Chapter Sixty
Parker
By some small miracle, no one locked the front doors of the SFMO office when business hours ended. I find Eliot sitting on the floor next to his desk, clutching his phone so tightly, the tips of his fingers have gone white. I end the call on my cell and shove the device into my back pocket.
“Eliot?”
He barely acknowledges me. A blink. The slight tip of his head.
Crouching down next to him, I rest my fingers over his wrist. That’s what finally reaches him—touch. Warmth.
His pulse is racing. By the look of him, it has been for a while.
“Parker… It’s all there. The stairwell. The suppression system. Bad steel. They…they knew.” He chokes back a sob. “They knew, and Zack died because…”
I wrap my arms around him, careful not to put much pressure on his back. “I’m here.” The words aren’t enough. Or maybe they are. Because nothing can fix this. Nothing can save Zack’s life or heal Eliot’s burns.
All I can do is hold him and let him know he’s not alone.
He doesn’t cry. Doesn’t make a sound. But after a few minutes, he rests his cheek on my shoulder. After that, his breathing slows. I move one hand to his neck, carefully searching for his pulse. Still too fast, but closer to normal.
“Kurt… He’s part of it,” Eliot whispers, his voice rough. “The arson investigation…” He pulls back and glances up at his computer. “It was his.”
I help Eliot up, hoping I can get him out of here, but he reaches for his chair, sits, and pulls up a report on his computer.
“The stairwell was too narrow. That’s why he couldn’t get out.” A single tear rolls down Eliot’s cheek. “And here…” He shows me a picture of a sprinkler system, blackened pipes and burst heads on a ceiling where the tiles have all burned away. “It stops. Eight feet. I was eight feet away…”
Another tear. He goes quiet, staring at the photos, and I don’t think he’s here with me. He’s somewhere seven years ago, hearing Zack die again and again.
I cup his cheek, gently urging him to look at me. I’m close to full-on panic, but I do my best to keep my voice calm. “Eliot, come back, now. Please. I need your help.”
He blinks, and his eyes focus. “I couldn’t save him.”
“I know. But we’re going to get the people who did this. We’re so close. I need you to help me. We’re going to send all of this to Nate, and then I’m taking you home, okay?”
He nods, takes a deep, shuddering breath, and starts closing the open files, then copying them to a new folder. “That’s…all of it.”
“Scoot over. Just a bit. Let me do this part.”
He does, placing his hands flat on the desk, and stares at nothing while I open a secure browser window, log on with my Ranger credentials, and drop the folder into Nate’s cloud storage.
I log off of everything, shut down Eliot’s computer, and pull out my phone.
Just sent you SFMO’s record of the Kensington fire. Make sure it stays safe. Copies to me and AJ.
He replies in seconds.
Dropping one to Zephyr too. Won’t pull her in yet, since it’ll break chain of custody, but…
He doesn’t have to say it. We both know what happens if the senator somehow makes our evidence disappear.
We call Connor and take care of this on our own.
My phone buzzes again.
Eliot okay?
No. Taking him home now. I’ll check in. Later.
Turning back to Eliot, I get a hand under his arm. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Eliot
I blink, and I’m sitting on my couch with a glass of water in my hands. I don’t remember leaving the office. Just Parker’s voice. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
She’s sitting next to me, the heat of her comforting against my right side. She doesn’t ask me anything. Doesn’t try to fill the silence. That’s the only reason I work up the energy to say anything at all.
“He knew. Kurt knew.” My throat’s dry, and I take a sip of water. “Six years we’ve worked together, and he’s known the whole time.” I turn to her, and the pain in her eyes mirrors mine. “I tried calling him. Texting. I just need to know…why.”
Parker’s hand closes over mine. “I can find him. Or…Nate can find him.”
I stare down at our fingers. At the tiny scars left behind when she escaped that fucking cult. At my calluses. At the way her hand fits perfectly in mine.
Of course, she can find him. That’s what she does. Finds people. Answers. Fixes the broken things all around her.
“How?”
“We have enough evidence to bring him in. Nate can get a warrant. Put out the BOLO with APD. It won’t fix anything. It won’t bring Zack back. But…you could get answers.”
I nod. She needs to do something. This…I need this too.
She pulls out her phone, sends a quick text, and then turns it face down next to her.
“Okay. He’ll take care of it.”
Another sip of water, and I set the glass on the coffee table.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this.
” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. It’s distant, weak and rough.
“I’ve spent the past seven years telling myself I should have known the building was coming down.
That if I’d moved faster, warned Zack sooner, he’d have gotten out.
But that wall… The egress was too narrow.
And the beams. They were always going to come down.
There’s no version of that day where he lived. ”
“That’s not nothing, Eliot.” Parker keeps her voice low, barely above a whisper. She rests her hand on my right knee. One of the only parts of me that doesn’t ache every fucking day.
“He was still there because of me.”
She doesn’t tell me I’m wrong. Whether that’s because she knows it wouldn’t help or she knows I’m right…it doesn’t matter. She’s here. And that matters.
We sit in silence long enough the sun goes down outside the window. Parker doesn’t move to turn on the light. She just stays. One hand on my thigh, the other arm around my shoulders.
When it’s too dark to see much of anything, she stands, pulling me up with her, and leads me into the bedroom.
We don’t speak as we take off our clothes. And when we’re lying in bed, my arm around her waist and my nose buried in her soft hair, she links our fingers and gives my hand a single, gentle squeeze.
Zack was there because of me. That’ll never change.
The memories will haunt me forever regardless of who was ultimately to blame.
But how do I bury the guilt I’ve carried?
How do I let go of a weight that’s defined the past seven years of my life without losing who I’ve become because of it.
I want to be the man Parker sees when she wakes up in the morning, but I’m not even sure who I am without who I’ve been.