Chapter Twenty-Four
He’d lost her.
Physically, emotionally. Murray had searched the entire neighborhood for her, noticing too late her vehicle was no longer parked on the street. She must’ve gotten access during the chaos of the scene.
Firefighters still worked to put out the blaze consuming Aslen’s and Danny’s lives. He’d watched her walk out of his life without so much as an argument. Damn it. The arsonist was still out there. He had some connection to Danny—Murray was sure of it—and he’d just let Aslen leave.
He shoved through the front door of his house, slamming it behind him. He had to get to her. Had to make this right. But no matter how many scenarios he played out, he couldn’t for the life of him pull himself together enough to figure out where she’d gone.
Are you ever going to love me, Murray?
Her voice wound tighter and tighter in his head. Cutting him apart with every round. Sooner or later, there wouldn’t be anything of him left, but he didn’t know how to fix this between them.
Because he’d lied to her.
No matter how many times he’d tried to convince himself otherwise—to convince her—he already loved her.
He’d been in love with her the moment he set eyes on that know-it-all who sat at the front of the class and refused to let anyone else answer the teacher’s questions.
Those feelings had only grown in the weeks leading up to finding her bleeding on the pavement, had driven him to save her.
He’d reached down to take her hand, giving her the choice to accept his offer.
And then the invisible thread connecting his soul to hers had solidified.
He’d wanted to preserve that connection as long as possible, hiding her in his bedroom when her foster mother went off the rails, introducing her to his family and inviting her to dinners a few times a week.
His parents had loved Aslen, especially her ability to bring his ego down a notch with a cutting remark or joke.
In their eyes, she’d kept him on the straight and narrow and within a few months, they’d accepted her into the family as one of their own.
As though she was always meant to be in his life.
He couldn’t feel that connection between them now though.
In its place, something hollow and empty spread. Something dark. Murray absently rubbed at his chest as though he could dislodge it with a few deep breaths, but this wasn’t acid reflux. A part of his soul had been severed and walked out the door with a request not to follow.
And now Aslen was gone.
As quick and as easily as his brother had disappeared, as his father had given up, as his mother had withered away.
Everyone he’d ever loved had left him here to pick up the pieces alone, only this time he couldn’t blame illness or heartbreak.
He couldn’t blame anyone but himself. His instinct to avoid any kind of relationship short of physical had failed him.
Aslen had practically begged him to face his loss over the years, to lean on her for support and allow her to help him through it.
Visits to his parents’ gravestones, treks to Kolob Canyons where Jackson had last been seen on the anniversary of his disappearance, but the idea of facing a pain that had compounded over years threatened to shut him down entirely.
And he couldn’t do that to Aslen. He couldn’t just disappear from her life to wallow in his self-pity and loss.
He’d had to be strong for her. To protect her.
The promise he’d made her as a teen had given him purpose, but now he saw it’d only been a distraction.
And the grief of losing his family—of not knowing how his brother had died or being able to provide Jackson a proper burial—had done nothing but eat at him until he wasn’t sure he could feel anything anymore.
Least of all love. While he’d resented Aslen for trying to make him confront his own grief while she held on to the loss of her parents, he’d known as long as he kept his emotions close to the vest, the numbness couldn’t infect her.
Scrubbing a hand down his face, Murray grabbed for his phone and tapped Aslen’s number.
She couldn’t be out there alone. The arsonist had already ambushed her once and most likely had been the one to burn her house down.
The line rang. Over and over. Each time ratcheting his blood pressure higher.
Until the call went to voicemail. “Damn it.”
He disconnected the call and tried again. No answer. “Aslen, I know you’re mad at me, but I need you to call me back. Tell me where you are.”
He sent a text message, and an immediate response came through.
Driving with focus on. Navigating to her contact information, he tried using the GPS app that friends used to keep tabs on each other, but the data refused to load.
She’d either turned her app off or she’d changed the setting so he couldn’t track her.
Murray was betting on the latter, and he couldn’t blame her.
Hell, he couldn’t blame her for never wanting to speak to him again, but this wasn’t about them.
This was about a killer solely focused on ensuring Aslen didn’t survive this investigation.
His phone vibrated with an incoming call, the caller unknown.
Hope exploded behind his sternum as he answered. “Aslen?”
“Ranger Simpson, this is the ME’s office. I’m calling with a new update on your investigation of the two burn victims recovered in the park.” The distinct tapping of a keyboard echoed through the line. “I’ve finished the examination of both bodies, and we’ve got an ID on your second victim.”
This was what they’d been waiting for. Murray lunged for the kitchen junk drawer and scrambled to find a pen and paper. “The victim found in the RV? I thought all DNA, fingerprints and dental were inconclusive.”
“They were.” The earsplitting squeak of a chair in need of repair screeched in the background.
“However, after an X-ray, I discovered this victim had knee surgery about ten years ago and had surgical pins implanted to keep the knee stable. From what I’ve found in the victim’s history, the damage after the physical assault was substantial.
Without the pins, the victim never would’ve recovered use of the leg. ”
An assault? Murray pinched the phone between his shoulder and jaw, pen at the ready. This was it. Their first real lead into finding out who’d come after Aslen. “Do the pins have traceable serial numbers?”
“They do. All registered.” He could practically hear the smile in the ME’s voice.
“Your victim is Randy Kennex, age sixty-eight from Provo, Utah. Married to Elizabeth Kennex, presumably the female victim you recovered from the first fire, but I’ll need more time to establish her identity considering the damage done to the remains. ”
He knew that name. Understanding hit. Followed quickly by a flood of adrenaline as Murray raced for the door.
He didn’t bother locking it behind him. If anyone broke in, they could have what little he’d brought with him from Salt Lake City.
None of it mattered compared to Aslen’s life. “Thank you. I’ll call you back.”
Disconnecting the call, he extracted his keys and shoved himself behind the wheel of his pickup. He tapped Chief Higgins’s information. The line connected almost instantly. “Higgins, where is Danny Kennex stationed today?”
“Danny Kennex? Thought you liked to keep tabs on the other one. Woods.” Higgins’s voice grated on his every nerve.
Murray threw the truck into Reverse and rocketed out of the driveway, his heart thudding ten times its normal speed. “Where is Danny assigned today, damn it?”
“All right. All right. Keep your shirt on.” Rustling told him the chief was likely stationed at his desk like the good administrator he’d become in the past decade.
“Kennex. Kennex. Here we go. She’s out at Lava Point campground today.
I had her working with one of your rangers to identify the accelerant your arsonist used to blow the place up.
Haven’t heard from her in a while though. ”
Lava Point.
“Get a hold of her.” Murray broke a few dozen traffic laws as he barreled through Springdale, heading straight for Zion’s main entrance.
The sticker on his windshield would get him past the main gate, but visitor vehicles were already backing up.
Twenty to thirty cars in each lane as the temperatures dropped with the onset of evening.
Aslen was thrown off enough by the fire that’d brought down her and Danny’s house that she would want to get eyes on her friend as soon as possible.
That was where she’d gone. “Now. I need to know if Aslen’s with her. ”
“Listen here, Simpson.” The chief’s voice hardened a touch, which was still impressive for a man with so many years out of the field.
“I went along with your request when it came to your little girlfriend because I was doing you a favor I intended to call in when I needed something from law enforcement, but I have been running this department longer than you’ve been alive, and I’m sure as hell not going to let some hotshot order me around. You want Kennex? Go find her yourself.”
The call ended.
Panic contorted and writhed until it became nothing but unfiltered rage.
Murray threw his phone against the dashboard, not bothering to dodge exploding glass.
The device hit the passenger side floor as his bellow filled the cabin of the truck.
He slammed his hands against the steering wheel.
Every emotion he’d swallowed over the years escaped, tearing up the skin in his throat.
All the pain, the loneliness, the loss. His parents had been his pillars right up until their deaths.
Examples of true love and soulmates wrapped into one.
They’d loved each other so much his father hadn’t been able to live more than a few months without his wife, and Murray had wanted nothing more than to have what they did when he grew up.
He thought Aslen had been that woman for him, his other half who understood the darkest parts of him and loved him anyway. His parents had thought so, too.
Right up until Jackson had disappeared on that hike.
When he’d realized that love hurt more than it healed.
That it had the power to destroy him, but he couldn’t bury those feelings anymore.
He couldn’t lose Aslen. He loved her. Had been in love with her for over twenty years.
Her random facts, her bravery for facing her fear of fire every day on the job, her affinity for sentimental anniversaries and eating entire rolls of uncooked cookie dough as comfort food.
He loved her. Because the sad truth was protecting this wound in his chest had started protecting him from feeling anything for anyone again, and so he’d shielded the wound even harder.
But he never would’ve met Aslen—the greatest light in his life—if it hadn’t been for their circumstances.
Their lives had crashed and burned in so many ways, but they remained.
She’d never given up on him. Not like he’d given up on her.
Shouts reached through the windows as he forced his way through the onslaught of visitors at the main gate.
She’d been gone for twenty minutes. Getting farther and farther away from him.
Out of reach. This. This was what he’d feared all these years.
That Aslen would reach her limit and finally accept that he wasn’t good enough for her.
That he wouldn’t ever be good enough for her.
But Murray wasn’t finished with her. Not even close.