Chapter 26
Roman
The beer was cold on my tongue, but it tasted more bitter than usual. The tall glass thumped onto the tabletop a little too hard. Shawn stared at me with wide eyes and a slack jaw.
“What?” I snapped.
He blinked and shook his head. “Nothing.” He glanced at Nolan, who sat next to him. “It’s just I’ve never seen you drink so fast.”
Nolan cleared his throat, but didn’t say anything before taking a swig of his own beer.
I grunted and looked away. The bar was only about half full tonight.
Callie’s Tavern was popular in town, but it wasn’t too late yet and there was no entertainment scheduled.
I didn’t usually spend my time here, but where else was I going to go?
The house was too empty. I had no desire to go there after work.
I hadn’t been able to sleep last night after I got back home. So many thoughts had run through my head that it was impossible to turn off my brain.
The memory of Palmer flashed through my mind: the sight of the tears streaming down her cheeks, making her freckles glimmer in the moonlight.
Her words still didn’t make sense to me.
I’d saved her?
I’d tried to reach back to that night, but it had been so long ago. Everything was a blur of grief and adrenaline. I’d spent years actively keeping my brain from revisiting that day, which was both the worst and best of my life, and I’d blocked so much of it out.
How could Palmer have been in that fire that night?
I wanted to remember, but I also didn’t. There were multiple people who had been saved from that building. The reality that I had saved her specifically was hard to accept.
Because if the woman I had just kissed was the same woman I pulled out of a burning building the night my wife died…I didn’t even know what to think about that.
“Tell me again why we’re meeting the detective here?” I asked Nolan.
The only thing getting me through was focusing on something else. Anything else. And I’d wanted to meet with Detective Whize since the fire at Hearthstone.
Nolan smoothed a thumb over the label of his beer bottle. “It was his idea, not mine. He’s been swamped since Amos Anderson’s escape, and the arsons aren’t helping. I think he’s squeezing this in after his shift. Maybe a cold beer sounded good.”
I shrugged. It didn’t really matter. My beer was almost gone and I had every intention of getting another, but I wouldn’t until I spoke with Whize. He was late, which made me irritated. I’d been on edge all day.
As if I’d summoned him, the detective’s voice met my ears. “Sorry, got tied up at the station.”
Detective Whize stood near the end of the booth. He seemed tired, with his rumpled dress shirt and bags under his eyes. He held a pint glass that was already missing half an inch off the top.
I scooted over to allow him to slide in beside me.
He sighed as he sat and leaned his head back against the booth. “Thanks for meeting with me like this,” he said. “I just needed something a little more casual, and damn”—he took a swig of his beer—“I needed a drink.”
Shawn chuckled. “Yup, Ember Hollow has been crazy the last few months. Ain’t no one here blaming you.”
I drained the last of my beer. “I’m just glad you’re meeting with me,” I said. “Thanks for taking the time.”
I sounded completely pleasant, but I didn’t smile. I wasn’t sure my mouth remembered how.
Whize turned to me. “I’m sorry about Hearthstone.”
I clenched my back teeth.
“We’re doing everything we can to try to find the guy,” Whize continued. “Your brother sent me over the footage, but as you probably already know, it isn’t clear who the man is.”
“That’s what I wanted to discuss with you.” I shifted on the uncomfortable booth seat. “We’ve made a possible connection that I wanted to run by you.”
Whize tilted his head. “Connection?”
I stared at my empty glass for a second before explaining how every location had some kind of tie to Amos Anderson.
Whize’s body went rigid, and when I was done speaking, he was paler than before. “You’re trying to tell me that you think the Shadow Stalker is behind the fires?”
He shook his head like he didn’t want it to be true.
I lifted a shoulder. “We can’t be certain, but we’re taking precautions anyway. It’s worth investigating that angle.”
Whize’s sigh was heavy and long. “I guess you’re right.”
He took a big gulp of his beer. “The FBI has been on his case too, but we can’t catch even a whiff of the bastard. It’s like he disappeared into thin air, and now you’re saying he could be here in Ember Hollow, right under our noses?”
“I think we should be prepared for anything,” I said.
“Anderson has set fires before,” Nolan reminded him.
I nodded. He’d set Emersyn’s house on fire years ago when he was after her. Burned the place to the ground.
Whize drank more of his beer, his jaw tense.
“I think for now, it would be wise to watch the places that had—or could have—significant meaning to Anderson in town,” I offered.
Whize narrowed his eyes, and I could see how red-rimmed they were up close. “How do we determine that?”
“My brother Graham is compiling a list of potential targets,” I said. “I’ll send it your way.”
Whize nodded, seeming a little relieved. “I’ll request some extra patrols be put on those locations once I get the list.” He rubbed a palm over his chin. “Is there anything else I should know about?”
I shook my head. “Not at the moment but I’ll keep you informed, if you do the same.”
Whize drained the last of his beer. “I can do that.”
After that, he went up to get another round for the table, and the conversation shifted into something more casual.
The other guys started to talk about sports, the upcoming charity event for the coffee shop, and other random shit that normally wouldn’t have bothered me to sit through.
But I barely heard any of it.
I drank my beer and thought about Palmer.
Guilt was a tangled knot of briars in the pit of my stomach as I thought about kissing her. About how soft her mouth had been under mine. I realized I’d wanted to kiss her for a while. I’d wanted her almost since the first day I’d dragged her in from the snowstorm.
I should be focused on the fires. On Anderson. On keeping my head straight.
Instead, all I could think about was her—how badly I wanted to see her, and how wrong it felt to want that so much.
Whize eventually left after our third round of beers, leaving me buzzed and exhausted while Shawn and Nolan remained unusually talkative.
I glanced at them, knowing I couldn’t stay any longer yet dreading going home to an empty house.
My eyelids weighed a ton, and all I wanted was to close them.
Maybe I would manage to catch some sleep tonight after all.
The bar’s ambient noise seemed to fade in and out as exhaustion crept deeper into my bones. Everything that had happened the past couple of days had left me running on fumes. I took another swig of my beer. The thought of returning to my silent house made my stomach clench.
Shawn frowned at me. “I’m surprised you’ve sat here this long,” he said, studying me. “You’re normally itching to go home any time we manage to talk you into having a round with us.”
I grunted. “Yeah, well, there’s nothing to rush home to.” The words came out bitter and sharp-edged with loneliness.
Nolan and Shawn exchanged a look.
“What happened to your nanny?” Shawn asked.
Nolan leaned forward, concern etching deeper lines around his eyes. “And where’s my niece?”
I groaned. I couldn’t explain everything that had happened, and I didn’t want to. How could I possibly explain that the nanny I’d hired on a whim was a woman I had pulled out of a burning building the night my wife died?
“I sent them somewhere safer after the fire at Hearthstone,” I finally admitted, staring into my nearly empty glass. “They’re with my parents.”
A heavy silence fell over our table. I felt them staring at me, processing what this meant—that I believed the threat level was high enough to send my daughter away.
When I eventually faced them, Shawn’s dark hair was sticking up at an odd angle, like he’d just run his hands through it.
“I’m sorry, man,” he muttered.
Nolan studied me quietly, those green eyes—so like Jessica’s—seeing too much. “I can’t tell if you’re in such a mood because you miss your daughter that much or because of that blonde nanny of yours.”
I had never wanted to disappear right through the floor more than at that moment.
“Nolan, stop,” I warned, the misery clear in the low tones of my voice.
Nolan blinked, surprise flashing across his face.
My grip on the beer glass tightened. It was bad enough having these feelings crawling around inside me; I didn’t need them dissected over lukewarm beer by the brother of the woman I had left to die alone.
“Honestly,” Nolan continued, his voice softening, “it was about time for you to find someone again.” He paused. “My sister wouldn’t want you to spend the rest of your life alone.”
That hit me straight in the heart. A direct blow that made it suddenly hard to breathe.
I stood abruptly. I couldn’t do this. Not tonight. Not with the weight of an empty house waiting for me and the knowledge that Palmer was miles away, probably tucking Hailey in right now, reading her one more story because my daughter always managed to negotiate for “just one more.”
“I gotta go.”
I tossed enough cash on the table to cover my tab and headed for the door.
“Roman, wait,” Shawn called after me, but I kept moving.
I heard them scrambling to pay their tabs, cursing under their breath as they hurried to follow me. The cool night air hit me as I pushed through the door, clearing some of the alcohol fog from my head.
“Hold up, boss.” Shawn grabbed my shoulder. “You’re not driving, right?”
I glared at him, insulted by the implication.
“I was going to get an Uber,” I muttered, pulling out my phone. The lock screen was a picture of Hailey and Palmer grinning from ear to ear. Hailey had taken the photo herself and set it as my lock screen, and I hadn’t wanted to change it.
I quickly pressed the home button, banishing their faces.
“Let me.” Nolan took the phone from my unresisting fingers.
I watched as he ordered a ride, too tired to protest.
Shawn stood beside me, a solid presence outside of the bar. “They’ll be back before you know it,” he said softly.
I didn’t respond. We both knew it wasn’t that simple. Nothing was simple anymore—not with the truth that Palmer had confessed, the arson cases piling up, and Anderson at large.
“Car will be here in two minutes,” Nolan announced, handing my phone back. His expression had softened from teasing to genuine concern. “You know you can call me anytime, right? Not just about the investigation.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
The couple of minutes we waited for the Uber seemed like forever, and the trip home even longer. When we arrived and I climbed out and closed the door, Nolan’s words about Jessica not wanting me to be alone rang in my ears, unwelcome but impossible to ignore.
I stood on the sidewalk, watching the taillights of the car grow smaller as it disappeared down the street, leaving me alone with thoughts I didn’t want to face.
I turned toward the bed-and-breakfast. The place that had always been home was ominous in the darkness. It was all Victorian angles and shadows, windows like vacant eyes.
The cold night air nipped at my exposed skin, and I shoved my hands deep into my pockets, hunching my shoulders against the chill.
I fixated on my feet as I climbed the porch steps, deliberately avoiding the house where no one waited for me. I’d quickly grown accustomed to coming home to Palmer and Hailey. Now there would be nothing but hollow silence.
Just before reaching the front door, a prickling sensation crawled up the back of my neck. The hairs stood on end, and a surge of adrenaline cut through the alcohol-induced fog in my brain.
Someone was watching me.
I froze, my body instantly shifting from exhausted to alert. Years of emergency response training kicked in, sharpening my senses despite the beers. I carefully scanned the darkness surrounding the house, searching for any movement, any shape that didn’t belong.
Nothing.
The street was empty, the neighboring houses dark or with only the faint glow of television screens through curtains. No cars passed and no pedestrians walked the sidewalks.
The wind picked up, rustling the branches and making them creak and groan. My jaw tightened, and I shook my head. This was ridiculous. Anderson had me jumping at actual shadows now.
I sighed and walked inside.
As much as I missed Palmer and Hailey, at least I knew they were safe.