Chapter 2
BUCK
“What happened?” Her voice is level. Professional.
“Fire in the middle of the night. The crew contained it to this structure.”
She looks past me, studying the facade. Maybe it’s an occupational habit, but I can’t stop myself from studying her every time I see her, looking for signs that tell me she’s okay. That’s she’s not mired in grief, living in misery.
When I found out she moved here, I was hoping she and T.J. weren’t alone. I tell myself I wish she had a new husband, but that’s not exactly true.
Her eyes are guarded, but there are no dark circles. Her skin has a healthy glow. She looks good in the soft blue turtleneck that shows under her partially-unzipped coat.
I’m noticing more than I should.
Then she looks back at me, and I’m caught. “Are you in charge of this?” Her eyes flicker to the hard hat under my arm and to the logo on my jacket.
“Town fire marshal.” The appropriate thing would be to tell her my name, but I don’t.
“Do you think it was faulty wiring? It’s a pretty old building, but I was assured it was up to code.”
“It doesn’t appear to be electrical.”
She frowns. “Was anyone hurt?” She looks me fully in the face for the first time, and I suddenly feel like I’m wearing a weighted vest.
“No one was hurt.” That’s one small piece of good news I can give her. Likely the only piece.
A worry line on her forehead smooths, but her expression is still tense. “Why the crime scene tape? Is that customary when there’s been a fire?”
“The fire appears to have been intentional,” I say.
She goes still, the line of her jaw set.
“Someone broke in through the rear entrance. Personnel files were targeted.” I draw in a deep breath and exhale sharply, a short burst of white in the cold air. “I’m still investigating, but it appears a file was removed before the fire was started.”
The warm color in her cheeks drains away.
“The file was yours.”
Her breathing turns shallow, but she doesn’t exactly look surprised. “Are you certain?”
“This wasn’t random. Whoever started the fire went in with a mission.”
After a pause, she nods.
“Do you know of any reason someone might have done this? Any disputes with staff or parents?” The image of the black sedan comes to mind again, and I know what her answer will be.
Across the street, the school bell rings, the sound muffled through closed doors and windows. A few children are rushing in late. The wind moves ash across the frozen pavement.
Bypassing my question, she says, “Has law enforcement been notified?”
“Yes.”
She looks past me again and lets out a shuddering breath, and something snaps into place. I’d intended to keep my distance, and told myself it was for her sake, but pretending not to know her is no longer a sustainable position.
“We need to talk privately,” I say.
Her eyes lift to mine. “About what?”
“About whether there’s a reason someone would want your file.”
She doesn’t look away. She holds eye contact for another beat, and when she speaks again, it’s nearly a whisper. “Yes,” she says. “There might be.”
I end up staying late at the station to finish my paperwork, and after I send the preliminary narrative and photo log to the chief, I join the crew for dinner. The men have questions about what I found at the administration building, but I keep my answers surface-level.
Calder gives me a couple of long looks during the meal. We haven’t talked yet, but he can likely tell there’s more to the story by what I’m not saying.
Before I leave, I pull him and Weston out into the bay for privacy.
The three of us have talked about Elena Ramirez exactly once since she came to town.
Weston heard about her arrival during a date with a talkative admin from the school superintendent’s office.
After he confirmed it was the Elena Ramirez we knew, he told Calder and me, and the three of us spent an evening sitting around a fire, drinking beer, and pretending it didn’t matter.
Since then, we’ve all been on edge. We don’t have to say anything for it to be obvious. The air is different now in Moon Ridge. It’s heavy and thick.
“What’s up?” Weston asks, as Calder eyes me with a grim expression.
“School personnel files were accessed before the fire. One was singled out.”
Both men meet my eyes and instantly know.
Weston runs a hand through his hair. “You talk to her?”
I nod. “She wasn’t surprised.”
They’re both frowning. Calder’s eyes are narrowed.
I tell them about the black sedan and Elena’s reaction. “Either of you see anything? Not just yesterday, but recently?”
“I saw a car like that pulled over on the side of the road just outside of town last week,” Weston says. “It stood out as too clean and too slick, but I assumed it was noise left over from the Sentinel situation.”
Plenty of feds were around after the shitstorm that went down late last year at the Sentinel Security compound about a dozen miles out of town, but that’s clear now.
“Elena’s friends with their woman, isn’t she?” Calder asks.
Neither Weston nor I lifts a brow. We don’t talk about Elena, but we all know plenty.
“She is, but I don’t think this has anything to do with Kira,” I say. “Atlas and those guys would be all over it.”
“There’s been a black SUV loitering in sight of the general store.” Calder’s opening and closing compartment doors, checking latches while we talk. “Driver stays in the vehicle. Leaves after twenty to thirty minutes. Same tinted windows.”
“So we’ve got a file pulled, a fire set, and one or more cars lurking around town,” Weston says. “What are we going to do about it?”
“I’m going to go talk to her,” I say. “And we’re going to handle it.”
Elena’s home is one of the single-story renovated houses a few blocks from the center of town. It has a covered porch and a small yard bordered by a low fence. Her SUV is in the driveway, and light shines through the curtains in the front window.
When I knock at the door, she pulls aside the curtain to peer out, and I make a mental note to get her set up with a security system.
After a couple of clicks, the door opens just wide enough for me to see her face. “Can I help you?”
I give her a nod of greeting. “Do you have time to talk?”
She turns and looks inside for a moment before looking back at me. “It’s my son’s bedtime, and I usually read to him. I thought you’d come to see me at the school.”
“This is off the record.”
Her brow furrows, and the fingers holding the door tighten their grip. “I shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes. Would you like to wait?”
“Sure.” I take a step back, but she opens the door wider, letting heat and warm light spill out into the night.
“Come in.”
“I’ll wait on the porch.”
She cocks her head, her lips pursing into a frown. “Are you sure? It’s cold out.” I wonder how she’s adjusting to winter here in the mountains after all her years in San Diego.
I zip up my coat. “I’ll wait outside. Take your time.”
She offers me a blanket, but I decline. I don’t deserve comfort from her.
The neighborhood is quiet, as most are after dark this time of year. The houses are close on this street, and I’m glad Elena isn’t living out on one of the desolate roads on the outskirts.
Less than ten minutes later, the front door opens again, and she beckons me inside. Guilt and duty war inside me as I step over the threshold, and guilt wins the battle soundly when my body responds to Elena.
Since she’s been in Moon Ridge, I’ve only seen her in jackets and coats, and usually in professional clothing. She always looks good. Tonight, she’s wearing snug sweatpants and a long-sleeve, faded Twenty One Pilots t-shirt, and I can’t ignore her body’s lush curves no matter how hard I try.
Her hair, which has always been pulled back from her face, hangs loose in glossy brown waves. She tucks it behind her ear on one side, and I notice every damn thing about the motion, from the way her shirt tightens across her chest, to the pale pink tips of her fingernails.
I clear my throat. I’m better than this.
“Sit wherever you like.”
I choose one of the chairs in the living room and pull my eyes away from this beautiful woman to scan the space. The dining room and kitchen are all in view. There’s an open entryway to a den on one side of the room and a hall that presumably leads to bedrooms on the other.
Her home is warm in both temperature and mood, with cheery colors and soft furniture. A plaid fleece throw is neatly arranged on the back of the sofa. A LEGO project is underway on the coffee table. There’s a reusable lunch bag and a school notebook on the round wooden dining table.
Tyler Ramirez’s service portrait, the one with him in his dress uniform, holds a place of honor on the bookcase next to the TV. I force myself to look at it for a few seconds, both for the sharp ache it delivers and because it reminds me of the importance of my visit.
“Would you like something to drink, Fire Marshal … I didn’t get your name earlier.”
“No. Thank you.” A pause, a deep breath. “I’m Buck. Buck Brennan.”
She’d been turning toward the kitchen, but she immediately pivots back to me, her eyes wild as they search my face. If she remembers seeing me, it was with shorter hair and no beard. Regardless, she recognizes my name, and the look on my face must confirm the connection.
She moves behind the armchair that backs to the hallway, instinctively putting herself between me and her son’s room. She looks like she’s seen a ghost, but unfortunately, I’m not one of our team who left this world.