He had a point. No part of her wanted to be anywhere near a suspect capable of disposing of a body without any consideration for the damage that had followed or the lives that had been put at risk due to the fire’s spread, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to admit it to him.
This job was important. Couldn’t he see that? Choosing to be a ranger here in Zion had given her something of her very own. Something the state or guardians or social services couldn’t take away as they had so many times before. It was hers. She’d worked hard for it all through college with her degree in emergency management, and she wasn’t letting it go. Aslen wasn’t sure where this newfound confidence had come from, but she’d hold on with everything she had.
She’d spent far too many years bowing to his every word, worshipping the ground he walked on and never standing up for herself in a stupid hope he’d notice her. Not the obligation ofa promise. Not the weak kid he’d pulled into the closet or back to his bedroom night after night when her foster mother drank too much. Her. But that wasn’t ever going to happen. They had too much history. Too much pain they couldn’t acknowledge and couldn’t overcome on their own. “The body is over here.”
Her breath shook through her chest as she breached the tree line. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she considered the fallout of what she’d just done, calling Murray out like that. She’d never done it before, but there was also a strange current of power coursing through her veins at the thought of finally standing up to him. Despite his distorted perception of her and their years of history together, she wasn’t some wallflower who needed a big, strong man to get her through life. She’d come to Zion for independence and to show herself she wasn’t a victim. That she could be something more. And, yeah, she wanted to maybe find someone to share it with. But Murray had gone and ruined that, too.
Her boots sank deep into mud created by the hoses and ash. Hints of gasoline caught at the back of her throat as she passed the surrounding trees. She could smell it even twenty feet from the destroyed shed, clinging to the blackened, flaking bark. Two firefighters sprayed another round of water across the shed to make it safe for investigators to come through. Again, Aslen felt more than confirmed Murray’s presence at her back. It was the subtle shift of her teammates’ body language, a predator coming into their territory. It took everything she had not to roll her eyes. What did they think he was going to do? Go for their throats for looking at her? “The gas can was most likely full before the fire got to it. We can’t be sure if the canister was already in the maintenance shed or if the perpetrator brought it in to aid in getting rid of the body, but we can confirm the fire started here with a good helping of accelerant. We found traces of it in the brush surrounding the shed.”
She motioned to the perimeter, the grass here a slightly different color in a weblike pattern. “It looks like whoever set the fire was throwing lines of gas, probably in a panic, up and over the shed compared to strategically dousing the wood.”
The weight of Murray’s attention pressurized along the side of her face, and she couldn’t shut down the need to meet his gaze. He stared at her as though he’d never seen her before.
“What?” She scraped the back of her hand over her mouth, drawing his attention lower. “Do I have spinach in my teeth?”
“No.” He seemed to shake himself out of whatever thought had held him paralyzed. “Show me the body.”
Aslen rounded the still-standing corner of the structure. The gasoline explosion had blasted outward into the opposite corner of the small building—toward her and the four other firefighters—leaving only a few beams still standing. Crouching, she held her breath against the stench of gasoline and seared flesh and hair. “She’s female based off the shape of her pelvis and the diamond stuck in her ring finger. The gold melted underneath her hand. Your medical examiner will need to confirm, but my guess is she’s older, considering how quickly her bones burned. The gasoline could also have something to do with that.”
“You got all that just from looking at her for a few minutes?” Murray arrowed his attention on the remains. Well, what was left of them. There were a few good limbs still missing due to the explosion, but her team would navigate the scene to help investigators recover as many as possible. It was part of the job.
“To be fair, I think there are pieces of her stuck in my hair I got a good look at.” Ugh. She’d never get the smell off her, but she’d survived worse smells—and fires—than this. “But yeah. We’ve all been trained in death estimation for burn victims. I’m sure any one of them can help during your investigation.”
“I don’t want anyone else on this investigation.” Murray stood, turning that unreadable gaze on her. “I want you.”
Chapter Four
The gasoline had started rotting his brain.
There was no other explanation for why he’d drag Aslen into the middle of a homicide investigation. It certainly wasn’t because the moment he’d seen the laceration at the back of her skull that he’d succumbed to the incessant need to keep her close.
Murray didn’t give into distractions. Once he set his mind on a goal, that was all, plowing through projects, casework, even personal achievements. He focused on what was important and refused to back down until he had it in sight. Finding this arsonist. Stopping anyone else from getting hurt. That was what mattered, but the second the wordsI want youhad left his mouth, a certain rightness had settled in his chest. Aslen wasn’t trained in law enforcement. While her expertise butted up against his during investigations like this, she wasn’t qualified to carry a weapon, direct interrogations or hunt a potential killer. But the idea of leaving her here to work this scene, to be here if the arsonist returned to the scene of the crime, broke the dam he’d fought to build for the past twenty years.
She was the one for this job.
And once he made a decision, there was no backing down.
Aslen was his complete opposite. Where she analyzed every angle, pulled apart different scenarios and gathered as much information as possible, Murray bounded into action. It’dfrustrated him to no end the older they’d gotten. Sometimes there was a right choice and a wrong choice. Didn’t need to psychoanalyze it to within an inch of its life, but no matter how many times he’d tried driving that point, she stood her ground and took her time. No diving headfirst into the unknown. Even if he didn’t go about things the same way, he admired her pigheadedness.
But, right now, he was only asking for trouble. Going against everything he’d worked for to protect her from danger, sometimes even from herself, by ordering the collaboration of their two departments. And he was pretty sure it was going to blow up in his face. For years, he’d kept his distance. Emotionally. Mentally. Mostly physically. Now, he was basically tying himself to her at the hip in the name of keeping her safe.
Nothing could go wrong.
Firefighters had allowed the scene to settle over the past few minutes. The ground under his boots had turned mushy, mud filling the gaps in his soles. The added weight didn’t faze him, but he noted Aslen’s struggle to navigate what was left of the woodlands with the unstable landscape. He knew her past, understood how difficult it must be to face her fears on a daily basis after losing her parents to a household fire at only eight years old. But she was strong—stronger than most if he was being honest with himself—but the admission did nothing to curtail the feeling of being watched.
Murray grappled with his ingrained nature to keep an eye on her and scan the trees for potential threats. She and her friend—Danny, was it?—had joined the rest of her unit in scouring the brush for potential hot spots and signaling the hose jockeys for extra assistance. What had once been a shed housing maintenance resources for rangers on patrol had been cordoned off with tape to protect the decimated remains inside at Murray’s insistence. Onlookers from the nearby campgroundhad been evacuated, but it looked as though a few found their way to the perimeter tape on the other side of the clearing where firefighters had set up their command center. The hook lodged in his chest from the moment he’d set eyes on Aslen all those years ago dug deeper as he put distance between them to check in with the supervisor in charge.
“We had an agreement.” Murray didn’t bother with the small talk.
“Figured you’d have something to say about that.” Deep lines sprawled across Chief Higgins’s forehead as he scrawled notes over the map spread out in front of him on the folding table. Bleached, ear-length hair hung into his eyes and blocked Murray’s view of the man’s face. Lean muscle flexed in Higgins’s hands as he braced his weight every now and then. The chief couldn’t have been anywhere near retirement, yet signs of age added to the sallowness in his sharp cheekbones and around his chin. His gear hung off him like an ill-fitting suit, worn in some places more than others. “There’s only so much I can do before my guys start asking why I’m sidelining a female ranger. Because I can tell you right now they’ll make her life a living hell if they think she’s getting preferential treatment. Besides, this got close to getting out of control. I needed everyone I had.”
Murray couldn’t argue against any of that. Okay. So maybe he’d overstepped in making his deal with the chief in the first place—his inclination to jump into action without looking could’ve blown back on Aslen in more ways than one—but he wouldn’t apologize for putting her safety first. Even if it made her hate him more than she already did. Acid burned up his throat at the thought. “You got a photographer on site?”
Higgins nodded across the clearing to the male ranger staring down at the camera slung around his neck. “Just got here.”
“Have him take pictures of the crowd gathering behind you.” Arsonists had a tendency to return to the scenes of their crimes.They liked to watch law enforcement scramble to control the blaze or relive the sexual effects the fire had on them during the initial start. Arson was considered a gateway crime in his book. Dangerous offenders started their criminal careers setting fires in an attempt to gain control and power, and attain a feeling of success in their lives. It provided manipulation in its purest form through any victims caught in the fire, firefighters, law enforcement officials and other figures of authority, the media and the community in general. Arson, for all intents and purposes, was a crime committed by cowards. Hands off, simple, selfish. While Zion had become its own closed off community from the world, news of the fire—and the body recovered—would spread. It was only a matter of time before the arsonist got the attention he wanted, bolstering his ego and doubling that craving for fame. Arsonists primarily worked in groupings, usually three fires at a time, with an ultimate goal in mind. If Murray could identify that goal and avoid the media feeding into the suspect’s ego, he might be able to stop this before the killer escalated. “Then have him send me all photos of the scene when he’s finished.”
Higgins set worn blue-gray eyes on him. “You think we’re dealing with a professional? That this might happen again?”
