Chapter 41
Sleep.
Fucking sweet, blissful, wonderful sleep.
I could almost feel my pillow against my face as I all but fell out of the firetruck as it parked in the station bay. It was hours past our shift end, and we had been out serving as mutual aid to a neighboring district for almost the entire night. To say I was exhausted was an understatement.
The entire crew was.
There were no improper jokes, no sass or crass about Sweetie’s farts, or even a lick of complaining about Thomas’s driving skills the whole way back to the station.
Collectively, we were all just ready to go the fuck home.
Twenty-four-hour shifts weren’t for the weak when there were no breaks.
“Dalton.”
I turned from where I had been hanging up my gear to find Fire Chief Tolbert standing in the doorway to his office, arms crossed over his crisp white shirt, mustache on point, scowl in place. “Yeah?” I called.
“We need to talk.” He said, turning back into his office without another word, the expectation that I follow was clear.
But my feet were hesitant.
Fuck. Why did I always feel like a kid in elementary school getting called into the principal’s office?
That same feeling when you’re driving down the road and even though you know you’re a law-abiding citizen, doing absolutely nothing wrong, your asshole still puckers the instant you see a cop sitting off to the side, watching you. “Coming!” I replied.
“You good?” Thomas asked, looking from the office to me and back.
“Probably about to get fired.” I joked with a shrug, though the comedy behind that fell flat.
And we both knew it.
Things had been weird since the ice rink incident. The hero word icked us all out, yet people wouldn’t stop using it. Could that be what the Chief wanted to talk about? It wasn’t like I was boasting about the praise or anything.
Before I could run away as if I were guilty of something, I walked my tired and dirty ass into the office, pausing in the doorway.
“Close the door, Dalton.” Chief Tolbert said, and it was then that I noticed the union rep sitting across his desk from him. And the Chief of Police.
Double fuck.
Moving on autopilot, I turned to close the door, catching Thomas’s eye. His face fell when we made eye contact, apparently, he could tell this was bad too.
Shutting the door, I stood off to the side, since there were no more available chairs. “Sir?”
“You’ve put me in a really shitty spot here, Dalton.” Chief Tolbert, the head of the entire fire department, said with that authority that always made me squirm.
“Sir?” I repeated, as a cold sweat broke out over my skin.
“Allegations have been made against you. Serious ones.” Chief Tolbert said, and I stupidly waited for him to follow up with something like, ‘but don’t worry, we’ve got your back.’
Instead, Chief Weller, Tanner’s boss, turned to me and pulled the rug right out from under my feet. “You’ve been accused of arson. Destruction of property. Assault with a deadly weapon. Breaking and entering.” He scowled at me. “Honestly, the list is growing by the minute.”
“How?” I gasped, looking to my chief, the man who ran a tight ship that I never stepped out of line on. At all. Not ever. “What’s going on?”
“You’ve been named as a primary suspect in multiple open cases of property damage in Cedar Bluff in the last few months.” Chief Weller went on.
“That can’t be true.” I shook my head in disbelief. “What cases?”
“The flooding at Honey we act only on the part of arresting you and taking you before the judge.”
“Oh, my God.” I cried, feeling like I was going to pass out as they all rose and faced me.
“As your union rep, Ms. Dalton. I recommend you remain silent until appropriate representation can be acquired during questioning.” The third man said, offering no other assistance.
“Turn around and place your hands behind your back, Rhea.” Chief Weller said, and the words felt like a physical nail being hammered into my chest.
There was no way to come back from this. The saying of innocent until proven guilty never worked for people like me. Women like me.
In towns like this.
Small talk was law, and gossip was proof.
And I was ruined.
Turning with what little dignity I had left, I put my hands behind my back and complied.
I refused to make anything worse for myself by fighting the inevitable.
The cold iron of the handcuffs bit into my flesh with a finality to my life as it was, with each tooth of the metal locking tighter and tighter.
“You have the right to remain silent,” Weller started as my boss opened the door to his office, ushering me out with nothing more than a nod of his head. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
My ears rang with loud, painful screams of injustice blaring inside my head as they forced me out the door and into the bay where my entire crew lingered, waiting to see what was happening in the office.
Shame like I’d never felt before, burned in my gut with every step I took. Shackles of guilt that weren’t mine weighed me down into the cement beneath my feet.
“What the fuck is going on?” Elliot Hayes snapped, shoving his way through the crowd. “What are you doing, Weller?”
“You have the right to an attorney,” Weller continued, ignoring Eli, which was a task in itself given how hot he was as he stomped his way through the bay to my side. “If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you.”
“Talk to me, Dalton.” Eli said, changing tactics as the men I served with every single day watched on. More than one of them looked a little unsurprised by the chaos unfolding. And that hurt.
“They’re charging me with all the incidents.” I said, closing my eyes as tears burned. “The bakery, the hardware store.” I shuddered, “The rink.”
“How?” Eli barked.
“Someone named me.” I replied, trying to shrug as a feeling of ice settled in my chest.
“With what evidence?” He pushed, but I just shrugged my shoulders again as Weller finished reading me my rights like I’d fallen out of Cedar Bluff and into some weird, alternate reality.
“What fucking evidence do you have against her, Weller?” Eli roared, and I couldn’t remember another time I’d seen him so heated over something.
Well, one other time, but that was for his wife’s honor.
“It will all come out in court, Eli. There’s a process, you know that.
I’m just doing my job.” Something about the way Chief Weller answered Eli made me feel like there was a level of respect between them he didn’t feel toward me.
Was it because I was an outsider who moved to town a few years ago, or because I was a woman?
“Yeah, I fucking know all about the witch hunts you run in this town.” Eli snapped as Weller opened the back seat of his police SUV. The venom in Eli’s voice cut through me, and I couldn’t deny how good it felt to have someone riled up for me. On my side.
“That’s uncalled for.” Weller said, pushing me into the back seat before leaning over to buckle the seatbelt.
“No, it’s not. This is exactly what happened to Frankie years ago! All over again! This fucking town thrives on gossip, and you let it happen! There’s no way Rhea was involved. We’ve been working together trying to figure out who really was! It’s not her!”
“Her lawyer can defend her case, Elliot. That’s not up to me.” Weller said, and I looked past the men arguing to see Thomas standing to the side, phone to his ear, hand twisted in his hair with nothing short of a grief-stricken look on his face.
I could just make out the words he was saying on the phone before the Chief shut the door, locking me inside.
“Tanner, we’ve got a huge fucking problem.”