An assault? Murray pinched the phone between his shoulder and jaw, pen at the ready. This was it. Their first real lead into finding out who’d come after Aslen. “Do the pins have traceable serial numbers?”
“They do. All registered.” He could practically hear the smile in the ME’s voice. “Your victim is Randy Kennex, age sixty-eight from Provo, Utah. Married to Elizabeth Kennex, presumably the female victim you recovered from the first fire, but I’ll need more time to establish her identity considering the damage done to the remains.”
He knew that name. Understanding hit. Followed quickly by a flood of adrenaline as Murray raced for the door. He didn’t bother locking it behind him. If anyone broke in, they could have what little he’d brought with him from Salt Lake City. None ofit mattered compared to Aslen’s life. “Thank you. I’ll call you back.”
Disconnecting the call, he extracted his keys and shoved himself behind the wheel of his pickup. He tapped Chief Higgins’s information. The line connected almost instantly. “Higgins, where is Danny Kennex stationed today?”
“Danny Kennex? Thought you liked to keep tabs on the other one. Woods.” Higgins’s voice grated on his every nerve.
Murray threw the truck into Reverse and rocketed out of the driveway, his heart thudding ten times its normal speed. “Where is Danny assigned today, damn it?”
“All right. All right. Keep your shirt on.” Rustling told him the chief was likely stationed at his desk like the good administrator he’d become in the past decade. “Kennex. Kennex. Here we go. She’s out at Lava Point campground today. I had her working with one of your rangers to identify the accelerant your arsonist used to blow the place up. Haven’t heard from her in a while though.”
Lava Point.
“Get a hold of her.” Murray broke a few dozen traffic laws as he barreled through Springdale, heading straight for Zion’s main entrance. The sticker on his windshield would get him past the main gate, but visitor vehicles were already backing up. Twenty to thirty cars in each lane as the temperatures dropped with the onset of evening. Aslen was thrown off enough by the fire that’d brought down her and Danny’s house that she would want to get eyes on her friend as soon as possible. That was where she’d gone. “Now. I need to know if Aslen’s with her.”
“Listen here, Simpson.” The chief’s voice hardened a touch, which was still impressive for a man with so many years out of the field. “I went along with your request when it came to your little girlfriend because I was doing you a favor I intended to call in when I needed something from law enforcement, but I havebeen running this department longer than you’ve been alive, and I’m sure as hell not going to let some hotshot order me around. You want Kennex? Go find her yourself.”
The call ended.
Panic contorted and writhed until it became nothing but unfiltered rage. Murray threw his phone against the dashboard, not bothering to dodge exploding glass. The device hit the passenger side floor as his bellow filled the cabin of the truck. He slammed his hands against the steering wheel. Every emotion he’d swallowed over the years escaped, tearing up the skin in his throat. All the pain, the loneliness, the loss. His parents had been his pillars right up until their deaths. Examples of true love and soulmates wrapped into one. They’d loved each other so much his father hadn’t been able to live more than a few months without his wife, and Murray had wanted nothing more than to have what they did when he grew up. He thought Aslen had been that woman for him, his other half who understood the darkest parts of him and loved him anyway. His parents had thought so, too.
Right up until Jackson had disappeared on that hike. When he’d realized that love hurt more than it healed. That it had the power to destroy him, but he couldn’t bury those feelings anymore. He couldn’t lose Aslen. He loved her. Had been in love with her for over twenty years. Her random facts, her bravery for facing her fear of fire every day on the job, her affinity for sentimental anniversaries and eating entire rolls of uncooked cookie dough as comfort food.
He loved her. Because the sad truth was protecting this wound in his chest had started protecting him from feeling anything for anyone again, and so he’d shielded the wound even harder. But he never would’ve met Aslen—the greatest light in his life—if it hadn’t been for their circumstances. Their lives had crashed and burned in so many ways, but they remained.
She’d never given up on him. Not like he’d given up on her.
Shouts reached through the windows as he forced his way through the onslaught of visitors at the main gate. She’d been gone for twenty minutes. Getting farther and farther away from him. Out of reach. This. This was what he’d feared all these years. That Aslen would reach her limit and finally accept that he wasn’t good enough for her. That he wouldn’t ever be good enough for her.
But Murray wasn’t finished with her. Not even close.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“You weren’t supposed to hurt her.”
Aslen mentally struggled through the haze that’d taken over. The ground bit into her shoulder, tingling pinpricks dancing in her fingers. She rolled her head to one side. Pain threatened to splinter her brain in half. It took more effort than it should have to open her eyes. Her attention went straight to the swaying pine tree overhead. The sky had turned a bruising purple, bluer to the right and lighter to the left.
“She’ll lead the police right to us.” Familiarity bled into Aslen’s awareness. That voice had haunted her straight down to the bottom of the reservoir. The arsonist. He’d found her. He’d ambushed her. “We talked about this. She’s a threat. She will lead them straight to you. We have to do this.”
Tension hardened the muscles down her spine as she rolled onto her side. That was all she could do with her hands bound at her lower back. Only this time, zip ties secured her ankles too.
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way.” Movement filtered through that unconscious haze. Blond hair swept down the woman’s back, straighter than Aslen’s, frizzed from over playing with the strands and nervous pulling. But it was her voice that seized Aslen from head to toe. Danny. “You burned down the house.”
The arsonist—she didn’t know his name—stepped into her best friend’s personal space. Raising his hands to Danny’s arms,he brought her in for a hug. “I’m doing this for you. Remember? They deserved every second of pain they suffered from what they did to you. To us.”
Aslen pulled at the zip ties, trying to ease onto her stomach without drawing the duo’s attention. She didn’t understand.
“I know. I just… She’s my friend. She doesn’t deserve any of this.” Danny craned her chin over her shoulder, locking Aslen in her blue gaze. Her roommate swiped at her face then closed the distance between them. Crouching, Danny reached out, her boots level with Aslen’s face. “Aslen, please. I can explain—”
She jerked out of reach, driving dirt and rock deeper into her pinned arms and hip. A picnic bench sat positioned near a chain-link fence roping off the peak of Lava Point Overlook. She’d come here to find Danny, to make sure her friend hadn’t been hurt, only to find the arsonist himself. With Danny’s phone. They’d lured her here. Were working together. “You know him?”
Danny threw her attention over her shoulder. To the man standing between Aslen and the only shot of escape down the overlook. “Jaylan’s my brother.”
His voice. That was why she’d recognized it on the dock. She’d heard it before, from the few times Danny and her brother had video called each other. Her roommate hadn’t given much information about her family, but Aslen knew she hadn’t been close to her family in a long time. Her brother had been her only point of contact over the years, and now he was here. He’d killed two people. He’d tried to kill her. She could see the resemblance now. The same blond hair, the blue of their eyes, but that was where the similarities ended. Jaylan Kennex was a mountain of muscle that might come close to Murray, where his sister was soft. Danny had the strength of a firefighter but not the bulk.
“I never wanted this, Aslen.” Danny shook her head. “I tried to keep you out of it, but then Murray drafted you intothe investigation, and you were making all these connections… Jaylan didn’t have a choice—”
