Chapter 4

FOUR

S amantha led the way out of the residential house and back to the car, parked at the curb. Her department vehicle was an old dark-red Toyota with a hundred fifty thousand miles on it, and temperature controls that only worked when they chose to.

She beeped the locks and opened the driver's door.

On the other side of the car, Romeo pulled open his door. "So that was a bust."

She tipped her head to the side in a kind of nod and slid in. "Her dad, I'm guessing. He convinced her not to say anything."

"So the kid gets away with harassing her?"

Samantha pulled the car away from the curb. "Nothing we can do with no testimony and no physical evidence."

It would be a measure of the kind of cop he was, what Romeo did when his hands were tied in an investigation. How they reacted said a lot about a person's character when they had no power in a situation.

As for her, she gripped the wheel. Maybe just more used to it? Feeling powerless never sat right. Who on earth would say that they were fine with it? She just had more experience—not just in her years on the job. She knew what it felt like to have no control.

Or no voice, the way so many assumed of her sister.

Plenty of people had dismissed Bristol as having no feelings, or no will, just because she had no way to communicate with a hearing person who didn't know her language. Just because she couldn't understand what a person said out loud didn't mean she had nothing to say. That wasn't all communication could be—or should be.

Life was about adapting to the situation you were in.

Making the best of it.

Romeo tapped his phone on his leg. "I'll text my sister. She's SRO at the East Benson High School. Maybe she knows this kid and she can keep an eye on him."

Samantha nodded.

"And in the meantime, you can tell me who your friend was."

She smiled but didn't open her lips. Of course, he asked again. He'd been asking all day. Almost as if he'd fallen in love at first sight this morning at the diner—with her sister.

"She's who you were having breakfast with, right?"

"Correct." And they didn't look alike enough that he'd immediately pegged them as siblings. Bristol looked like their mother, while Samantha took after their father.

"You can't even tell me her name?"

Samantha figured her sister had already looked Romeo up online if he had profiles. A lot of cops didn't keep social media except anonymous accounts for work. Bristol probably knew everything about him.

"You're a detective." Samantha shrugged one shoulder. "Detect."

Romeo shifted in his seat. "This is a test of the rookie. A hazing thing."

"If it helps you sleep at night."

"Do you do this to all your partners?" he asked.

"To be fair, I'm usually the rookie," she replied. "Guess you drew the short straw getting me as your training partner."

"Or they're easing me in gently."

She laughed. "Right. That's a cop thing to do, for sure."

"Good point. My first training officer out of the academy didn't let me drive for six months."

She pulled up at a stoplight and looked over. "I probably won't make you wait that long."

"I appreciate it."

She looked to the front again, a smile stretching her lips wide.

"What about for old times' sake?" he pressed. "Is that enough for you to tell me who she is?"

"You're really gonna pull the ‘we got blown up together' card?"

"Will it work?"

She chuckled, trying to decide if she was hungry enough for food or if they should just hit a gas station and get a soda. "You don't even remember it. You were in critical condition, and I hit my head. We didn't go through a foxhole moment together."

"Shame."

"How have we never talked about what you do remember?"

He fiddled with the radio dials but didn't change anything. "I get flashes of entering the house sometimes. I know it had to do with the case Stella and Eric were working, those domestic terror guys in the woods who turned out to be his family. I remember every moment of recovery. Every inch I had to push to get back what the injury was trying to take from me."

"I remember waking up after." Throwing up. A screaming headache.

The rest of it…those things she tried not to think about. Ever.

That day was a dividing line in her life between who she had been before and who she was now. The life she would've lived if the day had gone differently. Her life as it was, and now. This.

Her phone buzzed and lit up in the bracket on her dash, to the left of the steering wheel. "What's that about?"

He looked at his own cell. "Callout from dispatch. All available units. It's a couple blocks from here. There's a fire, and the department has firefighters trapped. They need crowd control."

She grabbed the radio out of the cupholder and handed it to him. "Call us in as responding." Samantha flipped the lights and sirens on and waited for traffic to slow. She flipped a U-turn in the middle of the street and tapped her phone until it showed her directions to the address.

Then she hit the gas.

"Crowd control?"

Yeah, not their usual thing.

But that area? If he was on shift, he would be there.

"There's a firefighter…" How was she supposed to explain it? "I know him." She gripped the wheel, flying through intersections. Just a few miles away. Was he all right? It was enough to convince her to pray. He believed. She believed. It was just that the knowledge never did her any good.

It never made her life better.

Faith didn't change the fact that anytime she had something good, it was taken away.

Gone.

"Overtime money, and more time to convince you to give me her number?" Romeo paused. "We can check on your friend."

Samantha didn't respond to that. Right now she had to keep things tight, get herself in check. Going this fast she had to be far more careful than usual, or a quick trip could turn deadly before they even got to the scene.

A trickle of smoke scented air floated into the interior of the car.

When she turned the corner onto the street where the industrial district was packed together, the yellow glow of flames came into view.

The building had toppled in on itself.

"That's bad," Romeo said. "We need to get these people back. They might be looking to help, but they don't have gear."

Two more fire trucks turned the corner behind them. Samantha got out of the way and decided to just park here. They pulled on PD windbreakers and headed over. Romeo had the radio, and she pocketed her cell phone. Badge on her belt. Gun on her hip. As if any of it would protect her from flames.

That was his job.

Was he even here?

"Looking for your friend?"

She glanced at Romeo, walking beside her down the waterlogged sidewalk. They stepped over a fire department hose and came up to a crowd of about eight people. Two cops. "All right, everyone!" Samantha called out. "Back up, and keep going. We need to clear this area!"

Romeo started ushering people back.

"Sergeant!" She got the attention of the cop who ranked highest, at least so far. "Where do you want us?"

"We'll get a barricade up. If you find anyone on this side of it, send them my way."

"Copy that, Sarge." She didn't know him, just the uniform and the chevrons on his sleeves. But the fact she'd been ordered to have free reign of this side of the divider between civilians and first responders meant she could look for Julio.

There.

She spotted his truck, the commander on scene vehicle he drove. Captain over the trucks that had responded and the personnel who worked on them.

"Where are you, Julio?"

Never mind that she had no right to care. No right to walk in and demand an update from a bunch of firefighters she'd either never met or hadn't spoken to in years.

Samantha walked around, looking for the fire department on scene commander. They were all working the scene—like these two disheveled firefighters pulling an older man from the rubble.

Someone yelled, "Get me airbags! We need to get this wall stabilized." But it wasn't him. It was a lieutenant.

She shouldn't disturb them. There was more at stake here than her care for one man. Surely, he was all right.

You wouldn't be that cruel, would You?

Months ago, she'd been trapped in a house. Julio had responded with firefighters and helped get her out.

She hadn't seen him since.

Her stomach roiled. She checked her phone and decided to search for opportunistic civilians on her way to reconvene with her partner.

Romeo stood by the crowd, talking to a couple, and another man. As she approached, she heard him say, "…let the first responders do their jobs."

She stood beside him. "It's pretty chaotic over there. If we steer clear, they'll be able to focus."

Romeo nodded.

The couple turned away. Down the street, a news van pulled up.

"Great," she muttered.

Romeo hissed a breath. "Of course, it's my ex."

Samantha looked at him. "Maxine Careu is your ex?"

"Not my finest moment." Even in the darker evening light, his cheeks flushed. "I broke it off a few months ago, and she doesn't seem to have got the message."

As far as Samantha was concerned, that was even more reason not to give him her sister's number. Bristol didn't need to get to know a guy who went through women the way most people went through a loaf of bread. They probably wouldn't even be able to have a basic conversation.

"Romeo!" Maxine waved, trotting over on ridiculous heels.

One of the people beside Samantha snorted.

Behind Maxine, a burly guy carried a camera over his shoulder. Maxine stopped in front of them and smoothed down her hair. She batted her eyelashes at Romeo, probably determined to let him know exactly what he was missing. "Can you tell us what's happening here?"

Romeo motioned to the building on fire. "Pretty sure it's exactly what it looks like." There was a definite undercurrent of unlike you going on in his tone. "Stay back and let the firefighters do their jobs."

Maxine blinked, evidently surprised to be rejected so cleanly. She glanced at Samantha, and her eyes lit. "Start rolling." She waved her cameraman over.

He lifted the camera, a white light on the front.

"Aren't you the officer who just this morning foiled an armed robbery and saved a man from having a heart attack?"

It's my job.

She could hear the Intelligence sergeant reading her the riot act for saying that already, and she hadn't even spoken aloud. "Please remain behind the barricade, ma'am."

More fire trucks pulled in, and a chief's SUV. She'd met Greyson briefly, enough to know he was a good guy.

Her stomach knotted with worry for Julio. Strong enough she didn't realize she'd gone up to their huddle until she stood right beside the pocket of firefighters. The ones who'd just arrived and three others, covered in soot and ash, and sweat.

One said, "It's primed for a secondary collapse, and there won't be anything we can do about it."

"I want a head count." Greyson, the fire chief at Julio's house, ran a hand down his face. "I want to know who is unaccounted for." He looked around, spotted her but didn't get distracted by the fact she was listening. "Where is the captain?"

"Coda went inside," the firefighter reported. "Right after the collapse. He pulled us out and then went back in. We haven't heard from him."

"Get to work."

They all disbursed, and Greyson fished out his radio. "This is Chief Frayer. I am in command of this scene. If you are within reach of a radio and able to use it, call out. We will find you." Then he turned to Samantha. "Wanna help?"

"What do you want me to do?"