Chapter 8 #2
She arrived within the hour.
I spotted her ducking under the tape, messenger bag slung across her body, press credentials catching the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles.
Professional. Focused. Already scanning the scene with those sharp green eyes that missed nothing.
I was supposed to be checking equipment. Supposed to be focused on the job, on the aftermath of another fire in another building that should have been condemned years ago.
Instead, I was watching Sloane Harper cross the scene toward Detective Diaz.
They spoke near the command post, heads bent together, voices too low for me to hear. Diaz had her notebook out. Sloane gestured toward the building, then pulled something from her bag, a folder, probably the documentation we'd compiled. Diaz took it, flipped it open, and nodded.
Two women working the case. Building the connections. Pulling at threads that someone had tried very hard to bury.
I shouldn't have felt proud. This wasn't about me.
But watching Sloane work, watching her do what she did best, something loosened in my chest.
I forced my attention back to the equipment. Coiled hose. Checked valves. Went through the motions while the rest of the crew finished packing up.
By the time I looked back, Diaz had left, and Sloane was alone near the perimeter tape, reviewing her notes, the flashing lights painting her face in alternating red and blue.
I should have stayed with the crew. Should have climbed into the rig and gone back to the station without a word.
Instead, I crossed the scene toward her.
"Hey," I said, stopping close enough that I could smell her shampoo over the smoke and ash.
She looked up. Smiled. "Hey. Good work tonight."
"We got everyone out. That's what matters." I glanced back at the building, at the blackened windows and the water damage. "Same pattern?"
"Same pattern. Diaz is running the names against your victims list." She tucked her notebook into her bag. "We're getting close, Garrett. I can feel it."
"Yeah."
I was looking at her mouth. I shouldn't have been looking at her mouth.
The moment stretched. The noise of the scene faded—the radios, the idling engines, the voices of the crew.
It was just us, standing too close, the decade between us collapsing into nothing.
I leaned in. Instinct. Muscle memory. The way I used to kiss her goodbye before—
"Stone! Let's go!" Brian's voice rang out across the scene. Then, lower, carrying just enough for me to hear, "You can kiss your girlfriend later."
I pulled back. Sloane's eyes were wide, her breath caught somewhere in her throat.
"I have to—"
"Yeah." She nodded, a little too fast. "Go. I'll call you later."
I walked back to the rig without looking over my shoulder. Brian was grinning when I climbed in.
"Not a word," I said.
"Wouldn't dream of it." But he was still grinning as the engine pulled away.
We never talked about the almost kiss.
The firehouse was quiet when we got back. The crew hit the showers first—standard routine after a fire, washing off the smoke and sweat and whatever else clung to our skin.
I stood under the spray longer than I needed to, letting the hot water beat against my shoulders while my mind replayed the same moment over and over. The way she'd looked up at me. The way I'd leaned in without thinking, like the last eight years had never happened.
Stupid.
By the time I got out, the others had already shuffled off to their bunks. I followed, expecting exhaustion to pull me under the way it usually did after a call. Instead, I lay there staring at the ceiling, wide awake, when my phone buzzed.
Sloane.
I answered before I could talk myself out of it. "Hey."
"Hey. Did I wake you?"
"No. Couldn't sleep."
"Me neither."
A pause. I heard her exhale, could picture her in her apartment, probably still surrounded by case files, probably still wearing the clothes she'd had on at the scene.
"I wanted to debrief. Diaz called me on my way home."
"Yeah?"
"Her FBI contact came through. Keene traced the financials on those inspectors and found connections to the shell companies. She wouldn't say more over the phone, but she wants to meet tomorrow." Another pause. "This could be it, Garrett. The break we've been waiting for."
"That's good." My voice came out quieter than I intended. "That's really good."
"Let's talk about it tomorrow evening? After I meet with Diaz?"
"Yeah, of course."
Silence stretched between us.
The kind of silence that used to fill our late-night phone calls when we first started dating, when neither of us wanted to be the one to hang up first. We'd talk until our voices went hoarse, then just breathe together, the phone pressed to our ears like a lifeline.
I'd forgotten how much I missed this. Her voice in the dark. The intimacy of being the last person she talked to before sleep.
"Garrett? Are you still there?"
I blinked. Hadn't realized I'd gone quiet.
"Yeah. Sorry. I'm still here."
"You should get some rest. You must be exhausted."
"Yeah." I rubbed a hand over my face. "You should get some sleep, too. It's late."
"I will." A soft sound, maybe a yawn, maybe a smile. I couldn't tell. "Good night, Garrett."
"Good night, Sloane."
The line went dead.
I set the phone on my chest and stared at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the firehouse around me, the creak of bunks, the distant hum of the refrigerator, someone snoring two beds over.
She'd called me. Before bed. Just to hear my voice.
Don't read into it. She was debriefing. That's all.
But I was smiling when I finally closed my eyes.
Sloane showed up at my apartment straight from her meeting with Diaz.
I could tell it had been productive by the way she moved—that restless energy, the barely contained excitement of someone who'd just been handed exactly what they needed.
She spread her notes across my coffee table before I'd even closed the door.
"Three names," she said, pulling a folder from her bag and spreading it open on the coffee table. "Three inspectors who signed off on every single building connected to the shell company network."
I leaned forward, scanning the pages. Bank statements. Deposit records. Dates circled in red.
"Keene's team traced their financials," Sloane continued. "All three have deposits that don't match their salaries. Cash, always cash, always within a week of signing off on a failed inspection."
"The feds moved fast."
"Federal subpoenas open doors local PD can't touch." Sloane tapped one of the highlighted names. "Look."
Thomas Breck.
The fire marshal who'd been pushing hardest for Engine 295's closure. The one who'd buried my reports for years.
His name was right there in black and white, next to a series of five-figure deposits that had no business being in a city employee's checking account.
"We've got him," I said.
"We've got all of them."
The hours blurred together after that. Coffee refills, takeout containers, and the steady accumulation of connections. We mapped the money trail, cross-referenced the inspection dates with the deposits, and built a timeline that showed exactly how long this network had been operating.
By midnight, we had enough to bring down a half-dozen officials.
By one, we'd started drafting Sloane's article, the exposé that would blow the whole thing open.
By two, I noticed she'd gone quiet.
I looked up from my laptop.
She was curled into the corner of my couch, her own laptop balanced on her knees, head tipped back against the cushion.
Asleep.
Her face was different like this. Softer. The sharp edges smoothed away, the professional armor stripped off like a coat she'd finally set down.
She looked younger. Vulnerable in a way she never allowed herself to be when she was awake.
I should wake her.
The thought crossed my mind and kept going, replaced by something quieter. Something that felt like standing at the edge of a cliff, knowing you shouldn't look down.
I watched her breathe instead.
The slow rise and fall of her chest. The way her lips parted slightly. The small furrow between her brows meant she was dreaming about something that worried her even in sleep.
Eight years.
I'd spent eight years trying to forget this face. Trying to stop seeing it every time I closed my eyes.
And here she was, asleep on my couch like no time had passed at all.
I stood. Moved quietly toward my bedroom.
The sheets. I should change the sheets.
They were clean, I wasn't the kind of person who let things go, but suddenly clean didn't feel like enough.
I stripped the bed. Dug through my closet until I found the good ones, the set my mother had given me years ago that I'd never used because they felt too nice for just me.
I remade the bed. Smoothed the corners. Adjusted the pillows.
Then I went back to the living room.
She hadn't stirred. Still curled in that same position, laptop sliding slowly toward the edge of her knees. I caught it before it fell. Set it on the coffee table beside her notes.
I should wake her.
Instead, I slid one arm under her knees. The other behind her back. Lifted her against my chest.
She weighed almost nothing. Or maybe I was just used to carrying heavier things—bodies and equipment and the accumulated weight of years of guilt.
She fit against me like she'd been designed for it, her head tucking naturally into the space below my chin.
"Garrett?" Her voice was thick with sleep. Confused.
"It's okay." I kept my voice low. Steady. "Go back to sleep."
She didn't argue. Just turned her face into my chest, her breath warm through my shirt.
Her fingers curled against the fabric, holding on.
My hand was still on the doorframe. Gripping it. I made myself let go.
I carried her to my bedroom. Laid her down on the sheets I'd just changed, the good ones that suddenly seemed inadequate for the weight of this moment.
She made a small sound—protest or contentment, I couldn't tell—and curled onto her side.
I pulled the blanket up to her chin. Stood there for a moment, watching her settle into sleep.
Then I made myself leave.
The couch was too short for my frame.
I'd known that when I chose it, had specifically selected furniture that discouraged overnight guests, that reinforced the solitary life I'd built for myself.
Now I lay diagonal across the cushions, feet hanging off one end, a thin blanket that wasn't nearly warm enough pulled up to my chest.
Twenty feet away, through a door I'd left cracked open in case she needed anything, Sloane Harper was sleeping in my bed.
The woman I'd loved. The woman I'd lost. The woman I'd spent years trying to forget and failing, always failing, because some people carve themselves into you so deeply that removing them would mean removing parts of yourself.
I stared at the ceiling.
Counted the reasons this was a terrible idea.
The history between us, complicated and painful. The case we were working on, which required professional distance. The fact that she'd left once and could leave again. The fact that I'd barely survived losing her the first time.
The fact that I was already in too deep to pretend otherwise.