Chapter 20 #2
“I’m going to ask Carter to pull tower pings,” I say, already building it in my head, the tree of time and signal.
“Harrow’s phone. The men who were on scene.
Every badge on duty within two towns. I’m going to rip the timestamps off the calls and I’m going to lay them on the table in a line that makes sense.
If a deputy I don’t own touched a phone to tell him about your parents, I’ll know what tower carried it.
” I bring my eyes back to hers, and my voice drops to a growl.
“When I find the son of a bitch who told him—” I stop myself. She doesn’t need to hear any more.
I lean in until my breath grazes her temple.
“You don’t have to see what’s coming next, Summer.
You just need to understand that there’s no safe place left but me.
I will burn every bridge, salt every field, erase every name until you’re the last thing standing next to me.
And when I’m finished….” My eyes drag across her face, that mix of terror and disbelief that only makes me want her more.
“…You’ll never have to be afraid again. Because there won’t be anything left to be afraid of. ”
She closes her eyes. The water breaks against her knees in small, uneven sounds. Silence crawls up the tiled walls with the steam and hangs beneath the ceiling, listening.
“Please,” she whispers. “Just— give me some space.”
I hold her gaze one beat too long, feeling her imploding against it, then nod and step back through the steam. The ruined door groans as I pull it almost shut—but not all the way. Not tonight. Not while a man with a steady hand and a love of fire is still breathing my air.
I leave her wrapped in steam and grief and lies that don’t belong to her. I don’t trust myself to sit in that room any longer, not when I’m this close to tearing the walls down just to prove there are no shadows hiding a man named Thompson.
The hallway feels colder. My shirt clings to me with damp, her bite a steady throb under the fabric.
I head down the hall, the clock in the kitchen ticks too loud, each second a hammer striking steel.
I don’t go to the sink, don’t wash the blood off my knuckles.
I want it there. I want the reminder that I caved his fucking face in.
But I need to find out about this Thompson fella. I’m certain I’m right, that this guy is a fabrication in a story Benny fed her. I need to know how he knew. How he got here so fast.
My gut tells me that he was the one to start the fire. But that seems too… drastic. But it’s too coincidental that the son of a bitch would know and get here so fast.
I pull out my phone and hit speed dial.
“Sheriff.” Carter sounds alert now, more honed than before. Probably still out in his truck, circling the crime scene, waiting for me to tell him where to bury the rest.
“You pick him up?” I don’t waste time.
There’s a pause, a careful exhale. “Yeah. Found him about two miles up, crawling like a dog. Left eye’s ballooned shut, ribs cracked, couple teeth gone. I took him to St. Luke’s. They’re patching him. Said something about pneumo-something. He won’t be dancing any time soon.”
“Pneumothorax.” I let out a low laugh. “Means I smashed his ribs into his lung.”
“Jeez, boss.”
My teeth grind. I picture Benny on a hospital bed, nurses clucking over him, hands touching what I broke.
A part of me wants to storm the ER and finish the job.
Another part knows it’s better this way.
He’ll linger, stew in pain, have time to think about the moment he lied to her and made her believe it.
“Did he talk?” I ask.
“Not much. They dosed him pretty quick. Kept mumbling about Summer, though.” Carter hesitates. “Sheriff… you want me to keep him quiet? There are ways.”
“No,” I say instantly, then slow it down. “Not yet. Let him breathe. Let him think he’s safe. I want his tongue working when I’m ready to cut the truth out of him.”
Silence stretches on the line. Carter doesn’t push. He never does. He knows when I say not yet, it doesn’t mean mercy. It means I’m building something worse.
“Now listen close,” I continue, lowering my voice though the house is empty except for the sound of her in the bath upstairs. “You ever heard of a Deputy Thompson?”
There’s a beat, then Carter barks a laugh that dies fast. “No way. I’d know. Hell, you’d know. We’re not exactly a big outfit.”
Thought so.
“She says Harrow claimed a cousin in the department called him. Gave him the news,” I say. “But there’s no Thompson. Not on my payroll, not in this county.”
“That’s calculated,” he says finally. “Not… sloppy. He wanted her to think it came from inside. That’s—”
War.
“Yeah,” I bite out. “And he picked the right wound to dig in.”
“Want me to pull phone records anyway? Make sure none of my men slipped up?”
“Do it,” I snap. “Tower pings, call logs, everything. I don’t care if it takes you all night. If someone so much as sneezed in Harrow’s direction with a badge on, I want to know which nostril it came out of.”
“You’ll have it by morning,” he promises.
“Good.” I exhale through my teeth, the fury simmering instead of boiling now. “And Carter—”
“Yeah?”
“If it turns out there is no leak… if it’s exactly what it looks like—if he took out her parents or knows who did—you let me handle him. Personally.”
I don’t wait for his agreement. I hang up.
The silence afterward is heavier than the conversation. The house groans under it, every floorboard a witness. I set the phone down, flex my fingers, watch fresh blood bead across split skin.
No Deputy Thompson. Never was. Which means Benny Harrow thought he could create a man out of smoke, drape him in a badge, and make her doubt me.
It almost worked.
I shove off the counter and make my way down the hall. The hallway is thick with steam spilling from the bathroom, but the water’s off now. I push the door open again without knocking.
She’s there. Standing by the basin, dripping, wrapped in the towel she’s holding too tight across her chest. Wet hair hangs down her shoulders, sticking to the pale line of her throat. Her skin glows pink from the heat, damp, fragile, like she’s been scalded into porcelain.
She jumps when she sees me, then hardens instantly. Chin up, lips pressed flat.
“You can’t just keep barging in—”
“There is no Thompson,” I snarl, cutting her off. “Carter confirmed what I already knew. There’s no deputy by that name anywhere near my department. Harrow fed you a ghost.”
She tightens the towel, her knuckles white where they grip it. “He said—”
“He said what he needed to say.” My voice lowers, darker. “He wanted you to doubt me, and he knew exactly where to cut. He knew I wasn’t here when you needed me, so he invented a man in uniform to make me the villain.”
“Well either way, he knew. He was trying to help me, he came so I wasn’t alone,” she spits, voice trembling around the edges.
“And he filled the space.” The words rip out of me, rough, jagged.
“That’s his game. Sliding in where I’m not.
Dressing himself in family ties and badges he doesn’t own, making himself look like the savior you think you need.
But tell me this, Summer—” I lean in, forcing her to meet my eyes.
“If Thompson doesn’t exist, what does that make Benny? ”
No sound comes from her parted lips.
“Exactly what he is,” I answer for her, my voice dropping to a growl. “A liar with a pretty face and just enough charm to make you forget you’re standing over a pit of snakes.”
Her chest rises and falls too fast beneath the towel, her fingers clawing into the fabric like it’s the only thing tethering her. She shakes her head again, but slower now, like she’s not sure she believes herself anymore.
“You want to hate me because I wasn’t there?” I say, softer, deadlier. “Fine. Hate me. Bite me. Bleed me dry. But don’t you dare hand him the power to write our story with a name that doesn’t exist.”
The bathroom is silent except for the drip of water from her hair hitting tile.
Her lips tremble. For the first time since I came in, her eyes look less like knives and more like something breaking.
I take one step back, enough to let her breathe, enough to keep myself from touching her when she’s still wrapped in lies and wet terrycloth.
She shakes her head as I step back. As though she doesn’t want me to walk away from her. But doesn’t want me close either.
The towel slips enough when she shakes her head that I lose the last of my restraint. In two strides I’ve got her against the wall, plaster cool at her back, my hand crushing the edge of the towel into her chest.
Her gasp breaks in my mouth when I kiss her. Hard. Messy. All teeth and fury, salt from her tears mixing with the copper still on my lips. She shoves at me with one hand, fists the towel with the other, but when I force her mouth open, she breaks into me like she’s been starving too.
I taste the anger first. Then the grief. The part she won’t admit—that she wants me to steal the ground out from under her, so she doesn’t have to stand in it alone.
When I pull back, we’re both breathing like we just fought our way out of fire. Her cheeks are wet, tears cutting clean tracks through the steam. I press my forehead to hers, close enough to feel her shaking.
My voice comes out rough, every word scraped raw.
“He knew before I did, it’s the only explanation,” I breathe, the confession more like a curse.
“Either he did this himself, or he’s tied to the men who did.
Because tell me, Summer—” My voice cracks, rising, desperate, “how the hell else would he know before me?”
She jerks her head, eyes wide, tears spilling in fast. “No… no, he wouldn’t—”
“He would,” I cut in, my grip closing around her wrist before I realize it, before I can stop it.
“He’s in their pockets or standing right beside them.
Maybe he didn’t strike the match, but he knew it was coming.
And then he ran here—straight into our house—with a story meant to turn you against me. ”
Her lips part like she wants to argue, but nothing comes out. The truth—or the shape of it—hangs between us, heavy enough to crush the air.
“I’m not asking you to believe me because you want to. I’m telling you the truth because I need you to. Harrow is not the man you think he is. He’s a vindictive, lying cunt who played a part.”
“Why does it feel like I’m losing everything?” she whispers, broken.
“You’re not.” I shove the words between us, hard, brutal, because I need her to believe them as much as I need them to be true. “You still have me. You have our home. Our life together.”
Her breathing slows enough that I feel the question before she whispers it.
“So… what next?” Her voice is sandpaper, scraped raw. Her eyes, rimmed red, look up at me with something that isn’t trust but isn’t doubt either. It’s a bleeding thing caught in the middle.
I don’t hesitate. “I’m going to the hospital.” The words land like a hammer. “I’m going to walk into his room, and I’m going to make Harrow tell me exactly how the fuck he knew before I did.”
Her whole body stiffens under my hand. “No.”
It’s a small word, but it hits harder than a gunshot.
My jaw locks. “No?”
She shakes her head, towel slipping at her collarbone. “Not you... me... I should go.”
The laugh that rips out of me is jagged, dangerous. “You think I’m letting you walk into a room with the man who might have killed your parents?”
“I think he’ll talk to me,” she shoots back, voice cracking but fierce. “He’ll tell me what he won’t tell you. And you—” She presses a trembling hand to my chest, holding me back like I’m the fire she’s trying not to burn in, “—you can wait right outside. Close enough to hear every word.”
I stare at her, fury and disbelief colliding in my veins. “You’re asking me to stand on the other side of a wall while you sit with him? After tonight?”
Her eyes glisten, stubborn as hell through the tears. “I’m not asking. I’m telling you this is the only way we’ll know. The only way he’ll talk. The only way I’ll get any sense of closure from this. I need to see my parents. I need to grieve them. But… I need to do this first.”
I slam my palm against the wall beside her head, close enough that the towel trembles against her chest. “You’re fucking playing with fire, Summer.”
“I know,” she whispers. “But you’ll be there. Won’t you?”
The answer is already carved into me. Of course I will. I’ll be outside that door, close enough to count every lie in Harrow’s throat, close enough to break his jaw the second he tries to twist her again.