Dread that had filled Grace since Todd’s visit washed over her again, drenching her like a sudden downpour. She couldn’t stop worrying about Holden and whether he was endangering himself to fix a problem she had created.
Although this was a small town, where almost everyone knew everyone, it had never occurred to her that someone might report back to Todd. In her wildest dreams she could not have imagined that they would show up in full force to coerce one woman into silence.
So, if all that had been beyond the scope of her imagination, there was no telling what they might do to Holden.
She admired his strength and his optimism. He was fearless. She just didn’t want him paying the price for her mistake.
“Why don’t you go home and lie low?” Xavier suggested, looking at the handful of customers that had trickled in during what would normally be a bustling dinner rush. “At least until lover boy comes up with a solution.”
“Lover boy?” she asked, not liking the insulting and inaccurate sound of it. “What do you mean?”
“You and Holden.” He waited. When she didn’t respond, he went on, “It’s obvious you two are dating.”
“But we’re not.”
“Then why is he in here all the time?”
“He’s single and doesn’t like to cook. He comes in here all the time with Nash and Mitch.”
Xavier scoffed. “Oh, please. He comes in twice a day since you started working here. Once with them for dinner and once in the afternoon on his own to have pie. Why doesn’t he simply have his pie after supper? Instead, he also buys you a slice, eating it across the table from you, chatting and looking at you like he wants to spoon you up, too.”
“He wasn’t coming in for pie before I took over as manager?” She had thought it was just his routine. Some people were creatures of habit, and she wasn’t one to judge.
“Are you kidding me?” A scathing laugh rolled from him. “I’m surprised he can still squeeze into his uniform. Before you, he was in here maybe a couple of times a week. Not a couple of times a day. And how about the way he showed up here this afternoon like a white knight with a shining badge to rescue you.”
She opened her mouth to throw out a quip about how she didn’t need rescuing, but lately that wasn’t true. She had needed Holden’s help with the snakes, and once again, she needed assistance extricating herself from a dangerous situation with the Iron Warriors.
Grace was no damsel, but she was in distress. “Maybe I can go back to Custom Gears. Talk to Kyle. Tell him I’ll keep quiet and won’t say anything. Ask him to relay the message to his brother.” But she reminded herself that she had already said plenty to the authorities, which couldn’t be taken back.
“Don’t make things worse,” Xavier said. “Just go home. Drown your sorrows.” He handed her the bottle of whiskey. “It’s on me. I’ll close tonight.”
Every time she’d tried to help, she’d miscalculated and had gotten herself into trouble.
Xavier was only looking out for her. If she wasn’t going to take his advice to leave town—an idea she abhorred—she might as well go home early tonight. Have a drink or two and see if she could manage sleeping in her own bed, alone, without imagining snakes.
HOLDEN FINISHED EXPLAINING the situation of how Todd Burk had lied about his alibi, thus giving the sheriff’s office justification to get a warrant. Not only to search his premises, but also to get forensics on his motorcycle.
Now he waited on the phone to hear the verdict.
Once the Honorable Judge Don Rumpke was finished hemming and hawing, he said, “You have evidence that he lied, not just the word of his girlfriend, who might be feeling a little vindictive?”
This judge wasn’t in the pocket of the Iron Warriors and despised what the MC had become under the influence of Todd Burk. In the scandal that had ruined Holden’s reputation, the judge had not doubted Holden’s innocence, but he did believe that the sheriff’s office would have been better off firing him and starting with a clean slate.
And instead of whispering behind his back, Judge Rumpke had been quite vocal about his perspective, to Holden’s face. Holden and the judge might not get along, but Holden trusted the man.
“Yes,” Holden said. “I ran her credit card history and spoke with a bartender at the Wild Pony. She was there the evening in question. From nine p.m. to one in the morning.”
“All right, then. You can have your warrant,” Rumpke said, and Holden hit the air with his fist in celebration. “Tomorrow.”
It was always tomorrow with this guy. Holden stifled a groan. “Your Honor—”
“Save your breath, Holden. It’s seven thirty at night. On a Saturday. My wife and I are in Cheyenne. We just finished Christmas shopping for our grandkids. Now, I’m about to take her to have a nice dinner. We are in the restaurant’s parking lot as I speak.”
“I can send you the paperwork electronically for an e-signature.”
“Are you listening? I’m not working right now. Besides, I don’t have a smartphone. We’re spending the night at her sister’s here in Cheyenne. I’ll be back tomorrow and will do you the favor of taking care of it on a Sunday afternoon, the Lord’s Day when I should be resting, and on Christmas Eve no less, to issue you the warrant. Unless you have reason to believe that Mr. Burk will abscond between now and then. Do you?”
Holden pounded his fist against the desk in frustration. “No, Your Honor. I do not.”
“Well, all right, then.”
“Can we make it the morning, sir?”
“Are you living at the sheriff’s office these days? Doesn’t your shift start around noon?”
“I would come in early for this, sir.”
“Don’t bother. Get your rest, son. The missus and I have church service in the morning with her sister. I’ll be in after. Good night.” Rumpke hung up.
Holden gritted his teeth as he set down the landline in his office.
There was no time to stew over how he was going to have to wait until tomorrow to slap handcuffs on Todd, because Ashley was waving him over through the glass window, which overlooked the deputies’ desks.
He hurried over to see what she and Mitch had discovered. “What did you find?”
Ashley hopped out of her chair and motioned for him to sit. “You were right. She walked to the Dogbane Express. A little service station a mile and a half from Jared’s place. It has the closest pay phone. She used it. The station manager gave us copies of both of his surveillance feeds from the night. In and outside the store.”
With a couple of clicks on her keyboard, she brought up the footage.
Emma Burk appeared on the screen, walking through the front door of the store. Shivering, she rubbed her hands together and blew on them. She spoke to the attendant, who pointed to the back of the store. Nodding, Emma headed that way. She got on the pay phone.
“It looks like she made a collect call,” Ashley said. “I rewound it numerous times, slowed it down. She never went in her pockets, and it doesn’t look like she deposited any money.”
“We can request the records,” Mitch said. “See whom she called.”
Holden nodded, but not with enthusiasm. “The telephone companies are notoriously slow to respond to a warrant. It can take weeks. Sometimes longer to get the records we’ve requested. Once we waited two months.”
Mitch gave a low whistle. “Sheesh. That is a long time.”
“There’s more,” Ashley said, fast-forwarding. “Emma waited inside the store fifteen minutes. Then her ride shows up.” She toggled some keys, bringing up the video feed from the surveillance camera outside the store.
Come on. Show us his face. Or the license plate. Anything.
“The bike pulls up just out of view,” Ashley said. “All we can see are the tires and him putting his foot down as he steadies the bike and waits for her.” She pointed to the far part of the screen.
The guy wore black steel-toed riding boots. Just like everyone else on a motorcycle. Emma walked over and then climbed on.
“Wait a minute,” Holden said. “Rewind it to where Emma leaves the store.” Ashley went back to where he indicated. “Right there. Look. See how she hesitates. Whoever it is that shows up has to wait on her. She goes outside, stands there, like she’s not sure.”
“Second-guessing whether he was the right person to call,” Ashley said.
“Clearly he wasn’t,” Mitch chimed in.
“But she gets on the bike anyway.” Holden stared at the screen. “Why would she?”
“Maybe she was desperate,” Ashley said. “Tired and cold and just wanted to go back to the B and B to get some sleep.”
“But why not simply call someone from the Shining Light to pick her up?” Mitch asked. “She was going back tomorrow anyway. Why bother spending her last night at the B and B? Why risk calling someone she didn’t trust?”
That was the million-dollar question.
The only problem was Emma no longer trusted anyone on the outside. Only the people in the Shining Light compound.
“Are there any traffic cameras between the Iron Warriors clubhouse and the Dogbane Express?” Holden asked.
“Afraid not.” Mitch shook his head. “We thought to check.”
“What about from the service station to the B and B? They might’ve been caught on camera, and we’d have a license plate.”
Ashley frowned. “We tried that, too. But the driver was careful. He deliberately took the back roads. Stayed away from any main intersections.”
“That’s typical Iron Warriors MO,” Holden said, and Ashley nodded.
They wanted anyone who was a target of their hostility to know it was them, but they always did a great job covering their tracks.
It was time for the tides to turn and for the scales to be balanced. Come tomorrow, he would have his warrant, and justice would be served.
THE SOUND OF the wind tugged Grace from a deep sleep. Instead of a drawn-out howl, it crackled and sputtered and roared.
She was so tired, and her limbs were heavy. All she wanted to do was to rest a little longer.
But that sound.
As her eyelids lifted, she immediately sensed something was wrong. But her thoughts were sluggish and scattered. Probably from the whiskey. Her body was slow to move. Also from the booze. Then the smell hit her.
Smoke.
Where was it coming from?
She climbed out of the bed wearing her nightgown and socks, and went toward the bedroom door.
An orange glow illuminated the smoke wafting into the room from under the door. She clutched the doorknob, but it wasn’t cool metal that greeted her palm. The knob was warm to the touch.
Grace opened the door.
Flames were everywhere, dancing and devouring the cabin all along the perimeter. Fire licked up the walls, over the log structure, rippling across the ceiling. Smoke pinched her lungs, causing her to cough. Every breath she took hurt.
She covered her mouth and nose with her hand. Shock pulsed through her.
Part of her wanted to believe this wasn’t really happening—just a terrible, horrible nightmare, and if she woke up, she would be safe.
But this was real. And it would kill her.
Burning chunks of wood—pieces of the cabin—fell to smolder in the fire tearing through the cottage. It had already swept across the living room, raging closer.
She had to get out.
Her gaze darted to the door with watering eyes. The room was too bright and too hazy with smoke at the same time, making it hard to see. But the blaze had consumed the front door. She whirled toward the back one by the kitchen. The exit was only a few feet away, but it was useless to her. The door was engulfed in flames. Even the curtains over the windows in the living and dining rooms had caught fire, trapping her in the burning cabin.
Fear mingled with the smoke, clogging her lungs, making it harder to breathe. Her eyes stung and watered, blurring her vision of the flames and smoke.
Waves of immense, suffocating heat bore down on her. The flames pressed in, eating up the oxygen.
Staggering back into the bedroom, she slammed the door closed.
Think.
What to do?
Coughing, she rushed to the bureau and, dropping to her knees, opened the bottom drawer. She grabbed some towels and stuffed them under the door to keep out as much of the smoke as possible.
But that wouldn’t stop the fire. She had to find another way out. Forcing her thoughts to clear and focus, she looked around.
The window by the bed. She ran to it and threw back the curtains. Throwing back the top latch to unlock it, she shoved upward. But the window didn’t budge. Again she tried, pushing it with all the force she could muster.
She snatched the pointed nail file from her nightstand. Using the pointed tip, she scraped at the paint along the seams. That was when she saw it.
The window had been nailed shut.
No, no, no!
Heart pounding against her rib cage, she struggled to think. Only one thing was clear. If she didn’t do something, she was going to die. She needed to hurry.
Break it.
Break the glass!
She glanced around in a panic, searching to find something—anything—to use. Her gaze landed on the tall floor lamp in the corner of the room. The base of it was wide and thick and heavy. It would work well to bust the window.
Yanking the cord from the socket, she grabbed and hoisted it up.
A crunching sound thundered overhead as the cabin trembled around her, snapping her to a halt. With a booming crack, part of the ceiling caved in. A large beam dropped, crashing onto the bed, spewing a flurry of angry sparks throughout the room. The blazing beam glowed red as though it had been spat from the mouth of hell and now blocked the window.
Her one chance. Her last way to escape was gone.
The cabin was on fire, being reduced to ash around her, and she was trapped inside.
Oh, God. Please.
I don’t want to die. Not like this! Burned alive.
Her mind screamed at her to move. To run from the vicious heat of the blinding flames and the oppressive smoke.
Dizziness swamped her. Each breath was poison. If the fire didn’t kill her, the smoke surely would.
Hacking on the smoke, her eyes stinging, she grabbed a blanket from the bureau and her cell phone from the top of it. She rushed to get away from the fire and ducked into the bathroom.
There were no windows in there. No possible way out.
Tears leaked from her eyes. This time not from the smoke. But she was not going to simply give up and die, sobbing and blubbering.
She was going to fight. Even if it was with her last breath, she would fight to survive.
Shaking, she tossed the blanket into the bathtub and turned on the faucet. Grabbing the towel hanging on the back of the door, she stuffed it underneath to plug the space. Once the blanket was thoroughly soaked, she shut off the faucet.
Then she did the only thing left that she could do.
She climbed into the tub under the wet bedspread and dialed 911.