Deep Burn (Station Seventeen Book 2)

by Kimberly Kincaid

  “Jesus, Shae.” Capelli reached one hand across the expanse of black wood between them. Just shy of contact, he hesitated, as if the movement had been automatic and his brain had registered it on a delay. But his fingers were close enough for Shae to feel their warmth, his hand enviably steady, and she angled her knuckles against his, letting the barely there brush of their skin anchor her.

  “We hit the downed tree head-on,” she continued, focusing on the feel of his hand, on the one tiny spot where they touched. “Abby and I were both thrown from the ATV.”

  The muscle along the hard edge of Capelli’s jawline twitched. “Were you badly injured?”

  Oh, the irony of it all. “No.” Aside from some nasty scrapes and bruises that she hadn’t even felt in the moments right after she’d sustained them, she’d been completely unharmed. “But honestly, no one knows how. I was thrown fifteen feet from the ATV, which ended up flipping into a shallow ravine on the other side of the trail from where I landed.”

  “Oh.” The tension that eased from his shoulders lasted for less than a second before he connected all the dots. “What about Abby?”

  “Abby was…not so lucky.”

  Shae dropped her stare, concentrating on Capelli’s fingers. He had wide, strong hands, callused in some places, yet smooth in others, and suddenly, urgently, she wanted to wrap her fingers around his and not let go.

  “When we hit the tree, Abby was thrown in the other direction,” she said quietly instead. “She ended up in the ravine about twenty feet below the trail, pinned beneath the ATV.”

  Capelli went perfectly still across from her. But unlike anyone Shae had ever confided in, he didn’t interrupt, didn’t offer up any of the “oh my God”s or “how awful”s she’d long since grown used to, opting instead to simply give her the space she needed to tell the rest of the story.

  So Shae took it.

  “It took me a few minutes to figure out what had happened, that we’d even been in an accident. But our other friends had been behind us, and as soon as they made it around the bend, they figured things out pretty fast.” Thankfully, they’d all been going slower than she and Abby had, so they’d all been able to stop in time to remain safe. “Two of them went for help—cell coverage is pretty much nonexistent out on the trails—and the other two were shell-shocked enough not to be of much help.”

  “That’s a normal physical response to really bad accidents,” Capelli said, his voice softening as he added, “you must have been in shock, too.”

  “I was,” Shae admitted, although she hadn’t known it until far after the fact. “I ran down into the ravine, but one look told me I wasn’t going to be able to do anything.” Not that she hadn’t tried. God, she still remembered crazily trying to pull the five-hundred pound ATV off of Abby with all her might. “I didn’t have any idea how to help, other than to stay with Abby and tell her everything was going to be fine. I knew it was a bald-faced lie. Even though I couldn’t see most of her body, I could still tell she was bleeding a lot.”

  Abby had been so thoroughly pinned beneath the ATV that Shae hadn’t even been able to hold her hand. She’d found out later, quite by accident, that trying would have been in vain. One of Abby’s arms had been crushed so badly, her hand had very nearly been severed.

  Shae swallowed, completing a few rounds of inhale/exhale before finishing with, “Anyway, I lay there on the ground with her, telling her to just hang in there and that help was on the way, but she died before the paramedics even got to the scene.”

  “I’m really sorry, Shae.”

  The straightforward sentiment oddly soothed her, and she managed a tiny smile. “Thank you. Abby’s death was really hard on me, obviously, but at the same time, it really opened my eyes. I decided not to go to college that fall. Instead, I drove all over the country. No plan, no routes mapped. I just packed a bag full of clothes, got on the road, and went wherever I felt like going.”

  “That does sound like you,” Capelli said.

  “It is me. At first my parents thought I just needed time, and maybe part of it was my way of coping and finding as much closure as I could. But after the first few weeks on the road, I knew I couldn’t ever go back to living my life the way I had been. Life is too short not to live it out loud and without apologies.”

  Capelli tilted his head, looking at her through the soft overhead light of his kitchen. “So you never came back and went to college?”

  “Nope. Much to my parents’ dismay.” They’d given her a little leeway, considering, but… “After the first year, their understanding turned to concern, then outright disappointment that I wasn’t ‘settling down’.” Shae paused to sling air quotes around the words. “But I didn’t want to settle down. I wanted to see things, do things. If any second could be my last second, I was going to make every single one of them count.”

  “I suppose logically, your motivation makes sense,” Capelli said slowly, and God, everything really was black and white in his universe.

  “Yeah, well the go-where-the-wind-takes-you lifestyle really only works if you’re a trust fund baby or you like sleeping on park benches, and honestly, after a couple of years, I got tired of waiting tables and doing odd jobs to pay for the next stop on the road trip. I might be capricious as hell, but I’m not a slacker. Sitting on my ass isn’t my idea of a good time. So I came back here and enrolled at the fire academy.”

  Capelli let that sink in for a second. “For the adrenaline aspect?”

  “Funny enough, no, although that’s what my parents and sisters all thought. Don’t get me wrong,” Shae said, because the truth was still the truth. “I do love the thrill of running into a burning building. But I don’t just think it’s cool for my own personal gain.”

  At Capelli’s look of obvious surprise, she continued, even though her heart pounded at the words. “When Abby died, I felt so helpless. I know there probably wasn’t anything I’d have been able to do for her even if I’d been trained,” she added. “Her injuries were extensive, and I get that. But being a firefighter lets me help people when they’re at their worst, when they really need it the most. And if I can help save just one person…”

  She broke off to steady the waver that desperately wanted to climb into her voice. “Doing everything I possibly can to help is what I want to do with my life. Even if that means taking risks.”

  They sat there for a minute—or hell, maybe it was ten—Shae with her melting ice cream and her heart in her throat and Capelli just quietly studying her. Finally, he simply closed the fraction of space between their hands, sliding his fingers firmly over hers without saying a word, and as crazy as it was, Shae wouldn’t have traded the gesture for all the adrenaline on the planet.

  Chapter 13

  Capelli folded the blanket under which he’d slept, double-checking to make sure the corners of the dark green fleece lined up before he placed the thing over its usual spot on the back of his couch. He’d given his bed to Shae even though she’d given him some shit for it, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been in the swankiest, most extravagantly lush suite in the Remington Plaza Hotel.

  Between his going-nowhere case, the threats made to Shae, and the revelation she’d made afterward in his kitchen that had knocked him figuratively yet thoroughly right on his ass, he hadn’t slept a goddamn wink.

  Letting out an exhale, he eyed the hallway leading to his bedroom, where Shae was still getting dressed. CSU had cleared enough of her apartment overnight to allow Quinn to run by to grab some clothes and drop them off on her way to her shift at Seventeen, which the paramedic had done a few minutes ago. Shae had seemed like her usual self with both him and Quinn this morning, which was to say she’d swung through about four different emotions before she’d finished her first cup of coffee. None of them, however, had even been in the same stratosphere with the way she’d looked last night as she’d sat at his kitchen table and told the story of her best friend’s death.

  Of all the words Capelli wa
s certain would never describe her, vulnerable was easily in the top five. Yet the second that story had crossed Shae’s lips, she’d gone and shocked the hell out of him yet again.

  She wasn’t just impulsive for the thrill of it, or worse yet, because she didn’t take a damn thing seriously. She had reasons for taking risks—no, check that. She had logical, well-founded reasons, ones Capelli had been able not only to rationalize, but really understand. Beneath all that brash exterior he needed to avoid like it was at the center of a five-alarm fire, Shae was a purely, deeply good person. All she wanted was to help people on their very worst days, while once upon a time, he’d engineered the most underhanded scams in Remington, conning hundreds of unsuspecting people out of their pensions and paychecks all so his drug-addicted mother and her boyfriend du jour could party like rock stars for a living.

  And didn’t that just make him a degenerate of the highest order, because fuck, despite how good Shae was and how very good he wasn’t, Capelli wanted her anyway.

  “Whoa.” Shae’s voice jolted him back from his trip down memory lane. “Are you okay? You look like someone just walked over your grave.”

  “I’m fine,” came his default, and great. Add “liar” to his résumé. “And I don’t have a grave. I’m standing right here. Obviously.”

  She laughed, and the part of him he’d been trying so hard to keep on lockdown prowled faster in his chest. “Lord. Are you ever not stone cold serious? I meant figuratively. Because you look upset,” she added with an obvious—yet not unkind—lift of her honey-colored brows, and damn it, this woman wrecked everything about him.

  “Right. Sorry. I must need more coffee.” Or a lobotomy. Christ, he needed to get it together. “Anyway, it’s still a little early, but I’m sure Sinclair’s already at the Thirty-Third. We can head over for an update on the break-in at your apartment before you go to arson today.”

  “Sounds good. To be honest, I’d really like to get back to normal and nail the asshole responsible for these crimes.” Halfway to the door, Shae paused. “Thanks. You know, for putting me up last night. And for…listening.”

  “You’re welcome.” Capelli’s gut squeezed, but his words were perfectly level. They had to be.

  For both his sake and Shae’s.

  They made their way downstairs and out the front door of the building, into the slightly gray, definitely chilly morning. He watched Shae’s back as much as his own as their feet hit the pavement, scanning all the potential places someone might lurk or even just hang back and pretend to casually observe. She returned the favor, her green eyes moving over their surroundings in a methodical sweep, but thankfully, the quiet side street and everything on it—including her Jeep and his Volkswagen Golf GTI—were all systems go.

  “I’ll meet you at the precinct,” Shae said, sliding into the driver’s seat and giving him a wave before pulling away from the curb. Capelli lingered for another minute, pretending to read a message on his phone. The street remained completely as expected, a handful of people in various states of hustle and go on the sidewalk, light traffic that would soon grow heavy as rush hour got going in earnest. Nobody pulled out after Shae, and no one loitered around, watching him in the same covert manner he watched the street.

  Which meant that either things were entirely normal, or whoever had eyes on Shae was just that good.

  After all, it wasn’t paranoia when someone was really watching you.

  Shaking off the thought, Capelli got into his Volkswagen and drove the handful of miles between his apartment building and the Thirty-Third. Shae’s Jeep wasn’t in the parking lot next to the precinct, though, and he ran through a quick set of possibilities for why she wouldn’t have arrived ahead of him since she’d had a five-minute head start.

  Nothing good came out of his mental list. At. All.

  But just when Capelli was about to consider true concern, a text popped up on his cell phone.

  Hey, Starsky. I stopped to run a quick errand. I’ll be there in ten. Stop making that serious face.

  She followed it with a bunch of smiley faces and other assorted emojis to match, and the whole thing was so freaking Shae that he had to huff out at least a soft laugh before texting back with a quick “copy that”. Yes, she’d been threatened, very likely by whomever had committed the crimes they were trying to solve. But she had the entire intelligence unit freshly programmed into her cell phone, and she was smart. Tough.

  Sexy. Definitely sexy, with those pretty blue-green panties and all that hot, smooth skin…

  “Walk,” he bit out under his breath, forcing his boots into motion fast enough for them to crunch the gravel beneath. Counting his steps and marshaling his breath to a slow, even rhythm, Capelli walked through the parking lot—twenty-nine paces—up the eight stairs to the main entryway leading into the Thirty-Third, and after a quick scan of his RPD badge and an exchange of “hey-how-are-ya”s with the desk sergeant on duty, he was on his way up to the intelligence office. To his surprise, Hollister and Hale were already at their desks, and (not to his surprise) Sinclair was in his office, his door closed and his phone pressed firmly to his ear.

  “Hey,” Hale said, lifting her gaze from her laptop with a smile far too cheerful for the pre-eight A.M. hour. “You’re here early.”

  “I wanted to get started on the surveillance videos from Shae’s apartment. See if we can’t catch a break off one of them that might lead us to our murderer.” Or at least off of square one, where he seemed to have taken up permanent residence.

  “Great minds,” Hale replied, scooping up a coffee mug claiming Glitter is the New Black in sparkly pink script and taking a long sip before continuing. “Hollister and I have been at it for almost an hour. Sadly, there’s not much to write home about. Building management only has cameras at the front door and in the elevators.”

  Shit. “So if the intruder posed as a maintenance worker in order to gain access through a side door, then took the stairs once he was inside, these feeds won’t show so much as his shadow.”

  “Our guy is smart. It’s highly possible he managed to avoid the front door,” Hollister admitted, looking up from his laptop.

  “Alternate point of entry is what I would do to gain access without being noticed,” Capelli said. “Those key cards that residents and building employees use to get in and out can easily be duped, and even more easily stolen. Either way, the only trail left behind is of the person who had the thing swiped, not necessarily the person who actually swiped it.”

  Hale nodded and reached for the phone on the corner of her desk. “I’ll put in a call to the building manager and see if any of his employees are missing a key card, or if any residents have reported theirs stolen. It’s a long shot, but—”

  “Oooo, did someone say long shot? Because I’m always up for a challenge.”

  Shae’s voice sounded off from the door of the intelligence office, which she’d bumped open with her hip because her arms were full of two long, flat boxes. But before Capelli could move so much as a muscle to help her, Hollister bolted out of his chair.

  “Are those what I think they are?” he asked, his face in full-on glee mode.

  Shae handed over the boxes with a grin. “Yep! I brought breakfast.”

  “This isn’t just any old breakfast,” Hollister said, and if Capelli didn’t know any better, he’d swear the detective had just drooled on his T-shirt and his shoulder holster. “These are doughnuts from the Holey Roller, home of the Killer Cruller.”

  “Jesus, Hollister. You are such a mercenary when it comes to food,” Hale said, sending her gaze skyward.

  Hollister took the boxes from Shae. “Clearly, you’ve never experienced the joy that is that cruller. Anyway, I’m a single guy. Of course I’m mercenary when it comes to food.”

  “Capelli’s a single guy, and you don’t see him throwing elbows to get at these,” Hale pointed out.

  “That’s because Capelli is a health Nazi. Also, possibly insane.” Hollister waggled his
reddish-brown brows, and Capelli tried on a wry expression to cover the unease building in his chest.

  “I’m standing right here, you know. With perfectly functional hearing and everything.”

  Before Hollister could pop off with a smartass answer to match Capelli’s smartass comment, Isabella hustled through the door. “Oooh, doughnuts from the Holey Roller,” she said, not even shrugging out of her jacket or putting down her travel mug of tea before joining the fray. “What God among mortals stopped for these?”

  “I did.” Shae pulled the lids off the boxes—which now sat smack in the middle of Hollister’s desk—and sent a glance over the group, starting and ending with Capelli. “I just wanted to say thanks for everything you guys did last night.”

  Capelli shook his head, utterly baffled at how any one person could be so brassy and so genuine all at once. “Doughnuts for a bunch of cops? Don’t you think that’s a little ironic?”

  Shae’s cat-in-cream smile told him the choice had been one hundred percent intentional, and Hollister tagged him with a look that suggested he was certain Capelli had taken leave of all five of his senses.

  “Dude, shut up. There are apple fritters in here,” he said, holding up a gigantic, golden brown pastry as proof. “Plus, even though we were just doing our jobs, I think it’s pretty cool of Shae to enable our sugar high.”

  Capelli realized—a second too late, of course—how much edge his words had carried. But Shae just laughed that sexy, maddening laugh that managed to stir him up and smooth him out all at the same time.

  “Thanks, Hollister, but believe me, we’re square.” Reaching down low, she plucked a glazed cake doughnut from the box on Hollister’s desk. “Come on, Capelli,” she said, her expression as sweet and as downright sinful as the pastry she offered up. “It’s a doughnut, not the precursor to Armageddon. Live a little.”