Politics. Some things never changed, no matter what continent you were on.
But Noah’s focus had narrowed to the woman being loaded into the ambulance. To the rope marks on her wrists. To the growing certainty that they’d stumbled onto something bigger than a simple rescue.
There was something to discover here, no doubt. He’d unearth the truth. Meanwhile, there was an unconscious woman who hadn’t gone the way of Annie Ross, thanks to them. Her story—the part they knew—deserved to be told.
CHAPTER 18
Noah watched the ambulance carrying the lone survivor of the fire disappear into the growing light of the day, his brain spinning. The scene around him buzzed with activity—firefighters securing the area, law enforcement documenting evidence, Officer Benally questioning witnesses with his stoic expression never wavering—but Noah barely registered any of it.
All he could see was how close they’d come to finding another body. If Dancer hadn’t picked up the scent when he did, if he and Sabrina hadn’t followed Jacob’s tip out here, all of this would have ended up much, much worse.
Granted, they’d just watched his cousin carry an unconscious woman from a burning building, a woman whose wrists and ankles had been bound. Circumstances were certainly bad enough.
His gaze sought out Ryan, who stood conferring with his team near the smoldering remains of the cabin. His cousin’s face was smudged with soot, a stark reminder how close he’d come to the flames.
And his expression was nothing short of haunted.
“You okay?” Noah called when Ryan finally broke away from his crew.
Ryan crossed to Noah, running a hand through sweat-dampened hair. He’d yet to set his helmet down, carrying it around with a white-knuckle grip that spoke volumes about his mental state. “Been better. If you guys hadn’t found her when you did…” He broke off, jaw clenching.
“But we did.” Noah studied his cousin’s face. Ryan had been a firefighter for a decade. He’d seen plenty of rescues, plenty of casualties. This one had gotten under his skin. “She’ll make it?”
“They think so.” Ryan’s gaze tracked to where the ambulance had disappeared. “Smoke inhalation, some burns, other injuries I don’t want to think about. She’s still unconscious. But she was breathing on her own when they loaded her up.”
The tension in Ryan’s voice raised the hair on Noah’s neck. “You’ve seen worse. What’s different about this one?”
Ryan’s gaze filled with something raw. And enough rage to level a city block. “The restraints. Someone tied her up and left her to burn. Who does that?”
“The same kind of person who dumps a body in Peavine Canyon,” Noah muttered without thinking.
“What?” Ryan’s head snapped up. “What body?”
Ugh.Noah’s mouth had run away with him. His cousin wouldn’t know about Annie Ross and probably shouldn’t know. He hesitated, weighing how much to share. But Ryan had that look—the same one from when they were kids and he and Jacob got into it over who would be the captain of the pirate ship or bat first in the lineup.
Ryan had won at least half the time.
“A woman’s body turned up in Peavine a few weeks ago,” Noah explained. “Young, no ID. Left in a place she had no business being, dressed all wrong for the terrain.”
“Like my victim.Ourvictim. The victim,” he corrected hastily, and cleared his throat as his expression darkened. “You thinking there’s a connection?”
“Maybe.” Noah chose his next words carefully. “The circumstances feel similar. Remote location, signs of foul play.”
“Am I reading you right that you’re taking more than a casual interest in this?”
Ryan knew about Noah’s history as an investigative reporter but not that he’d picked it back up. “Yeah. Feels like it might be time to see if I’ve still got the chops, you know?”
Better leave it at that. It wasn’t like Noah had impressed anyone with his stellar deduction skills thus far. The only reason he had any leads on this case was due to sheer luck and providence.
“Keep me posted?” The gravity of Ryan’s tone clued him in that this wasn’t an offhand request. “About anything you find out.”
Noah shot him a small smile. “Am I detecting a similar lack of casual interest?”
The look on his cousin’s face dried up any remnants of humor. “She barely weighs a buck-o-five, dude. I could feel her ribs as I carried her out of that hole where they’d left her to die. She had this fragileness about her, but she hadn’t given up yet, so she’s stronger than she looks. I—” he scrubbed at his neck sheepishly “—I can’t not be invested at this point.”
Yeah, no joke. Ryan was going to get whiplash as many times as he kept glancing toward the road where the ambulance had gone, but the protective edge in his voice told the real tale. Noah recognized what it meant because he felt it every time Sabrina walked into a potentially dangerous situation.
Like this one.
