Murray swung his pickup into the funeral home parking lot, throwing off her balance. The bandages around his palms slipped along the worn leather, and the steering wheel jerked to straighten itself.
Metland Mortuary was the closest funeral home equipped to handle the remains of both of their victims. Twenty-two miles outside of Zion National Park, the town of Hurricane—pronounced “Hur-i-cun”—wasn’t much better off than the tourist town she’d come to love right outside of the park. Without more than an emergency clinic—of which she was alltoo familiar with at this point—Springdale didn’t offer much in the way of a morgue. The Office of the Medical Examiner needed to rely on the closest funeral home to store and examine the bodies of the two victims recovered during this investigation. Beautiful green grass and flower-filled beds that had somehow survived the summer heat stretched across the property and highlighted white pillars and Jefferson-style architecture of the property. The stone sign spelling out the mortuary’s name welcomed the grieving and visiting in a combination of cursive and sans serif fonts so similar to the one where her parents’ service had been set. Must be some kind of funeral home template.
Her body rocked forward as Murray pulled into an available parking spot, and she moved to open her door before he could come around to do it for her. Summer heat blistered along her exposed skin, the cotton of her uniform doing nothing to allow the sweat dripping down her spine to dry. She’d had to change her uniform after spilling fresh hot coffee all down her front, but the burns lingered. She’d cleaned herself up and applied ointment on the worst spots. It was nothing compared to the pain assaulting her insides, but she wasn’t going to think about that. About how the dream she’d built up in her head since Murray had saved her at thirteen years old had shattered into a million pieces she’d never be able to put back together.
The investigation. Identifying the two victims they’d recovered. Finding the arsonist and predicting what he might do next. That was all she could think about. First step, force herself into that building and pretend her heart wasn’t on its last legs. She could do that. She was good at pretending.
Before she had a chance to head toward the double glass doors leading into the last place on earth she ever wanted to be, Murray blocked her escape. “How long are you going to punish me for what happened last night, Aslen?”
“I’m not punishing you.” She wasn’t. Right?
“You haven’t said a single word to me since we left your house.” Murray hiked his hands to his hips, accentuating the strong bulge of muscle in both arms and that terribly flat stomach she’d been pressed against last night as he’d held her.
She could still smell the hints of his soap clinging to her skin—clean and earthy. Feel his body heat through her pajamas. If she hadn’t already inspected her stomach after dousing herself in hot coffee, she would’ve sworn she would’ve found the exact location where his fingers had rested against her hip all night. As though he’d been afraid she would slip away in the night.
“Did you maybe stop to think it had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the fact we are visiting a funeral home?” Okay. That wasn’t entirely true, but she couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t keep hoping for him to come around, for another kiss, another night of him holding her, for him to stop trying to get out of being alone with her. This… It was tearing her apart being this close to him and notbeingwith him. Like that kiss had stripped away every ounce of armor she’d donned to protect herself all these years. Her nerve endings felt raw, a throwback to the first days after waking in that damn hospital in Salt Lake City and being told her parents hadn’t survived the fire she’d accidentally started. So, yeah, maybe she was punishing him by hanging on to this hurt, but she didn’t have the will or the energy to put the mask she’d carefully crafted for him in place.
Murray seemed to grow taller. Revitalized pain flashed in his gaze, and she hated the sour taste at the back of her throat that came with it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… I know you miss them. That you still have nightmares about the fire and that you didn’t want to stay in the hospital after your abduction.”
Of course she missed them. Her parents… They’d been everything to her at eight years old, even if she didn’t really know them like most kids didn’t know their parents. But they’d beenhers. There’d been family game nights where she sneezed soda through her nose from laughing so hard, surprise Christmas vacations, visits to the aquarium on the weekends and cuddles on the couch every night after dinner. Cooking lessons, even though she’d always made a giant mess or her mom didn’t trust her with a knife yet. Helping her dad clear out the garage and change the oil on Mom’s car so she didn’t have to take it in. Days where they’d taken advantage of early out hours from school to go to a movie or a hike or out to lunch. They’d been…happy. She’d been happy. And she’d burned it all down with one mistake. “It was a long time ago.”
The words didn’t feel as though she’d spoken them, and that old familiar sense of disconnect settled in. Hollowness. She’d felt herself slip into it so many times living with her foster mother, pretending her life belonged to someone else just to get through the day. When was the last time she’d felt like that? When she’d been truly happy? Aslen took in Murray’s unlimited patience as he waited for her to make the decision and had her answer. The times she’d laughed the hardest, smiled the most, allowed herself to be free of the grief—they’d all been with him.
But that kiss and his rejection had changed something in her last night—changed everything—and maybe for the first time, she was seeing Murray Simpson clearly. Not through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old girl crushing on the boy who’d saved her from being beaten to death, or the one who’d taken her into his family when her own foster mother neglected her. Or as a woman who’d let that crush transform into something else entirely and imagined them starting a life and a family together, one built to heal the loss they’d suffered.
But as a man who let fear rule his every decision.
That was why he’d made that promise twenty years ago. That was why he’d given up his career as a decorated Salt Lake City police officer and followed her to Zion to head the lawenforcement rangers. That was why he went out of his way to ensure the boundaries he set between them never shifted. That was why he’d tried to have her removed from fire management and stationed in the visitor’s center and why he’d knocked on her door last night. All of it done out of fear.
And Aslen didn’t know what to do with that, know how to fix it, and she didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with it anyhow. They had an investigation to focus on, an arsonist to find and potentially two families to inform. “We should get in there. The ME is waiting for us.”
He studied her as though he could see straight into that space where she locked the emotions and pieces of herself she didn’t dare let anyone witness. But then stepped out of her path.
She took the lead through the double doors, following the front desk receptionist’s directions down the stairs and into the cold room in the basement. The space was nothing like she’d seen on the crime dramas Danny forced on her every night. The single room had been painted in a dark gray with two oversize panels of florescent lights installed equal distance over a stainless steel examination table. Epoxy floor made to look like concrete—in the same shade as the walls—glittered with flecks of reflective material while builder-grade cabinets lined with linoleum configured a large L-shape around the room. Nothing like the sterility of a hospital room, though Aslen was certain everything in this space had been equally sanitized and cleaned. The temperature. That was what surprised her the most. Overall, the space was warm. Warmer than she’d expected as the medical examiner looked up at them from the opposite side of the exam table.
“You made it.” The medical examiner rolled his gloves free and rounded the table. Covered in a white long-sleeve gown and a mask complete with goggles, the man she’d met at the scene of the first fire where she’d found the victim in the maintenanceshed extended his hand in welcome. “Ranger Woods, nice to see you again.” He offered his hand to Murray. “Ranger Simpson. I have some updates for you concerning our new guest.”
Guest. It was then she noticed the charred bare feet exposed from beneath a white sheet behind the medical examiner, and a cold that had nothing to do with the environment she found herself in crested beneath her skin.
The ME collected another set of bright blue latex gloves from a box on the countertop and lowered the sheet to expose the blackened remains of the victim. Images of the first victim—the woman they had yet to identify—assaulted her along with the stench of burned flesh and hair, but this victim hadn’t remained in one solid piece. A wrist had detached as had the man’s leg below one knee. The arsonist had done a thorough job in ensuring his latest victim couldn’t be recovered. Just as he’d tried to do with Aslen. “As you can see, we had a bit of a puzzle to put together before I could do a complete examination, but I would say our current assessment is that these two victims were killed by the same offender.”
Aslen moved closer. While she wasn’t nearly as qualified with identifying victims as the medical examiner or a forensic anthropologist, she noted several differences between this victim and their first. “The arsonist doesn’t seem to have a type, which makes me think he’s targeting these victims for a specific reason. You told Ranger Simpson you recovered a photo with this body, like you did with the first?”
“I did.” The ME raised one finger as though he expected a light bulb to light up above his head before shifting toward the back counter for an evidence bag. “Considering the fire this victim was recovered from also included an accelerant, I can confirm DNA is not an option to identify the remains. Fingerprints are unreliable, and his teeth have been stripped, just like our female victim. However, while this photo sufferedfar more damage than the one found with the first victim, I’m confident in saying they are, in fact, the same photo found at both scenes.”
“He’s sending a message.” Aslen was afraid of that. That it would be too late before someone recognized what that message was and who it was intended to reach.
“Can I see that?” Murray grabbed for the evidence bag then handed it off to her. “Look familiar?”
Confusion warred with an innate compulsion to see what he was seeing, to live up to every hope he had in her to help solve this case before someone else got hurt. Aslen shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Really? Because I’ve seen this photo before.” He nodded toward the bag in her hand. “In your house.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
He could see the smoke from the freeway.
The closer they approached Aslen’s house, the harder his stomach clenched.
