Chapter 10 Zane
ZANE
Zane had driven enough miles in his life to know better than to trust a fuel gauge that had been blinking at him for twenty minutes.
He also knew better than to arrive in a town with a staffing crisis, a string of suspicious fires, and a memorial looming on the calendar, and then forget to fill the tank.
Yet here he was.
The company SUV gave one last little shudder of indignation, as if it wanted to make sure he felt properly judged, and he managed to coast into silence on the shoulder of the road.
Henderson’s farm was behind him now, a distant smudge of fields and fences, and Sandpiper Shores was still far enough ahead that he could almost pretend he had not just made the sort of mistake a rookie would make on their first week.
Zane rested his forehead against the steering wheel for a second, closed his eyes, and let out a breath.
Perfect. Just perfect.
He sat up, stared at the dashboard, and watched the reserve light glow back at him like it was personally offended.
Zane had gone to Henderson’s to walk the scene, to get a feel for what had happened there, to see if anything in the wreckage and scorch patterns made his gut twist the way it had ten years ago.
He’d done that. He’d done it thoroughly.
He’d taken his time, asked careful questions, listened to the farmhands, watched how they described the fire, and looked for the kind of small detail that told a bigger story.
Then he’d climbed back into the SUV, glanced at the fuel light, and decided he could make it back to town on hope and professional pride.
Hope and pride, it turned out, were not acceptable substitutes for gas.
Zane reached for his phone, already planning the call he would have to make, but the screen remained black.
He tapped it. Nothing.
He pressed the button again, harder this time, as if intimidation might work on electronics.
Still nothing.
“Nice going, Evans,” he muttered, pulling the dead phone into view like it might suddenly apologize.
He stared at the dark screen, then looked out at the road. There wasn’t a gas station or even a convenient little store with a flickering OPEN sign for miles. Just Florida countryside stretching out, humid and quiet, the sort of quiet that made you feel watched even when you knew you were alone.
Zane had arrived in Sandpiper Shores that morning.
He’d been moving since then, one place to the next, reports in his head, names on his tongue, the sense of a town’s pulse turning erratic under his hands.
It was easy to forget practical things when your mind was full of paperwork, replacement interviews, and the very real possibility that someone was setting fires in a pattern that did not feel accidental.
Still, it was no excuse to run out of gas like a teenager joyriding.
Zane pushed the driver’s door open and stepped into the heavy early evening air. Heat wrapped around him immediately, thick as a blanket. He locked the SUV out of habit, even though there was nobody around to steal it, and started walking toward town.
The road was long, straight, and edged with scrub and grass that looked sunburned. His boots crunched lightly on gravel at the shoulder. He kept his pace steady, not rushing, because rushing only made you sweat more and think less.
A car drove past him a minute later, going in the opposite direction, not too fast but still fast enough to make a wind that tugged at his shirt, and then it was gone.
Zane continued walking.
Another car came three minutes after that. Zane recognized it as it approached, partly because he was good at recognizing vehicles and partly because there were only so many in Sandpiper Shores that carried that particular silhouette.
He lifted a hand to flag it down.
The car slowed, then stopped in front of him on the opposite side of the road. The driver’s window went down, and Willa Parker’s head appeared, her eyes wide with concern.
“Chief Evans?” Willa called. “Are you all right? Why are you walking along the side of the road?”
Before he could answer, a voice from the passenger seat cut in, dry and unimpressed.
“Dementia, maybe?” the female voice drawled sarcastically. “I believe it’s what people suffering from it do. Walk around aimlessly.”
Zane recognized it instantly as Captain Carmen Grant.
His lips twitched despite himself, but he didn’t let it become a smile.
“I ran out of gas,” Zane told them, and held up the phone like an exhibit. “And my phone died.”
Carmen leaned forward slightly so he could see her face better, and her eyes narrowed as if she were assessing whether he was joking.
“That does sound like the start of dementia,” she said, her tone bland.
“Usually people, especially people who are highly trained, ensure they have gas in their tank, and their phone is charged.” Her head whipped around pointedly.
“Especially when going into the countryside alone.” A smug smile spread across her pretty mouth. “Surely you’ve watched horror movies?”
Willa shot her aunt a look. “Aunt Carmen,” she hissed low.
“What?” Carmen feigned innocence. “This is exactly how every horror movie starts.”
Willa rolled her eyes and turned back to Zane.
“If you’re not in a hurry,” Willa said, “you can hop in. We’ll stop at the first gas station and get you taken care of.”
Carmen ducked her head down again, expression severe.
“We’re wasting time, Willa.” Her eyes caught Zane’s. “Look, just get in, you’re waylaying our mission.”
Zane’s brows rose. “Mission?” he repeated.
Willa didn’t answer the question.
“Can we drop you at the next gas station?” Willa asked instead.
Zane glanced back toward Sandpiper Shores.
It was still a good distance away, and the idea of walking the rest of it in the heat while his mind spun itself into knots did not appeal to him.
He also wasn’t blind. Carmen and Willa looked tense, the kind of tense that came from something more than an ordinary errand.
He found himself curious in a way he probably shouldn’t have been.
“Sure,” Zane said, then crossed the road carefully and climbed into the back seat.
Zane buckled up and looked between the two women.
“Where are we off to?” he asked.
“Following my mother,” Willa blurted, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
Carmen hissed, sharp and warningly. “Willa.”
Willa glanced at her aunt, unrepentant.
“You told him we were on a mission,” Willa said reasonably. Then she flicked her eyes to the mirror and nodded at Zane. “Sorry, this might be a little fast, but we have to make up time now.”
“Just drive safely,” Zane said, and Willa pulled back onto the road.
She glanced at Carmen.
“Is Mom still going straight?”
Carmen held her phone in one hand, and Zane saw a map with a moving red dot and green dot, the kind of tracking app that made the world feel too small.
“Yes,” Carmen said with a nod.
Zane looked from the phone to the road.
“Why are we following June?” he asked.
Willa’s jaw tightened as she glanced at him in the mirror.
“Because we’re worried about her,” Willa admitted. “She was acting cagey, then she rushed out of the house saying she had something she had to attend to.”
Zane considered that with a frown.
“Maybe she’s meeting a blind date,” Zane offered, half-serious and half testing. “I’m sure June wouldn’t appreciate you spying on her.”
Carmen turned her head slightly, and Zane could feel the temperature drop without the air-conditioning changing at all.
“We could always drop you off on the side of the road again,” Carmen said. “If you don’t want to be involved with our mission, that is.”
Zane lifted both hands in a gesture of surrender, though he was still buckled in.
“Sorry,” Zane said. “I’m just offering a reasonable explanation for why June might be acting… cautious.”
“We didn’t say cautious,” Carmen told him. “We agreed on shady, and that is exactly how my sister was acting when she rushed out the door.” She turned and looked at him. “She also lied to us about going to meet with Holt.”
“She said it had to do with the investigation she and Director Dillinger are working on,” Willa explained. “But so far she didn’t stop to pick him up.”
Zane’s brows rose again. That was a fair point.
“Maybe they’re meeting wherever she’s going,” Zane tried. “June is going to be pretty mad when she finds out you’re spying on her.”
Carmen’s eyes narrowed as she turned and glared at him.
“Again, if you don’t want to be involved,” Carmen said, “we could drop you off.”
Zane sighed quietly and leaned back, choosing to let them talk. He wasn’t in a position to push, not when he’d just climbed into their car because he couldn’t manage a fuel gauge, or remember to charge his phone.
For a minute, the road hummed beneath them, and the late afternoon sunlight turned the world gold at the edges.
Then Willa spoke again, faster this time, as if her own worry was forcing words out.
“My mother said something earlier,” Willa said. “Something I don’t like.”
Carmen let out a low warning sound, but Willa continued anyway.
“She said the fires might be connected,” Willa ignored her aunt’s warning and caught Zane’s eyes in the mirror again, “and that the person who attacked Lacey might have thought she was someone else, and that Mom and Lucy have a common enemy that wants them gone.”
The car seemed to tighten around the words. Zane sat very still, shock spreading slowly through him like cold water being poured through his veins.
“So Lacey being attacked was mistaken identity?” he said carefully, making sure it came out as a question rather than a conclusion.
Carmen’s shoulders stiffened. She didn’t deny it but turned and looked at him once again.
“We believe so,” Carmen said after a beat, then turned her head slightly toward Willa. “What would your mother and Lucy have in common or have done that they share a common enemy?”