Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Jameson
“ O h, thank goodness you boys are here; the beeping is driving me batty.” Mrs. Wallace said, looking somewhat exasperated as we approached where she was standing on her front lawn.
“Not to worry, we’ll check things out. You did the right thing by calling us. Carbon monoxide is odorless but deadly,” Cruz reassured her.
“I was napping on the couch and even without my hearing aids in, it’s crazy loud.”
“That’s by design, Mrs. Wallace. Just wait out here while I check the levels inside.”
“Please be careful, Jameson. I can’t afford to have your mom upset with me if anything were to happen to you.”
“No worries, ma’am, I’ve got all the protective gear I need.”
It was common practice to be dispatched to a call to check on a carbon monoxide alarm, a smoke alarm, or both, if it were a combined unit, going off without any sign of anything being amiss. Thankfully, most of the time, it was because of an expired battery or dust buildup.
After completing a walk-through of the home and being happy with the numbers on my QRAE II multi-gas detector, I went back to the front yard.
“All clear inside. When was the last time you changed the batteries in the units?”
“Oh, dear . . . I?—”
“That’s okay; even though they are hardwired, the units still have batteries inside.”
“Gosh, that was my late husband’s job. I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”
“All good, I’ll swap them out for you. I’ll even set a reminder on my phone to go off every six months, and I’ll swing by and take care of it for you.”
“You are such a good boy, Jameson; thank you for your kindness.”
“It’s my pleasure.”
I replaced the old batteries, inspected the wiring, and used her vacuum to clean the detectors. Most people often overlooked the importance of cleaning the units, failing to recognize how much dust and other particles could accumulate inside the chamber. The buildup over time made the sensor exceedingly sensitive, which led to false alarms. That being said, I’d much rather get a call like this over a house fire or carbon monoxide poisoning any day of the week.
“You’re in an awfully good mood today, Fisher,” Cruz piped up on the ride back to the station.
“I’m always in a good mood.”
“Yeah, but today you’re extra.”
“Just happy is all.” And why wouldn’t I be? I finally had the girl I’d loved for far too long from a distance, and I was just thankful as fuck for every minute we spent together.
“Does a certain red-headed paramedic have anything to do with the goofy grin on your face right now?”
“Yeeeaaah, buddy.” I drawled, adding extra emphasis for effect since there was no hiding the way she affected me.
“Well, it’s about fucking time, my friend. I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Looks like your brother is pulling into the station up ahead.” I looked up as Jaxon pulled his black Dodge Charger beside the large bay doors.
After Cruz backed the fire engine into the apparatus bay, I jumped down from the rig and made my way outside.
“Hey, what’s up, bro-ski?”
“My, my, someone’s awfully chipper today.”
“What is with everyone? Can’t a guy just be ridiculously happy?”
“I’m just busting your balls; I know it’s because you and Arizona are finally hooking up.”
“What! How?” My brows knitted together in confusion since we thought we had been discreet.
“Twins, remember.”
“What the fuck, man? You best get out of my head because I don’t need you reading my thoughts when it comes to my girl.”
“Relax, would you? I was at Boden’s discussing a case, and he mentioned her Jeep had been parked in your driveway quite a bit as of late.”
“Didn’t realize y’all were keeping tabs on us.”
“The pitfalls of living in a small town, brother, nothing stays a secret for long.”
“Guess I don’t need to take a full-page ad out in the paper, then.” I snickered. “Anyway, what brings you by the station?”
“I was hoping we could talk somewhere private, maybe Dad’s office.”
“Yeah, of course.”
We had only made it a few steps inside when the alert tones chimed. “Additional medical assistance required at twenty-four hundred Spruce Lane. Unresponsive seventy-two-year-old male, history of diabetes, suspected cardiac episode.”
A chill threaded down my spine.
“That’s Malcolm’s place, right?” Jaxon asked.
“Yeah, and Ari and Alex should already be on the scene.”
I pulled out my phone and called her, but it went straight to voicemail.
“ You’ve reached the voicemail for Arizona. Please leave me a message, and I’ll get back to you soon .”
“Ari, I need you to call me back. It’s urgent.”
Jaxon’s radio then crackled to life. “Calling any available unit in the area of twenty-four hundred Spruce Lane to report to the scene for suspicious activity. Please be advised one paramedic is unresponsive to radio dispatch.”
“Fuck.” I pounded the side of the fire truck as a fear unlike anything I’d ever experienced didn’t just trickle in, it slammed into me at full force. Knocking the wind out of my lungs as my heart began racing uncontrollably.
Jaxon grabbed my arm and pulled me toward his cruiser.
“Don’t race to conclusions—” His voice sounded like we were in a tunnel underwater.
“Don’t fucking tell me how to react because if anything happens to her . . .” I couldn’t even finish the thought. There were no ends of the earth I wouldn’t go to to protect her. “Fucking hell, drive faster, would you.”
Jaxon beat the second ambulance to the scene, but judging by the sirens’ sounds, Reed and Greer weren’t far behind as we pulled up behind Arizona’s parked ambulance. Other than it sitting parked with no lights, nothing seemed amiss.
“Me first.” Jaxon pinned me with a look that drove home the reality of what could be on the other side of the door.
I followed behind him in his footsteps, taking in the scene.
The house was eerily silent.
The air was heavy, and everything about it felt wrong when we rounded the corner toward the bedrooms. When we got to Malcolm’s bedroom, we found him on the bed with no sign of Ari or Alex. I rounded the corner of the bed and found all the supplies from Ari’s jump bag scattered everywhere across the floor.
“There are definite signs of a struggle; she was here.”
I immediately checked for Malcolm’s pulse; it was faint, and I noted something had to have happened after she got him on oxygen and administered an IV line since there was no sign of the ECG machine, just a tube of glucose gel lying beside him on the bed.
“Malcolm, can you hear me?” I shook his shoulder. “Malcolm, come on, man, I need you to wake up. Arizona is missing, and I need you to tell me if you saw anything.” I shook him again. “Malcolm, did you hear me? Arizona is missing.”
“Paramedics just pulled up,” Jaxon called out from the hallway.
“None of this makes any sense. Where’s Ari?”
“We’ll find her.” He tried to reassure me.
“There is no other option here, what if—” God, I couldn’t even think about it.
Bile churned violently in the back of my throat, burning my esophagus. I stood and threaded my fingers through my hair, gripping the ends forcefully while I paced the small space. Reed and Greer had since taken over treating Malcolm and hooked up leads on his chest to check his heart.
“I’m going to head across the street and see if anyone has doorbell footage.”
Jaxon’s words barely registered, but my clarity snapped back into focus when I caught sight of a syringe lying against the bed skirt on the floor.
“Don’t touch this needle,” I shouted at the guys. “I gotta grab something.”
I ran to the kitchen and rifled through the drawers until I found a box of Ziploc bags.
The guys had Malcolm loaded on the gurney, and whatever they’d done, I could see the color returning to his cheeks. “Tell me he’ll be good.”
“He needs overnight observation. Once his levels are within a healthy range, he can return home.”
“Thanks for taking over. I gotta get this to Jaxon.” I waved the plastic bag in my hand.
It had been five hours without any leads, answers, or signs of Arizona.
The only thing we knew and had confirmation on was the needle I found tested positive for ketamine. Meaning she would have been rendered unconscious in under a minute. Totally incapacitated and vulnerable, all in the hands of some unknown psychopath.
My body was vibrating with anger and despair, with nowhere to channel it. I’d never felt so fucking helpless, so out of my mind with worry. It was all-consuming, as my brain couldn’t stop imagining all the godforsaken scenarios she could be in.
“Come and sit, son. You’re going to wear a hole in my carpet, and my wife picked it out, so there will be no replacing it.”
“How are you so calm?” I asked Arizona’s dad.
“While that might be the vibe I’m giving off, I’m far from it. I just . . .” He shook his head. “I can’t let myself go there. I have to remain positive; I need to stay strong because, depending on what situation we get our girl back in, she’s going to need us.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do if—” I choked, raising my fist to my mouth as I bit back the emotions raging a war inside.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We need to stay positive.”
“None of this makes any sense. Did Ari ever say anything to you? Mention someone bothering her or any weird suspicious activity lately?”
Our town was small and often uneventful, although, after Lakelyn’s kidnapping, people were still a little on edge.
“No, not that I can think of, but you know her. She’s tough and can hold her own.”
“She guards herself too.”
“That she does. Arizona likes to keep people at arm’s length, sometimes even me, because she doesn’t want me to worry, but I see her. A parent always knows.”
My phone vibrated on the couch cushion beside me.
Jaxon: Meet me at the station.
Me: Did you find Ari?
Jaxon: No, got a lead. Just get here.
“That was my brother. He’s got a lead. I’ll call you once I know what’s going on.”
“Jameson.” He stood from his recliner with a look of desperation swirling in his eyes. “Bring our girl home.”
“I’ll die trying, sir.”
I had Jaxon drop me off at Dustin’s place after we left Malcolm’s. I needed to be the one to tell him and make sure he was okay. The man had had his fair share of heartbreak, and it nearly broke me telling him that his daughter was now missing. Heck, he’d barely been back home after surviving the fire in the greenhouse.
The greenhouse.
What if the fire wasn’t an accident? I’d been so consumed with Arizona that I was out of the loop on where the fire investigation stood, and as I sprinted down Main Street toward the police station, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a connection.
When I arrived, my lungs burned with adrenaline, and my head filled with endless what-ifs.
“Took you long enough,” Jaxon mocked.
“Now’s not the time, you fucker; tell me what you got.”
“I came to the station earlier because I wanted to talk to you and Dad about a call I got from the fire Marshall’s office this morning. They suspect arson at Dustin’s property and want me to bring him in for questioning.”
“There’s no fucking way Dustin would have purposely set the greenhouse on fire; it means too much to him and Ari.”
“That was my first thought too. I highly doubt Dustin would have plugged a space heater into a power strip and faced it toward a bank of grow light switches, causing?—”
“An electrical fire.” I finished his sentence.
“Exactly. He would know power strips aren’t designed to handle that kind of current flow, so whoever did it tried to make it look like an accident. I think there’s a bigger motive at play here.”
“Like what? You think someone is targeting her directly?”
“With her now missing under suspicious circumstances, it’s a possibility we have to explore. What if someone wants Arizona for themselves? The best way to do that is to eliminate those closest to her who could threaten their goal.”
“Jesus, fuck! When I get my hands on?—”
“I’d advise you not to finish that sentence, brother, though I understand emotions are high.”
“The thought of her out there, somewhere, hurt or worse . . .” I rubbed my palm over my chest. “We need to find her, Jaxon.”
“We will, we just have to be diligent and?—”
“Fisher, the black van we got a partial plate on was just spotted by some hikers abandoned up on Number Five,” Boden announced after he rushed into my brother’s office. “They called it in because they were concerned by the blood they saw in the back cargo area.”
I jumped out of my seat, ready to peel out of the police station, until Boden’s following words stopped me dead in my tracks.
“I’ve also got a possible photo of our suspect pulled from highway patrol cameras taken yesterday. I’m not sure if it’s linked to him or was stolen, as the name registered with the plates doesn’t match the age of the man in the photo identification in the system.”
“Let me see.”
“It’s grainy, but it’s something to go on,” he said as he handed me his phone.
My eyes widened with alarm as I zoomed in on the image, and the hairs on the back of my neck and arms stood on end.
I recognized the suspect.
I looked up at my brothers—one by blood, the other in name—as the first tear rolled down my cheek, and my body began to tremble as I was the reason my girl had been taken.
“This is all my fault.” I fell to my knees, the weight of everything crashing down on me, leaving me broken and beside myself with guilt. “It’s all my fault.”