Chapter 9
Nine
Lincoln stayed in Carter’s arms an embarrassingly long time. Long enough for a police car to come screaming from a different direction than the burning police station. For the fire truck to likewise arrive from across town. For the ambulance to arrive from the hospital.
Selling the cover, right? Nothing to do with how Carter had curled his warm body around Lincoln’s once they’d made it through the snowdrift back to the car. Nothing to do with the calming effect of his steady breaths ruffling Lincoln’s hair or his steadier assurances rumbling behind his ear.
Even more embarrassing, not realizing his partner was injured until a paramedic approached them and said to Carter, “I need to clean up that cut, sir, and bandage your hands.”
Lincoln rocked back, out of Carter’s arms. “What cut? I thought the knife missed you.”
Carter captured his flailing hands, and Lincoln noticed the backs of his knuckles were split and oozing blood. As was the cut on Carter’s outer shoulder, a dark streak of blood creeping down his sleeve. The knife hadn’t missed him completely.
“Fuck,” Lincoln cursed. “I’m sorry.”
Carter lifted his hand and cradled Lincoln’s cheek, same as he’d done in the dark. “I’m fine. Are you?”
Lincoln nodded, and Carter erased the distance between them, nuzzling his temple. Lincoln didn’t draw away, not even when the Barry-Jerry lookalike joined them.
“You boys okay?” the too-familiar stranger asked.
“Got out just in time,” Carter said, shifting to Lincoln’s side and sliding an arm around his waist. “Chief Petticoat, this is my husband, Lincoln Polk. L, this is Larry.”
Lincoln shook the chief’s hand, déjà vu walloping him hard. Larry wasn’t Barry’s twin, but the resemblance was uncanny; the genetics were strong in the Petticoat clan.
“What happened?” Larry asked.
The brothers also shared the same inquisitor voice, probably inherited from their father.
“Sir,” the paramedic said, reminding them she was still there. “Can we please move them to the ambulance? Mr. Polk needs to get that wound cleaned up.” She gestured at Carter’s shoulder, and Larry’s eyes grew wide.
Lincoln’s stomach wobbled. He was hard as nails at crime scenes.
He was never the one who almost lost his lunch.
This was what he did, what he understood, what he was good at, but he had also never been the one involved in said crime scene.
Which included fire. Which resulted in his partner—Carter—injured.
The paramedic cleared her throat. “And the other Mr. Polk looks like he needs to sit down.”
Yes. Sit. Good.
“Let’s go, then,” Carter said, shuffling them toward the ambulance.
They moved as a unit, Carter’s good arm around his waist and Lincoln helping to brace his weight, while his mind continued processing what had just happened in a series of horror-movie snapshots.
The power outage plunging them into darkness.
The flare tumbling, end over end, into the records room.
The fight between Carter and the assailant.
The smoke, a lighter shade of dark, snaking through the black.
The rising flames reflected in the knife.
The building shuddering around them. Lincoln shivered from the mental film reel and from the cold wind that blustered around him, Carter’s big body no longer shielding his.
But he couldn’t tear his gaze from the burning building to see where Carter had gone.
Didn’t need to. Carter tugged at his bag, dragging it off his shoulder and demanding his attention.
“Don’t look, L.” He set the bag behind him and urged Lincoln down onto the ambulance fender next to him, holding open a woolly blanket.
Lincoln snuggled into the offered warmth, while the paramedic worked on Carter’s other side.
And while Larry continued to interrogate. “Okay, then,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”
“I came in to set up a few things for Monday,” Carter said. “Lincoln came with me, and I showed him the records room for his research like we talked about. We’d been here about twenty minutes when the power went out and we were attacked.”
“Attacked?”
“The assailant had a flare, which he used to light fires on his way to the records room where we were. He threw the flare into the stacks, which caught fire right away.”
“The fire originated in the breaker box.”
“Maybe, but that wasn’t the only fire.”
“‘Attacked,’ you said?”
The doubt lacing Larry’s question seared through the fog that had settled over Lincoln. “You think Carter got those busted knuckles, that cut, from a ghost? Or me?” Lincoln held up his hands, displaying both sides. “No wounds and no blood.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Larry said, hands lifted to match. “Just trying to get the order of events straight. Where were you during all of this?”
“Out of the way,” Carter replied. “This is what I’m trained to do.”
“I was holding the—Fuck! Your phone.” Lincoln whipped his gaze back to the burning building. “It’s in there, with the—”
“We got out alive,” Carter said, cutting him off.
And saving him, Lincoln realized the next second, from blowing their cover.
One error tonight was bad enough. He’d lost the phone with the picture of the vehicle records.
The computer was undoubtedly destroyed in the fire.
Ditto the paper records. If the former weren’t backed up remotely, they were back to square one, maybe without even that much. “Fuck!”
Carter grasped his chin and drew his face around. “We got out alive,” he repeated. “That’s all that matters.”
His bright green eyes almost convinced Lincoln.
“Anyone we need to call for you two?” Larry asked.
“Shit, Elena. If she sees the news . . .”
“Elena?” Larry asked.
“His daughter,” Carter answered, “from a previous marriage. You have your phone still?” At Lincoln’s nod, Carter squeezed his shoulder. “Go call her.” His gaze swept the parking lot. “I don’t see any news vans, but just in case.”
Lincoln didn’t need to be told twice. He stood, dug his phone out of his bag, and walked the opposite direction from the blaze, not looking back.
Watching a fire burn was what had started this phobia in the first place.
There’d been a fire in his hometown one afternoon when he was very young, and his grandmother, who’d looked after him and Trina while both their parents worked, had gone out to see it and taken them in the stroller with her.
He hadn’t realized that was why he was so afraid of fire until five years ago when he’d found pictures from that day in his recently deceased grandmother’s belongings.
He had no recollection of the event, but his subconscious did.
“Dad,” Elena answered. “What’s going on?”
The fire faded away. “Just needed to hear your voice.”
“What just happened? Who do you—”
Carter laid a finger over Lincoln’s lips, silencing him.
With his other hand, he gestured around the inside of the Forester and mouthed, Could be bugged.
Lincoln nodded, and Carter lowered his arm, wincing slightly.
The cut hadn’t needed stitches, just a few butterfly bandages, but they pulled at his skin, and with the adrenaline wearing off, the abused arm muscles and his bandaged knuckles were starting to ache.
Before Carter could draw back completely, Lincoln caught his wrist. Open, he mouthed.
He pointed at the glove box, then gestured at the back window.
Could be tails. You drive, I’ll cover. Lincoln had been in a daze after they’d escaped the smoldering station, but the call with Elena had calmed him considerably and he’d calmed further as they’d distanced themselves from the burning building.
Good thinking. Carter flashed Lincoln the digits for the code on the glove box—a custom modification since he did practically live in his car and needed a locked safe for his weapon.
Lincoln punched in the numbers, opened the box, and withdrew the Glock. He quickly familiarized himself with the weapon, then shifted sideways in his seat, a view front and back. “Let’s go home,” he said aloud. “It’s been a long night.”
No argument there. The trip to the house was thankfully uneventful.
And silent, neither of them chancing a word.
Carter parked in the driveway next to the Wrangler, returned as Susanne had promised.
He turned off the engine and signaled Lincoln for continued silence.
Lincoln handed him his weapon with a nod before grabbing his bag and exiting the car.
Carter followed, eyes roaming their surroundings.
Nothing looked out of place or disturbed.
No broken glass, no tracks in the snow, no smoke billowing from the house.
On the front porch, he pulled Lincoln into his arms. To any tail or any nosy neighbor, it would look like an intimate moment between husbands.
For a second, Carter believed it too, Lincoln stepping into his embrace and laying a hand naturally on his chest. Carter’s heart thudded under the touch.
A touch that was almost stolen from him tonight before he’d ever gotten a chance to know it.
Fuck. He shuddered, and Lincoln’s eyes flickered up, filled with more than Carter could discern, but the vulnerability, trust, and desire he could pick out of that honeyed stare made him want to do things that were indecent in public.
Things that Lincoln would probably regret in the morning.
Carter lowered his chin before Lincoln could see how much he wanted all those things.
Things that in any event would have to wait until they cleared the house and reported in to Beverley.
“We need to check the house,” he whispered. “We clear the office first. You get your weapon out of the safe and clear the ground floor while I head upstairs. I’ve got a bug sweeper in my suitcase. I’ll sweep up there, then downstairs, then meet you back in the kitchen.”
“Got it,” Lincoln confirmed but he didn’t step back. Hand lingering, he leaned into Carter instead.