Chapter 12
“You kissed Ethan?”
Heat rose in Maggie’s cheeks, her fingers tightening around her matcha as she scanned the street. It was almost five in the afternoon, and no one was in listening distance. Thank God. She didn’t need the town gossip mill to center around her.
“Yes,” she finally said, voice quiet even though they were alone.
Polly stepped closer, walking so slowly they almost weren’t moving. “Was it a good kiss?”
Maggie gave her best friend a “what do you think?” look.
“Okay, so it was good. Not a surprise. According to you, Ethan’s always been a good kisser.”
Not good. A kiss from Ethan was magic. It was intimate and electric and had awakened parts of her that she hadn’t realized had been sleeping.
“So, what does this mean?” Polly asked.
“We didn’t talk about that.” They hadn’t talked about anything. A million questions sat between them, and they hadn’t talked about a single one of them. “He said I’ve been all he can think about this last month.”
Polly sighed. “That man was made for you, Maggie Sinclair. Who knows what would have happened if you’d invited him inside your apartment.”
Maggie frowned, the sudden memory of the photo popping into her head, making the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. “Did you go into the apartment while I was out?”
“No. I told you I wouldn’t. It’s your space. Why?”
The matcha in her fingers suddenly felt a bit colder. “You know those strange things that were happening to me in LA?”
“With your psycho stalker? How could I forget?”
“Do you remember how one of the creepy things was the photo of my mother and me always being face down?”
Polly gasped. “It wasn’t.”
“When I got back last night, it was face down.”
For a moment, Polly was quiet, her skin paling. Then she shook her head. “No. That’s not possible. It must be an unstable frame or something.”
How many times had she told herself that in LA? How many times had she made excuses for everything? Too many times.
“Was your door unlocked?” Polly asked.
“No.”
“Was the lock broken?”
“No.”
“What about a window?”
“All sealed.”
“Well, there you go. There’s no way Psycho Stalker got in.” Polly paused before lifting a shoulder. “But maybe you should let Ward know, just in case.”
Maggie scoffed. “I went to see him this morning about something else, and it was the least productive conversation I have ever had.”
“About what?”
“I asked him for all the records from my mother’s death, and all he said was he’d ‘get them.’ No date of when.”
Polly stopped. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s just every time I think about Mom’s death, I have questions. Why was she out there alone? If she was so drunk that she drowned herself, how did she get from Trap to the river?”
Polly seemed to take that in for a moment. “You think there’s more to the story?”
“I don’t know. I was ten when it happened. All I know is what I was told. Now I just want to read the report.”
Polly nodded and they moved forward again. “Okay. Well, if Ward doesn’t give it to you, we’ll find another way. We’ll get the courts involved.”
“We?”
“Yes, we.” Polly wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I’m the help-you-bury-a-body-no-questions-asked best friend.”
“Well, that’s lucky. Because in my apartment, I actually have something you should see.”
“I’ll get the shovel.”
Maggie grinned. “I love you.”
“That’s because I’m willing to commit a felony to keep your ass out of prison.”
They stopped beside the gazebo, and Maggie frowned at the woman across the grass outside the community center. A blonde with blue eyes who was talking to Ferris. “She looks familiar.”
“Raven Price. She was a few years behind us in high school.” Polly was frowning too. “She’s been out of town for a few years though, living somewhere in North Dakota with her fiancé. He was in her grade.”
Maggie tilted her head. “She looks sad.” Her shoulders were slumped and even from here, Maggie could see she almost appeared defeated.
“Maybe they broke up and that’s why she’s back.” Polly lifted a shoulder. “Better now than after saying I do.”
Maggie turned back to her best friend. “Not all marriages end in divorce.”
“Statistically speaking, you’re only fifty percent likely to stay married for life, and out of that fifty percent, I bet a hell of a lot of them aren’t happily married.”
“Just because your mother hasn’t been able to stay married doesn’t mean you wouldn’t.”
She scoffed. “It will be a cold day in hell before I get married. Even a relationship is a stretch. I’d settle for some good sex and a martini though. Come on.”
Maggie stopped outside Bloom. “Thanks for the matcha and walk. I should get going.”
Polly grinned. “To see Ethan, right? Maybe for another—”
“To say hi and check out the new SAR base.”
“Mm-hmm. Say hello for me.”
Maggie gave her friend a quick hug before heading to her RAV4.
She made a quick stop at The Pancake Bar to pick up a few stacks of pancakes with fried chicken and maple syrup.
In senior year, it had been a dinner staple for her and Ethan.
Probably why she hadn’t been able to stomach the combination of pancakes, fried chicken, and syrup for years after the breakup. It was too much of a reminder of Ethan.
Now, she couldn’t wait to eat it again. And after last night, she was feeling brave. He was single. He’d kissed her. And he still cared about her.
The closer she drove to the old firehouse, the faster her heart raced. She only knew Ethan was working late because they’d been texting. And even that—words from him on a phone—had an effect on her like nothing and no one else had ever had.
Ethan’s truck was the only vehicle in the lot. She parked beside it.
She was halfway to the door, bag of pancakes in hand, when something sounded behind the building. Maybe the crunching of gravel beneath feet?
Was Ethan outside?
She headed toward the sound, skin tingling at the prospect of seeing him.
She was approaching the back of the building when the crash of glass breaking splintered the air. She gasped and hurried around the corner, only to stop at the sight of someone disappearing into the line of trees.
Then she saw the smoke coming from the broken window.
Oh, God.
She swung around—and screamed at the gun pointed at her chest.
Ethan scrubbed a hand over his face, the screen in front of him blurring.
He’d read over the information so many times, he could recount it word for word. It was stuff he’d had to dig for. Bios on the two missing women in the mountains.
Both female. Both tourists. But other than that, there was nothing linking them.
Nikki Bishop was a blonde in her mid-twenties from New York. She worked in fashion and was here for two weeks with her boyfriend on vacation. She went for a solo run on a hiking trail and never returned.
Then there was Zoe Ewin. She was older than Bishop, at forty-one. A single, brunette teacher from Rochester. She’d been camping before hikers found her empty tent. She was never spotted again.
The easy story, the one Ward had gone with, was that the women hadn’t known their way around the forest. They’d gotten lost and never found their way out. But if that were true, bodies would have been found by now. And if not bodies, something. An empty water bottle. A backpack.
So, if neither woman had gotten lost, it meant something more ominous had happened.
Had someone taken them? And if they had, were they crimes of opportunity, where the women had been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or were the kidnappings planned?
The ringing of his phone dragged him from the screen, a smile immediately curving his mouth when he saw who it was. “It’s almost five o’clock, Jay. I thought this was your sacred workout time?”
“Hey, I make an effort not to be predictable. That’s how stalkers show up.”
Ethan scoffed. “A stalker would have nothing on you. You’d have their name, address, and social security number before they breached your front door.”
“Don’t forget their phone number so I could personally chew their ass out.”
Ethan chuckled. “You looking after the guys?”
“You think those three need looking after?”
No. They didn’t. Tate, Lincoln, and Kolby were some of the toughest people he knew. “Okay, let me rephrase that—are they doing okay? We haven’t heard from them in a few days.”
“They were sent on a pretty long mission. I’d say they’ll be sleeping for the next week.”
“I do not miss that.”
“Sleep—such a civilian luxury.”
“Hey, you get to sleep…when you take leave.”
“Funny you say that. Apparently, I’ve accumulated too much leave, and the commander is forcing me to take some.”
“Why don’t you come here so we can put you to work? God knows we could use your help figuring out what the hell’s happened to these missing women.”
“You missing me that much?”
“I miss your brain.”
She laughed. “How’s it going over there in the sticks?”
“The sticks?”
“Come on, the town’s so small it’s barely on the map. Do you even get a phone signal?”
“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
She laughed again, and the sound was so damn familiar. The woman had been a close friend for over a decade, being assigned as their intelligence specialist right at the beginning of his SEAL career.
“Now,” she said, as she sobered. “How are you doing?”
“Good. Really good. I’m back with the guys, working a job that feels meaningful. And Maggie’s here.”
“Maggie’s there?”
“Yeah. Moved back about a month ago. Feels kind of like fate.”
There was a short pause. “Ethan…she stomped on your heart, then cut you out of her life.”
“And I’m going to find out why she did that. But I can’t help who I love, Jay.”
“Jesus Christ.” The words were almost a mutter. “You know all I’m going to do is worry about you now, right?”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“Really? Do you remember what you were like when she left you? A mess. The commander made you take leave. You almost lost your spot on the team.”
The muscles in his forearms tightened. “That’s not going to happen again.”
“Yeah, okay.” Another pause. “I don’t want to fight.”
“Then don’t.”
There was a humph sound. “I think I need to go hit a bag now. Let off some steam. What are you doing tonight?”
“Working.”
“Maybe I’ll come down there and help some time.”
“You’re always welcome.”
“I’ll hold you to that. Have a good night and watch that big bleeding heart of yours.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He hung up and looked back at the screen, but dammit, now all he could think about was Maggie.
He understood why Jay was confused. Hell, he was shocked too.
He’d thought he’d never see her again. And now, he should probably be angry at her.
She’d destroyed so many parts of him when she’d up and left, giving him no closure.
The commander had been right to force him to take leave. He hadn’t been in the head space to have his teammates’ backs.
He’d spent some time searching for her. But she’d changed apartments and his calls had never gone through. So he’d had to figure out how to live with a fraction of his heart.
Fuck it, he was done for the night.
He closed the laptop and leaned back in his seat, then his watch lit up. It was the outside sensor.
The fuck? Was someone out there? Or was it an animal?
In case it wasn’t, he sent a quick text to his team to let them know what was going on, then moved down the hall into the gear room. He keyed in a code for the weapons cabinet. They didn’t have a full armory in the SAR building, but they weren’t stupid enough to have nothing.
He pulled out a Glock. The cabinet locked with a click after him. When he stepped outside, the cool evening breeze touched his skin before the crash of shattering glass cut through the air.
He sprinted around the building, gun up but close to his body. He turned the corner, almost crashing into a person.
She screamed.
His heart fucking stopped. “Maggie?”
“Ethan! There’s a fire.”
Smoke tinged the air. He stepped around the corner and cursed before grabbing Maggie’s arm as he raced back into the firehouse.
As he tucked the Glock into his holster, he heard Maggie on the phone to the fire department. Good. But until they got here, he had to do what he could so the flames didn’t spread. The fire was coming from the old bunk room.
Making sure Maggie was close behind him, he ran into the old apparatus bay and grabbed an extinguisher.
Maggie grabbed one from the wall too.
“You need to stay behind me,” he said.
“No. I’m helping.”
“Maggie—”
“I’m helping, Ethan.”
Goddammit, he didn’t have time to argue.
He raced back into the hall, remaining low to avoid as much smoke inhalation as possible. The bed against the wall was aflame, the fire moving across the carpet.
He yanked the pin out of the extinguisher and aimed.
Maggie did the same beside him.
His eyes stung from the smoke, and coughs racked Maggie’s body.
It wasn’t enough. What they were doing wasn’t enough. The fire was growing. They needed to get out and they needed to get out fast. He couldn’t risk Maggie getting hurt.
He grabbed her arm and tugged her down the hall. She moved quickly, not fighting him.
They both fell outside and finally sucked in big gulps of fresh air.