Chapter 6

“I tookthe keys off the hook and used your ATV to get here,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind the intrusion.”

“What’s mine is yours.”

“Except privacy apparently,” she said, her smile at odds with the iciness of her voice.

Boone cleared his throat and asked, “How did you get in?”

“Someone was leaving through the back door. Just good timing I guess. I’m assuming everyone already knows who I am, otherwise he would have asked what I was doing instead of holding the door open for me.”

Blaze massaged the back of his neck as the tension there grew tighter.

“Anyway,” she said. “I saw a couple of boats hitched up to pickup trucks out back. Any chance I could borrow one so I can start tracking my skip? I’m thinking he’s probably hiding in a barn or an empty house. And he would’ve tried to get as far outside of town as possible before the storm hit to reduce his chances of being seen.”

“Yeah, that’s the same conclusion we came to.” Blaze moved to the maps tacked onto the wall and pointed to a spot with his finger. “These are your two most likely areas. He would’ve had a lot of miles to cover before the storm hit. Laurel Valley is bigger in square miles than it looks, and the ranches cover hundreds of acres. The next town over is Myrna Springs, but it’s another two-hour drive with nothing in between, so I doubt he’d have kept going before the storm hit.”

“Any empty buildings in that area?” she asked.

“A few. Mostly barns and empty cabins people rent out during the season. They’re most likely all vacant now. The people around here know flooding is a possibility during the rainy season so houses are built up on higher ground. The barns too. It’s just the overflow from the lakes that make the roads flood like this.”

“What kind of vehicle was he driving?” Boone asked, moving to stand beside them so he could see the maps.

Lily kept her gaze on the map, trying to run scenarios in her head while not letting how close Blaze was standing to her make her uncomfortable. “He stole a dark blue Tahoe in South Dakota. I found a gas station attendant who remembered seeing it once we crossed the border into Idaho, and Linda from The Lampstand remembered seeing a dark SUV driving through town yesterday morning. She said she only noticed it because he was impatient to pass her while she was trying to park. There aren’t a lot of places to stop out here for him to boost another, so I have to assume he’s still driving the Tahoe.”

“Any word of an abandoned vehicle sighting?” Blaze asked Boone, since Boone had been on call all morning.

“Nothing yet. But sometimes those back roads don’t have a car on them for days. There are cabins here and here,” Boone said, circling the spots on the map. “One of them is in the flood zone, so unless he’s an idiot, he’s probably not camped out there. But the other one has possibilities. You’ll definitely need a boat to get there though.”

“I’ll take her,” Blaze said. “You’ve got Earl and his posse to deal with.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” Boone said dryly. “Maybe I’ll just get them to meet me at the River Rock Bar and get them drunk so I can keep them out of my hair.”

“You always have the best ideas. Maybe I should give you a raise.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt your male-bonding time, but I don’t need a guide. I can take the boat and be back before it gets dark.”

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Blaze said. “Those vehicles are police property. So that means you’re stuck with me.”

Her smile was sharp as a knife, and Blaze felt the cut from where he stood. “Let’s get moving then. If we’re lucky, I can be back in New York with my skip by this time tomorrow.”

“Let’s get moving then. It’s been a while since I’ve been to New York.”

Boone cleared his throat. “I just wanted to remind y’all this is my office, so I’m not leaving if things are about to get interesting.”

Lily gave them both a frosty look and left, and Blaze narrowed his eyes at his friend.

“Hey,” Boone said, holding up his hands. “Don’t get mad at me. I told you not to look.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Blaze said.

“And I’m happy to cover for you if you need to take a few days to chase your wife across the country.”

“Let’s keep that part on the down-low,” Blaze said, wondering if anyone overheard him.

“You know marriage licenses are public record,” he said. “I’ll bet you a hundred bucks there’s not a single person who doesn’t know you’re married. Including your mother.”

“I’m leaving now,” Blaze said, his head pounding more than when he’d come in.

“Watch your six.”

* * *

Water and mud slushed up from the tires of Blaze’s truck and the wipers swished frantically in the thankless task of clearing the windshield.

The trek from downtown Laurel Valley to the country roads was a slow and painstaking process. Limbs had fallen across the roads, and debris, like trash cans and other items found in yards, had been carried some distance from their homes.

Lily had been silent since they’d left the police station, and he could feel the hurt and anger emanating off her in waves. He knew she felt like he’d pried into her private life—maybe he had—but they were husband and wife and they had a lot to learn about each other. He had to get her to trust him with the deepest part of herself. That was the only way they could make their marriage work.

“Why did you say you hadn’t been a good cop?” Blaze asked, breaking the silence. “I know you’re angry at me for reading deeper into your file. But I’d already told you I did a background check on you. You had to suspect that I might know or could find out what happened to you on the job.”

“You had no right looking into my private life.”

“You’re right,” he said. “And I should have taken Boone’s advice and asked you straight out. You have nightmares.”

She gasped and looked at him in surprise.

“I recognize in you what I’ve dealt with myself,” he said. “We all carry horrors from this job. And reading your file and what happened to you was like looking at my own or any number of other cops and soldiers I’ve worked with over the years. And there was nothing in your file that said you were anything but a good cop. If you’d stayed on you’d have risen up the ranks quickly. You already had commendations and you were at the top of your academy class.”

“I know what kind of cop I was better than anything written in those papers. I don’t want to talk about it or rehash the past. I can’t talk about it.”

She turned her head and looked out the side window, but he’d noticed the way her voice had cracked at the end. Blaze gripped the steering wheel a little tighter in frustration. Also in trepidation, because what he was about to say hadn’t been spoken before. Not even to Colt, and Colt knew almost everything about him.

“I was career military,” he said softly, his voice barely audible over the rain. “I’m thirty-six, by the way. I enlisted just after 9/11 and hit the ground running. I was a Ranger, so my unit was put in some pretty sticky situations. Over and over again we’d be deployed and come back as a whole unit. When my commanding officer took retirement, his job was offered to me.”

Lily had turned some in her seat so her attention was focused on him. Blaze kept his eyes on the road, sticking toward the high ground and looking for a good place to unhitch the boat. They wouldn’t be dry and warm for much longer.

“It’s harder when you’re in command,” he said. “The sense of responsibility weighs on you. Your only thought going in and out is to make sure your men survive and to leave no one behind. Six years ago my unit was deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan. There were eight of us doing a routine sweep when we heard yells—terrified screams of women and children and shouting from men. Militant leaders had set a trap for us, using children as bait, though we didn’t know at the time that the children were their own—ones they were already training to join their ranks.”

He felt the sympathy—the pity—in her stare, but she remained silent.

“The terrorists had gathered the children in the middle of the street, holding guns to their heads while they yelled for us to come out and see what we had caused. My men followed procedure and surrounded them. My sharpshooters were in place, and I’d called for an extra unit to come back us up. But one of my rookies didn’t cover himself as he should have—a simple mistake he’d never get the chance to correct. They’d placed shooters at the top of the buildings to pick us off, and they took the shot as soon as they saw him.”

Blaze would’ve given anything for a drink—something to wet his throat so the words came out easier, and something to burn on the way down so it reminded him he was still alive. But there was nothing, so he forged ahead.

“All hell broke loose. Bullets flying from every direction. There was nothing to do but cover and wait for help to arrive. By the time it was over, I’d lost all but two of my men.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I could’ve made different choices,” he said, pulling the truck to a stop and backing up to position the boat. “It’s torture to hold command, to make choices and demand that your men continue to follow orders even when they’re dropping like flies around you. The two who survived?—”

He paused and turned off the engine, the silence deafening as he gathered his thoughts. “We managed to regroup and stick together until the backup units came to lay down cover so we could get out. But we watched as the ones firing at us began to seek out the fallen soldiers and gather their bodies in a pile. They doused them with gasoline and set them on fire while we stayed hidden—helpless to do anything about it.” His breath was controlled as he let it out softly. “Make sure your men survive and leave no one behind. I failed on both accounts.”

She reached out hesitantly and took his hand, squeezing it gently. “I understand what you’re saying, and I know this wasn’t easy for you to tell me. Why did you?”

“Because I understand what it’s like to feel like you didn’t do enough. And I understand what it feels like to have no one to share it with when the nightmares wake you up at night. I have more family than you could ever imagine, and Colt has been my best friend for a lifetime. But there are some things you can’t share with the people you love, because they could never hope to understand. But I can share with you. Not only because I love you, but because I know you do understand.

“After the mission in Kandahar was finished and I’d turned in my retirement papers, I pretty much roamed aimlessly for an entire year, living off my pension and traveling the world. I didn’t call home often, and I know my family was worried about me. But then one day I found myself back in Laurel Valley and I met a guy in the gym who was a recruiter for the DEA.

“We talked and became friends of a sort,” Blaze said. “It turned out he wasn’t just a recruiter for the DEA, but he was also a federal psychologist. He’s the only person I ever told about what happened on that mission, and it freed something in me I didn’t know I needed. It also turned out that I had a special set of skills that the feds needed for a very specific mission. I hadn’t realized the drugs and trafficking had become such a problem.

“Law enforcement was a good fit for me,” he said. “And I found myself back in a position of command after Sheriff Cole decided to retire and appointed me in his place. But what I’ve also found is the guilt of surviving doesn’t weigh quite as heavily as it once did.”

“What are you saying?” she asked, her voice raspy with emotion.

“I’m saying it doesn’t hurt to lean on someone every once in a while. And I’d love to be that person for you.”