else stupid, okay?”
Emmett appeared to think about it, then he nodded and followed Nate out the back door.
Elizabeth went to the window and looked out into the dark night, her heart in her throat as the first blue-and-red flashes of police lights flickered off the snow.
27
Jack knelt beside the elderly woman, who stared at him out of confused brown eyes and gazed around at her own small apartment, seemingly not recognizing any of it.
“Ma’am?” he said. “We’re going to check your blood sugar, okay?”
It was the second diabetic call that day. Dylan brought out the glucometer and read the results to Jack, who entered it on the tablet. They administered dextrose, which had an immediate normalizing effect on the patient’s blood sugar, but she would still need to go to the hospital.
As they waited for the ambulance to arrive, Jack’s radio squawked with tones and the dispatcher’s voice. It was a call for Engine Three to respond to an assault, and at first, Jack was glad his crew was already on a call so they wouldn’t have to take it. Then he heard the address.
Elizabeth’s home address.
Not Elizabeth. Please, not Elizabeth. Jack frantically thought back to the text messages they’d exchanged earlier that day. Where was she right now? At work. At the brewery.
So who had been assaulted at her house?
The answer came over the radio a few seconds later. The assault victim was an adult male, mid-sixties. Nate Armstrong?
“Ambo is here,” Sean said to Jack.
“Right,” he said, reluctantly turning down the radio and f
ocusing his attention on the patient. He was quick as he could be about getting her loaded onto the gurney and into the ambulance and out of his hands.
“Turned and burned that one,” Sean said.
“Yeah,” Jack said. He climbed into the fire truck, cleared the call, and was about to get on the computer to find out more about what was going on at the Armstrong house, but just then his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket.
“Hey, Josh.”
“Hey. It’s about Dad. I got a call from the Engine Three captain, they just ran on him.”
“Wait—what?”
“Yeah, he got the crap beat out of him,” Josh said. “He’s on his way to the ER right now.”
Jack was silent for a moment. Nate found out. Competing feelings clamored through him. Concern for his dad mingled with a sense of serves-him-right righteousness. Mystification as to how Bruce had been discovered mixed with curiosity at how the scene must have unfolded. Most of all, he felt panic knowing that Elizabeth must have also discovered Bruce’s guilt, and regret and shame that Jack hadn’t been the one to tell her.
“Who beat him up?” Jack asked Josh.
“Elizabeth Armstrong, apparently.”
“What?” He thought maybe he hadn’t heard correctly. “That’s impossible, Josh. Completely impossible. Have you seen her? She couldn’t beat the crap out of anybody, and she wouldn’t beat the crap out of anyone—least of all Dad.”
“Look, I have no idea what’s going on, but we’re on our way back to the station and Tom’s letting me leave on family emergency,” Josh said. “I’m going to head over to the hospital now.”
“Where’s Elizabeth right now?”
“Probably at the police station downtown.”
“They arrested her?”
“I’d imagine so,” Josh said.
Jack imagined her in handcuffs, being shoved none-too-gently into the back of a patrol car, under arrest for assaulting the popular former chief of police. His heart broke; she must feel so alone. So scared. So furious.
She didn’t do it, Jack thought. He knew Elizabeth, and just like when they’d first met, she was obviously covering for someone else in her family. Who? Emmett again? Or more likely, her father, who would be back to prison in a flash if he’d assaulted somebody less than a week after being released.
“I’m going to see Elizabeth,” Jack told Josh. “You go be with Dad. I’ll meet you at the hospital after.”
It seemed like Josh was about to say something, but then he just said, “Okay. See you there.”
Without being asked, Sean drove them code three, lights and sirens, back to Station One. “What’s going on?” he asked Jack.
“My dad’s been assaulted. I have to leave.”
“Holy crap,” Sean said, echoed by both Dylan and the other firefighter in the back who was working in Cody’s place while Cody was skiing in Vail. “And they arrested Elizabeth?”
“They better not have,” Jack said.
Once they returned to Station One, Jack ran inside to call the battalion chief and let him know he had a family emergency and that Sean would be acting captain of his crew. Then he got in his own truck and drove the three blocks to the downtown police station.
He burst through the doors. The uniformed desk clerk looked up and greeted him in the cheerful manner of professional courtesy between police and firefighters.
“Elizabeth Armstrong,” Jack said, skipping the niceties. “Is she here?”
“Um—let me see. One moment, please, sir.”
Jack caught sight of Tara Guzman down the hall, a now-lieutenant who’d graduated in the same police academy class as him. He considered her a friend; he’d been a guest at her wedding ten years ago, and whenever they saw each other on calls, they always took a moment to catch up.
“Tara!” He strode past the front desk. “Hey. Elizabeth Armstrong. I’m looking for her.”
Tara tilted her head. “Hi, Jack. Why are you looking for Elizabeth Armstrong?”
“I just need to see her. Is she here?”
“Yeah. I arrested her. And listen, I know what she did to Chief Barnes—to your dad—and it’s inexcusable, but I can’t have you going vigilante on her. Sorry. I understand how angry you must be.”
Jack shook his head, sick at the thought of Elizabeth, his lovely, dainty, tough, innocent Elizabeth, sitting in a jail cell. “No. That’s not it at all. Elizabeth didn’t do anything. I’m here to help her.”
“What? Jack, she broke your dad’s nose! I know you two are don’t get along, but—”
“It’s got nothing to do with that,” Jack said. “Just look at her—all hundred-and-ten pounds of her. There’s no way she did it.”
Tara narrowed her eyes. “What’s your connection to her?”
She’s my soulmate, Jack thought. The love of my life.
And she must hate me.
He could say none of that, of course.
“Can you just tell me what happened?” he said.
“We got a call about a disturbance at the Armstrong residence,” Tara said. “When we arrived, your dad was sitting there, his face all bashed in, and Elizabeth was the only other one present. She wouldn’t say a word, but without any other suspects, I had no choice but to arrest her. And of course, the first thing she does is call her lawyer.” Tara made a noise of disgust. “That family.”
“What about my dad? Did he say she did it?” He better not have, or I’ll break his nose a second time for him.
Tara shook her head. “No. He won’t give us any information. I have no idea why. I’m heading over to the hospital now to try again.”
“Maybe he deserved to get beaten up.”
Tara looked at him, aghast. “You can’t really believe that. In my book, he was the best police chief this city’s ever had. He has a lot of loyal friends here.”
“That may be, but there’s more to this story.”
“Enlighten me.”
Jack had a feeling his dad’s loyal friends in the police department would change their minds about him soon enough. Right now, it was Elizabeth that needed him. “Listen, can you just let me see Elizabeth? For the sake of our old friendship?”
She peered at him. “Are you in love with her or something?”
Jack almost shook his head. Almost denied it. But then he straightened.
“Yes. I am,” he said definitively. “I’m totally, completely, madly in love with her.”
“Aw, geez.” Tara gave him a softer, almost pitying, look. “Okay, I’ll let you see her, but only because we’re friends, and I trust you. But if you want some advice? Be careful. The Armstrong family’s bad news.”
“No.” Jack thought his heart might break apart. This was what Elizabeth had lived with for years. “They’re not.”
Jack paced the small interrogation room while he waited for Elizabeth. He didn’t know what to do, other than tell her how sorry he was and how he’d never forgive himself. He expected the look on her face when she saw him to be one of betrayal, but when the door opened and she entered the room, he found a look of love instead.
Which made it all somehow worse.
“Jack!” She rushed to him and threw her arms around him. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
He clutched her petite body against his own as his mind raced.
Tara stuck her head in the room and interrupted their embrace. “Jack, I’m leaving an officer posted outside the door. Don’t make me regret this.”
“Of course. Thanks, Tara.”
The door closed, and he moved Elizabeth to arm’s length. “Elizabeth … we need to talk.”
“I know. Let’s sit.” She led him to the table, gently pressing him to sit. She took the chair next to him and then grasped his hands, hanging on as if for dear life. “I have an awful thing to tell you, but before I say it, I want you to know that it doesn’t change the way I feel about you.” She held his hands tenderly and looked deep into his eyes. “Somehow, it’s going to be okay, but I have t
o tell you something about your dad.”
He swallowed hard. “I know about my dad.”
Confusion crossed her face. “Oh, right. You know he’s in the hospital, but that’s not what I meant.” Her blue eyes darkened. “This is about the past, and I don’t know how to say it to make it any less bad, so I’m just going to say it—he’s the reason why my dad went to prison. He stole the money, Jack. Your dad stole the money.”
“He … he told you?”
Elizabeth nodded. “He did. He admitted it, and I know you had nothing to do with it, Jack. He said you had no idea, and I’m so, so sorry to be the one to have to tell you, but—”
“Stop, Elizabeth.” He couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t allow her to believe that he was better than he was. “I already know what my dad did.”
She pulled her hands away from his. He immediately missed their warmth.
“What are you talking about?” Her voice was low, toneless. “He said you didn’t know.”
Jack put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, staring at the floor, preparing himself to look into Elizabeth’s striking eyes and tell her the truth. This was it. Time to say the words that would make her hate him forever. He glanced up at her and flashed back to the night they’d spent together. How it had felt to hold her after all the times he’d resisted. How soft her skin had been. How perfectly she fit with him. How it felt like the most beautiful dream he’d ever had.
“I couldn’t prove it,” Jack said. “But I confronted him about it. Asked him if he’d taken that money, and he didn’t deny it. So yes. I knew.”
Elizabeth paled and seemed to shrink into herself. Already so slight, she looked like she might blow away. “When did you know?”
Jack’s stomach clenched. “After your dad had been arrested, but before he was convicted.”
She gasped and catapulted out of her chair. “You wouldn’t.” She shook her head. “You wouldn’t have known and not said something.” Her eyes were so blue. So true. “I know you, Jack. You’re a man of honor.”
She still believed in him. It broke his heart, knowing he was losing her forever.
From The Ashes (Golden Falls Fire Book 3) Page 19
