Dying Embers

by B. E. Sanderson

  Instead, Peter Mitchell’s cabin burned with her inside.

  She tried to rise, but part of the ceiling must’ve given way, trapping her beneath wood and drywall. A voice called out to her. Peter was inside, trying to find her. After all her work to protect him, he would die trying to save her.

  “Get out of here,” she tried to shout, but the sound came out pitiful and weak.

  “Hang on! I’m coming.”

  In the distance, she thought she heard sirens, but they were still too far away. They would arrive too late to save her, and if Peter didn’t leave now, they wouldn’t save him either. She needed to get him out of the house, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t do her job.

  She was the oldest. Dad had given her the job of protecting the family when he left on business. He reminded her every time he went out of town. She had to keep them safe, but she couldn’t get to the house fast enough.

  He also told her since she was old enough to have a chemistry set, she needed to be responsible with it—never leave it unattended.

  She failed on both counts.

  She failed her family. She couldn’t fail again.

  Marshaling every last ounce of strength, she pushed herself up from the floor. The weight holding her moved an inch, and then two. She pulled herself along the floor, wriggling to get out from under the crush.

  “Hang on!” His cry came closer this time. “I’m coming!”

  “Get out, Peter,” she called back, hoping he would heed her words and not try harder to rescue her.

  The far wall snapped and cracked before part of it fell inside. She had to be lying near another wall, and if it fell before she could move, she would never get Peter out of the house.

  Another couple inches and the weight seemed to drop away from her legs. Rising to a crouch, she surveyed her surroundings. Everything looked bizarre. Nothing seemed to be where it ought to be. If she had dropped in the same place she’d been standing when the explosion occurred, the fireplace should be in front of her, but instead of the solidity of smooth stones, she only saw logs spread out around her. She turned slowly trying to get her bearings. If she could only find the hearth, she’d locate the way out.

  To her left, she heard a faint scratching, almost like a rat in the wall. Her gaze followed the sound until it rested on a pale white thing moving on the floor.

  “Help me,” said a voice fainter than her own.

  It only took a minute to realize the thing on the floor was a hand, trapped beneath what looked like lumber. It took another moment for Jace to realize the hand belonged to Emma. She reached out toward the twisted fingers.

  A hand wrapped around her wrist. “Come on, Jace.” Peter’s eyes held a mixture of relief and concern. “Let’s go.”

  “Help me,” Emma whispered again.

  Jace tried to find the source of the voice, but in the smoky haze, she could only see the hand. It flexed and flinched and dug at the floor like a bird trapped in a snare.

  “We have to get out before the roof collapses.” Peter didn’t look at the hand. His eyes were trained back in the direction he’d come. He pulled at her.

  “I can’t leave her,” she cried.

  “You can’t save her.” He tugged harder.

  The hand stopped twitching, and the voice went silent. Jace released one long breath, and let the man she came there to protect pull her from his burning home.

  They stepped from the back door and the roof collapsed.

  By the time the fire engine arrived, the house had become a conflagration. The firefighters relieved Peter in his efforts to prevent the fire from spreading up the mountainside, but they didn’t spare one single drop for the house. It was past saving. Everything the man had worked so hard to build—gone. Even the animals on his front lawn didn’t escape Emma’s wrath.

  In the end, neither did Emma.

  Once the fire ran out of fuel, they found her still body curled beneath the rubble. One hand still clenched her gun, as if ready to kill even those men who would rescue her.

  As the firefighters worked, Jace lay upwind of the house, watching the men destroy the fire that nearly destroyed her. A paramedic found her there and urged her to let them take her to the hospital, but she couldn’t leave. Not yet.

  Her shoulder ached, and she hoped nothing had snapped under the weight of the ceiling. Her lungs burned like she’d inhaled a gallon of battery acid. The headache building behind her eyes had only just begun and would worsen as she lay there. But she couldn’t leave. Not until she saw for herself that the long fight was finally over. Not until she saw Emma one last time.

  When they finally pulled the body from the burnt shambles of Peter Mitchell’s house, though, she found herself unable look at it. In the end, she didn’t need to see the face of her enemy. Knowing the woman had been stopped would have to be enough.

  As the men carried the black bag toward a waiting ambulance, she could only wonder whether Emma ever achieved some kind of peace as she lay dying.

  “Probably not,” she said.

  Peter looked at her askance, but he didn’t bother to ask what she meant. In his own way, he was most likely thinking along the same lines.

  “Where do you think you’ll go now?” she asked him.

  “Back to the city for now. Then maybe home to Wisconsin. As much as I hate to say it, I can’t stay here after what’s happened. What about you?”

  “I need to get to the hospital.”

  He put his hand on her arm. “I’m sorry. In all the rush, I didn’t even think about how bad you were hurt. I’ll get one of the EMTs.”

  “Not this hospital. I have someone waiting for me in one already.”

  “But…”

  “But nothing. If you’re heading back to San Francisco, I could use a ride.”

  Peter took her hand. “I promise to take you to him if you promise to get checked out here first. That bitch took too many lives already. She doesn’t get yours, too.”

  When he put it that way, she couldn’t really argue. Emma Sweet had gotten her way for far too long. “As long as they don’t try to keep me there. I have someplace I need to be.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “You realize, of course, that you could’ve gotten yourself killed,” Graham said after he ushered Jace to a chair. “Not that I haven’t wondered whether you’d make it out of this case alive from the beginning.”

  With her arm tightly strapped beneath her blazer, she sank against the soft leather upholstery and into her own depression. Lost in her own thoughts, her boss’s words barely registered. As he continued to upbraid her for running into an unsecured house with a serial killer, she traveled back to her last day in San Francisco.

  After Peter had forced her into the local hospital, and they’d tried to bully her into a night of observation, she’d been more than ready to leave the state of California behind. She just had one more thing to do—make sure Ben Yancy was not only recovering, but was ready to hear all the things she was ready to tell him.

  Peter dropped her off at the front doors with a kind farewell and a reminder to call him if they were ever going to be in the same place at the same time again. She could tell he was only being nice, though. After the ordeal he just went through, the last person he’d want to see was the agent behind it. With a casual wave, he drove away. She didn’t watch him leave.

  “Ben Yancy’s room, please,” she told the woman at the desk.

  “Could you spell that?”

  She could and did, but the question seemed unnecessary even as she complied.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t have anyone registered under that name…”

  “That’s impossible. Try looking under Benjamin.”

  The woman stared at her over the tops of her glasses. “I looked under Yancy, and unless your friend is here for a late-in-life sex change, he’s not here. The only Yancy we have is someone by the name of Edith, and she’s up in the geriatric ward.”

  “That’s…”

&n
bsp; “I know. Impossible. Listen, sweetie, maybe you have the wrong hospital. There’s no Ben Yancy here.”

  “Maybe the doctors released him.”

  “Maybe you aren’t listening.” The woman took a deep breath. “Trust me, honey, I checked everywhere before I told you we didn’t have anyone registered under that name. I checked recent releases, I checked alternate spellings, I even checked the morgue…” As she mentioned the latter, she crossed herself. “Heaven forbid. But there’s no Ben Yancy here, and there hasn’t been one in here recently. If you’d like, I can call over to University Hospital. He might be there.”

  “No… No, that’s okay.” Something sounded very wrong with the whole mess. She was positive she was at the right hospital. The updates she received came from inside the building where she now stood. Frank had given her the number to call. Her own right-hand made sure Ben was being taken care of. “If you don’t mind… I’d like to ask one more question.”

  “Go ahead, honey,” she said as she gave Jace the once over. “You look like you’ve already had enough frustrations for one day, so I’m not going to add to them.”

  She held out a piece of paper. “Does this look like a number to one of your patient rooms?”

  The lady took it and gave it right back. “Sweetheart, that’s not even our area code. Whoever gave you that number was either dyslexic or pulling your leg.”

  Thanking the woman for her help, Jace limped outside. The first thing she did was dial the number she’d been calling for updates on Ben. All she got was a recorded voice telling her the number had been disconnected. Then she called Frank. For the first time since they met, he didn’t answer his phone.

  Her third call went to the boss man himself. “Graham? What the hell is going on?” she said without preamble.

  “Nice to speak to you, too. I assume you’re on an unsecured line?”

  “My cell phone.”

  “Then we’ll have to wait until you get back to talk further. Tickets are waiting for you at the airport. I’ll see you when you get back.” The click told her Graham had disconnected, but she still held the phone to her ear, hoping to make sense out of the senseless.

  Now as she sat listening to him rant, she still couldn’t make sense of anything.

  “Besides,” her boss continued as her befuddled and aching head tried to fit the pieces together. “You damn near got one of our best agents killed.”

  That statement finally shifted her attention. “Your what?” she gasped. “What’s going on? Where’s Yancy?”

  “To answer your questions: First, I said one of our best agents. Second, everything will be explained in good time. And third… His name isn’t Yancy.”

  Her jaw dropped, and if she’d had two good arms, she would’ve throttled the man, boss or not. She rose from her chair instead. Pacing from one side of the room to the other, she tried to get her emotions under control. “His name isn’t Ben? So just who is he? Let me guess… Not a cop in La Junta after all.”

  “Oh, his name is Ben. Just not Ben Yancy. And he’s been working for another branch of Homeland Security. I borrowed him for this case because he has a certain set of skills we need.” Graham smiled. “And I intend on keeping him.”

  She tried to make sense of everything since the day she’d been called back from vacation to work on the Delisky murder. Everything Ben said made sense. Everything Graham had done—including chewing her out for including a regular officer in the investigation—made sense. It all made even more sense if Graham had been behind this all along. “He was one of your plants. You thought I had cracked up, so you sent one of your moles out ahead of me to make sure I got the job done. Or did you plan to have him do the job if I failed?”

  Graham sat behind his desk; she couldn’t read his face, but his eyes held a twinkle she would swear was amusement. “You’re right he was one of mine, but you’re wrong if you thought I brought him in to do your job. I didn’t have any doubts about that.”

  “Then what does all this mean?”

  “Call it a test to see if you would ever let go enough to accept a partner, and maybe let go of the members of your team a little. We need good field agents, Jace, but you were holding onto Frank with a death grip.”

  “Was he in on this?” The thought of her most trusted ally being a part of this plan to trick her turned her stomach.

  “Frank? No. He had no idea.”

  “He gave me the fake phone number.”

  “I gave it to him and told him not to ask any questions. When he found out on his own, I told him he could either keep my secret or find another place to work.”

  “So this was all some kind of test? You’re a bastard, you know. You were playing games with me while I tracked Emma Sweet? And you said I could’ve gotten myself killed? You could’ve gotten more than just me killed.”

  “In hindsight, probably not one of my better plans, but tell me the truth… If I had forced Ben on you as your partner, would you have accepted him?”

  “Of course,” she said without hesitation.

  The Director chuckled. “Liar. You would’ve resented both him and me. You would’ve thought I was usurping your responsibility on this case. You may have even wondered whether I was giving him your case because you’re a woman, and I think you have the mistaken idea gender matters when it comes to this job.” He stood and crossed to where she sat glaring at him. “I cut out the middle man. None of those things ever entered your mind, because you chose Ben as your partner. He was your equal and you were his.”

  “But he lied to me.”

  “Part of this job is sometimes lying. Why else do you think I called and chewed you out for bringing a police officer into the case?”

  “You sick bastard.”

  “Admit it. If I hadn’t done that, you would’ve wondered what was wrong with me. You’ve known me for too long to think I would just let you waltz across the country with some local cop.”

  She longed to wrap her fingers around the man’s throat and twist—both men’s throats as a matter of fact. “From you, I would expect this, but I can’t believe Ben would do this to me.”

  Graham shrugged. “If it makes you feel any better, he was against it from the get-go, but I gave him the same choice I gave Frank. Play along or hit the road. In both cases, it was a bluff, of course, but neither one knew me well enough to push it.”

  “You really are demented.”

  His face split into a wide grin, and she longed to smack the smug right off of him. “I’ve been called worse. Now, I’m sure once you’ve had a chance to calm down, you’ll see the logic. I figure it’ll take you about as long as it’ll take your shoulder and Ben’s liver to heal.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. If you think I’m going to work for you after this… If you think I’m even going to set foot in the same room with Ben Whatever-His-Name-Is, you’ve lost more marbles than I thought. Consider this my resignation…” With her one good hand, she flipped Graham off and stormed from the room.

  His laughter chased her down the hall.

  Her office was just as she left it, but Frank’s nearby cubicle was empty. “Lynn?” she called.

  “Yeah, boss?” came the reply. Jace let out a breath she didn’t know she held.

  “Can you come in here a minute?” While she waited, she began to gather her few personal belongings into a pile.

  “Going somewhere?” the techie said as she entered.

  “I quit. I just wanted to tell you what a wonderful job you’ve done for me, and see if you had any way I could get a hold of Frank.”

  Shock almost overwhelmed her as Lynn enveloped her in a gentle bear hug. “You can’t quit!” she said. “They moved Frank up to field agent and transferred him out to the west coast. I can’t work for someone else… Not without Frank.”

  Prying herself away from the other woman, she shook her head. “You’ll do fine without me. Just don’t let your new agent give you any crap. You’re an awesome team member, and if he g
ets in your way, tell him he’ll have me to deal with.”

  “Is that so?” a deep voice said from the doorway. “Well, maybe you’ll just have to deal with me first.”

  Lynn stepped aside with a little gasp. “I… I’m sorry… Umm…” Turning a shade of pink Jace had never seen the woman wear before, she squeezed past the figure.

  “Since I can’t call you by your first name anymore, and I don’t know what your last name is, I’ll just tell you to get out.”

  Ben ignored her command and stepped into the room. She could tell, even under the fluorescent lighting, he was too pale. “Agent Benjamin Vaughn at your service.”

  “Well, Agent Vaughn. I wish I could say ‘nice to meet you’, but since the time for us to meet has long passed, I’ll just show you the door.”

  “I’ve seen the door. What I need right now is a chair.” He had to be weak from his injuries, but she didn’t realize how weak until he gingerly lowered himself onto the cushions of her sofa. “Would you mind closing the door? If Graham knew I escaped the confines of my private patient room with hot and cold running nurses, he’d have security escort me back and put guards on the doors. I hate hospitals.”

  She shot him a look that said she’d rather slap him, but she complied. After all, she needed to have a few words with Mr. Vaughn, and his new job would be better if his fellow agents didn’t hear them.

  “Now look here, buster,” she said once the latch clicked behind her. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming in here after what you did.”

  “I had to see you, Jace. I knew once Graham told you what happened, you’d fly off the handle. Let me see if I have it right: You called him a bunch of nasty names and then quit. Am I right?”

  “I didn’t call him nasty names. I gave him the bird. Then I quit.”

  Ben’s laughter echoed in her tiny office, followed by a pained grunt. “Don’t make me laugh. The stitches are still in, and if I pull them now, I’ll end up in that damn place for a couple weeks at least.”

  “I can’t believe they let you out. Or was the whole ‘shot in the liver’ thing part of the story?”