11. nine
nine
. . .
CREW
I understood tense family relationships, and Aspen’s with her parents was really the least of my concerns, but I couldn’t shake off the interaction I’d witnessed. The way both Aspen and her father had quickly diffused the situation told me they’d likely done it countless times before.
Less than thirty-six hours later, as I strode into the station for my next shift, it still played on a loop in my mind. For some reason, I found I genuinely cared how her parents treated her. While I believed her mom meant well, the last thing Aspen needed was stress in the form of overparenting. I’d been in that position myself, and it fucking sucked. Like every single move you made—big or small—was examined under a microscope.
“Sup, Cap,” Tuck said when I walked into the locker room.
“I could’ve used another day off,” I grumbled. My sleep schedule was all sorts of fucked up.
“That’s what you get for working a double,” he chided. “You could’ve appointed an acting lieutenant for first shift.”
I scoffed. “I don’t trust any of those fuckers enough to do that.”
Tuck laughed. “Fair enough. ”
I dropped my bag and opened my locker, then began stripping out of my street clothes in favor of my uniform.
I tugged my polo over my head, and a voice called my name. I turned to find Lane standing at the end of the row.
“Sheriff,” Tuck said, tipping an imaginary hat to my brother as he left the room.
Lane shook his head. “Amazing that kid became a firefighter considering the number of times I arrested him when I first joined the force.”
“You could say the same about me,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but at least you got out of town and made something of yourself.”
“Tuck is a hell of a firefighter, Lane,” I told him, leveling a finger in his face. “Don’t insult my men. Ever.”
Blood was thicker than water and all that, and I loved my family fiercely, but my men and I were forged in the fire together. Sometimes, I thought that was a stronger bond than anything else. The trust we had to place in each other to come out of every call alive meant opening ourselves up fully. There couldn’t be secrets. Everything had to be out in the open because our—and other people’s—lives depended on it.
My brother raised his hands in surrender and said, “Okay. Sorry.”
I only gave him a curt nod in response, then asked, “Why are you here?”
“We’re walking the shop fire today.” His eyes narrowed. “Did you forget?”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I willed myself not to react to his goading.
“No, I didn’t forget, but I just walked in the door.” I gestured to my boots, to the laces still undone and my shirt folded up around my chest where I hadn’t fully pulled it on. “And I thought we were meeting there.”
“I wanted to get a jump on things. ”
I bit my tongue, holding back my retort. This was so like my brother, to ignore set plans in favor of his own schedule—even though meeting at the site at ten had been his suggestion in the first place.
“I haven’t even conducted the morning meeting yet.”
Lane turned and gestured to the door. “Then by all means, Captain.”
With a grumble, I led the way out of the locker room and down the short hall to our meeting room, where the entire company was already gathered, waiting for me.
Chief Madden was the highest ranking officer in this firehouse, but when I was promoted to captain, he asked me to take over morning meetings. Usually, there wasn’t much to say. Reminding the guys about completing incident reports, making sure they stopped throwing their dirty clothes on the floor of the bunk room, and telling them—again—to clean up after themselves in the kitchen. Scheduled maintenance on the trucks and tools. Housekeeping type shit.
Basically, I was more of a parent than a fire captain.
But this morning, we actually had some things to discuss, and the crowd silenced as Lane and I strode to the front of the room.
“Morning,” I said when I reached the little podium waiting for me in front of a massive whiteboard.
“Morning,” everyone murmured back.
“What’s he doing here?” Sutton asked, jerking her chin at my brother.
“I need to take statements from everyone who worked the shop fire on Saturday,” Lane said, shooting the paramedic a glare.
Ahh, at last, the real reason for his early arrival. It grated on me that he hadn’t just said that. He knew damn well we’d cooperate in whatever way we could.
Sutton stuck her tongue out in response, and I choked back a laugh. Those two had long since made an artform of needling each other.
“You’ll give the sheriff your full cooperation,” I told the room, meeting the gazes of each firefighter and paramedic individually, hoping to put the fear of God in them.
“Aye, aye, Cap,” Tuck said, giving me a mock salute.
The rest of the meeting was business as usual, and less than ten minutes later, I dismissed everyone, hanging back so Lane could take my statement first.
I really should’ve known my brother would give me the third degree—and not about the fire.
“Why were you at Miss McKay’s room the other night?”
Fuck .
“I wanted to check on her.”
My brother raised a brow. “Since when do you check on your saves after shipping them off to the hospital?”
“Always,” I deadpanned.
Lane snorted. “Get real, baby bro. Give me the real reason, no bullshit.”
“Like I said, I wanted to check on her.”
That much was the truth, if only part of it.
As usual, my brother saw too much.
“There’s more to it than that.”
Pulling out one of the chairs at a nearby table, I sat down and pushed my fingers through my floppy hair, destroying the work of the pomade I’d put in it that morning to keep it out of my face while I worked.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said at last, because I truly didn’t.
Lane sighed heavily, like this conversation with me was the most exhausting thing he’d do all day.
“Fair enough,” he said. “But I’m warning you—stay out of this.”
I pursed my lips. “I’m already involved, bro. I’ve responded to two of these scenes now.” Rising to my feet, I got in his face. “And I made the save that got you your only living witness.”
My brother merely blinked at me, not saying anything. Recognizing that there was more going on here if I was getting this worked up about it.
Wisely, he didn’t press the issue. Only sat across from me and pulled out his phone to record our conversation.
“Sheriff Lane Lawless,” he started. “Going on record with Dusk Valley Fire Department captain Crew Lawless regarding the events of prom night auto shop fire.”
He rattled off the date of the incident, case number, and a few other identifying details before he said to me, “Walk me through what happened.”
I’d done this enough times over the years that I was downright emotionless as I gave Lane the rundown. He’d have my formal incident report to supplement this interview, but he liked to get his information straight from the horse’s mouth.
When I finished a half hour later after Lane asked seemingly incessant probing questions, he let me go and asked me to send Tuck in. For the rest of the morning, we sat around the common room shooting the shit.
Honestly, that was a normal day at the firehouse. Small towns weren’t exactly notorious for being busy in general, and the same could be said for the fire department. There had been talk for years of downsizing us to a volunteer outfit, but with the constant threat of forest fires that could travel miles in a blink, the town voted against it every time it came up on a ballot, and for that I was thankful.
I wasn’t meant to do anything else with my life but this: fight fires and save people. I wouldn’t survive doing anything else. And really, what else was there? Join Trey’s security firm? Pass. Work on the ranch for Finn or West? Double pass.
No, I wasn’t meant for that shit. I was right where I needed to be .
Finally, Lane wrapped up his interview with the last of the crew that had been at the fire, which wound up being Sutton, and followed her out of the meeting room.
“You boys feel like taking a ride to the scene?” he asked, jerking his head at me, Tuck, Childers, and Burns.
The other three men were on their feet before I could even agree. We were all going a bit stir crazy without any calls; the fresh air and doing something useful would be good for us.
We piled into the truck, gear and equipment ready to go in case a call came through while we were out, then followed Lane’s sheriff’s SUV to the other side of town.
I’d thought the building looked bad that night after we’d knocked down the flames, turning it into nothing more than a smoking husk of its former self against the starry, Idahoan sky.
Nothing could’ve prepared me for seeing it in the daylight.
“Jesus Christ,” Tuck breathed when he pulled the truck to a stop on the curb. “How the fuck did we get out of there alive?”
He’d stolen the words right out of my mouth.
The structure had completely collapsed, imploding in the center, taking the entire roof and the tops of the exterior walls with it. Nothing living could’ve survived the roof coming down, and considering how close Tuck, Aspen, and I had come to never walking out was terrifying.
But we were alive, and what was even better was knowing that Aspen, the initial target, also still drew breath. For the first time since this killer became active, law enforcement had a witness. I could understand why Lane wanted me to stay out of this—or rather, what he’d really been saying when he warned me off: stay away from her .
I’d be damned if I could do that. There was no logical way to explain it except to say there was some larger force at work. While I’d been interested in the outcome of this case before, both because I’d already pulled a dead body out of a fire as a result of this sicko’s actions, and because I wanted him to stop terrorizing my town, things felt…different now.
Aspen was different.
But how did I tell that to my brother? I barely knew the girl. Flirting over chicken and waffles then saving her life didn’t make me an expert on her—nor did it explain my fascination.
“Alright,” Lane said as we exited our vehicles and stood on the concrete drive in front of the building. “Time for a reenactment.”
Even though we’d already been through this all with my verbal statement, showing Lane exactly what had gone down by walking him around the property was much easier. My brother was a hands-on kind of guy. Entering the structure was a nonstarter, mainly because the roof now rested on the concrete floors. So we walked the perimeter, and the guys and I pointed exactly where we’d gone and when.
“And where did you find Miss McKay?” my brother asked.
I led him around the side toward where the offices had once been. “She was in this office here,” I said, gesturing to the badly damaged half of a wall that remained standing. “Tied up and gagged.” Fuck, that reminded me… “Hold that thought.”
I raced for the truck and my gear. Before reaching into the pocket, I put one of my gloves on then withdrew the cloth and zipties I’d found on Aspen.
Holding them out to Lane when I returned, I said, “Here.”
Lane quirked a brow. “The fuck is this?”
“The gag and restraints I removed from Aspen when I found her.”
“And where have they been since?”
“My turnout coat pocket.”
“Crew…” my brother began, his face turning red as his blood pressure obviously rose.
“If you’re worried about chain of custody,” I started before he could lay into me, “I literally took them off her and stuffed it in my pocket, where it remained until about a minute ago.”
“You’re a real fucking pain in my ass.”
“Could’ve been worse. They could’ve been left here,” I argued, gesturing to the destroyed building. “At least now you might be able to get DNA not belonging to Aspen off them.”
Lane eyed me warily. “You really haven’t touched them with your bare hand?”
“Nope,” I said proudly, dangling them in his face, and my guys choked on their laughter.
Finally, he stomped to his SUV and came back with an evidence bag. I slid the cloth and plastic inside, and he sealed it.
“Now, back to business,” he said. “Did you notice anything unusual at the time?”
Tuck and I shared a glance, remembering that distinct smell that had lingered in the air.
“The scent of diesel hung in the air like a cloud.”
“Could’ve been lingering from the shop,” Lane pointed out.
“I said the same thing,” Tuck supplied. “But it was pretty obvious that wasn’t the case.”
“How do you know?”
“There was a trail,” I told him. “The entire structure was burning, of course. Once it climbed the walls and entered the trusses, there was really no saving it. It wasn’t a matter of if it would come down, but when . But there was an obvious path, scorch marks, that led us from the exterior door”—I pointed toward where we’d breached—”to the entrance of the offices. I bet it’d still be visible if we cleared the rubble.”
“So you followed it back here?” Lane asked, his jaw clenched in anger over my recklessness.
The instinct to protect ran deep and true in me and my brothers, and even though I’d only been doing my job, Lane clearly hated that I’d put myself in danger.
“Yes. ”
My voice didn’t waver. And put in that situation again, I’d make the same choice—over and over and over.
Big brother didn’t get to tell me how to do my job simply because he was older and supposedly wiser. I’d been a firefighter longer than he’d been a cop; he knew I knew what I was doing.
“Why?”
“There was an obvious fucking trail, Sheriff ,” I gritted out. “Like hell I wasn’t going to follow it.”
“He had backup,” Tuck quipped, shrugging when my brother cut him a glare. “I followed him in, Sheriff.”
“Then you’re both idiots,” Lane muttered, moving back around to the front.
Tuck and I wordlessly followed.
“Anybody got a diagram of this place?” he asked when we reached him. “Like, do you have schematics of the buildings in town?”
I shook my head. “Only the ones we deem extremely dangerous and high-risk. But the city planning office would have them.”
Lane withdrew his phone from his pocket and tapped the screen a few times, then held it to his ear.
“Hey, this is Sheriff Lawless calling.” He paused. “Yeah, I’m good. How are you? The kids?” Another beat. “Great. Hey, look. I’m calling because I’m hoping you could get me the building schematic of Mack’s old auto shop.” Lane quieted and rolled his eyes. “Yes, that one. Yeah, what happened to that girl was awful. But she’s alive, and we’re going to find who did this to her. Yes. Yes, I promise. Now how about that schematic?” More silence from Lane, and then his face broke into a grin. “Great. I’ll be by to get it in about ten minutes. No, thank you. Yep. Bye.”
“Carmon?” I asked with a brow raised.
Lane chuckled and shook his head. “Naturally.”
Carmon was the county clerk, and while she was a nice woman and great at her job, she was also a terrible gossip. There wasn’t a thing that happened in this town that she didn’t immediately know about—which meant everyone else knew about it not long after.
“Alright, you go get that schematic and we’ll meet back at the fire house.”
No sooner had the words left my mouth than my radio crackled to life.
“Truck twenty-seven. Multiple vehicle accident on Highway 22. Requesting fire and rescue.”
The moment the dispatcher’s voice died in my radio, that same scratchy voice relayed the same information through Lane’s.
We looked at each other and shrugged, breaking apart and racing for our respective vehicles.
Duty called.