The Fire Still Burns

by Crystal-Rain Love

  “Then act like one.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You want to quit this case because you can't handle working with Adam Good, your high school sweetie.” He liberally laced his voice with high-pitched sweetness and waved his hand dismissively.

  “Get over it. The two of you had problems. Patch things up or move past them, but don't let emotions get in the way of your job. That, little miss, is what being a grown-up is about. Only children run away from their problems.” He looked at her pointedly and Brynn could practically feel herself shrinking in her chair.

  There was a knock on the door, followed by Adam half-emerging into the office. “Chief Parker, I—” He looked from Chief Parker to Brynn, his brow creased as he seemed to catch a hint of the mood in the air. “Oh. I'll come back.”

  “Halt,” Chief Parker commanded, his sharp tone causing Adam to freeze with his body halfway out the door. “Shut the door and sit your ass down, Good.”

  “Sir?” Adam looked back at the man, his eyes full of uncertainty and if Brynn was correct, a slight touch of fear.

  “Sit. Down. Now.” Each word punctuated with its own growl.

  Adam looked at Brynn as if questioning what he'd walked in on then shut the door behind him before settling into the chair next to hers.

  “Were you coming in here to take yourself or Brynn off the case?” Chief Parker grabbed his pack of cigarettes again.

  Adam looked at her with a frown then returned his gaze to the chief. “I don't have the authority to—”

  “Were you coming in here to ask me to take one of you off the case?” Chief Parker barked, obviously not in the mood to beat around the bush. The pack of cigarettes in his hand crunched and Brynn wondered if any of the repulsive, cancer-inducing sticks would survive his temper.

  “Well?” he barked again when Adam didn't race to answer his question.

  Adam gulped. “Well, yes, sir, I was going to—”

  Brynn closed her eyes and breathed in deep. She really shouldn’t be surprised. He’d probably asked the chief to remove her from the case twenty times already.

  “You disappoint me, son.”

  “Sir?” Adam frowned, his forehead wrinkling with the action.

  Chief Parker laid his big hands on the desk and leaned forward, giving them both a hard look. “I'm going to say some things and you two are going to listen. More than that, you're going to comprehend. A man died in our town. Your brother.” He paused long enough to nod toward Adam then began again.

  “Zeke Good's murderer, and Black Bear Gorge's arsonist, is on the loose. I have my two best people on the case, and yes, Brynn, you are one of my people whether you believe it or not. You were born here and this will always be your home. The two of you are damned good at what you do, but you can't see past your own personal shit to take care of business.”

  Brynn cast her gaze to where her hands lay in her lap. She’d always been professional in her work, had prided herself on it, which made the chief’s harsh words sting worse.

  “Brynn, you still have feelings for Adam. Adam, you still have feelings for Brynn. Act on them or ignore them, but whatever you do, get them out of the damn way. Do it for Zeke, do it for the town, or do it for yourselves, but just do it! I'll leave you two to decide how to progress as two adult co-workers.”

  Brynn kept her eyes averted as Chief Parker scooped up his crumpled pack of cigarettes and marched out the door, muttering an apology for his choice of language. The old man was tough when it was needed, but still an old-fashioned gentleman at heart.

  The door slammed closed behind him, leaving Brynn and Adam to sit in awkward silence. She kept her gaze down, struggling not to squirm as heat flooded her cheeks. She'd been scolded like a schoolgirl and it was just as embarrassing at thirty-one years of age as it was at twelve, especially now that she was old enough to know it had been well deserved and brought upon by her own doing.

  Chief Parker was right. She had turned into a cowering mess, too scared to deal with the obstacles life had been throwing at her since the day Zeke Good and Calvin Wylie had taught her the true meaning of shame.

  “He's right,” Adam said, and although she didn’t look at him, she knew he held his gaze away from her as well.

  “Knowing he's right doesn't make what he's asking, or ordering, us to do any easier.”

  “No, it doesn't, but he's still right. The big picture is what we need to be focusing on. We need to leave our baggage outside the door and handle this case. I don't honestly know if I'm capable of doing that, but I can try.”

  “I suppose we have to.” Brynn felt his gaze on her face, hot and heavy. He was staring.

  “Do you think that will really work, or should we finally lay everything out on the table?” Adam asked. “Should we talk about this?”

  If only it were that easy. Adam wanted to know why she’d left him for his best friend. She hadn’t. She’d been plowed with liquor supplied by his brother and tricked into thinking she’d slept with him.

  Her stomach churned, the memory of her stupidity filling her with nausea. She’d been at a costume party, she and Adam both dressed as ninjas, when Cal had created a diversion to separate them.

  When she saw a ninja standing on the staircase moments later, beckoning her closer, she hadn’t questioned it. She’d followed him blindly.

  Brynn raked her hands through her hair and fought back bile. She’d followed Zeke straight into the pitch-black room where Cal waited. She’d done nothing while Cal violated her, stupidly thinking it was Adam pounding away inside her so roughly.

  And when Zeke, who’d been standing in the corner enjoying the show, asked her if she wanted him to stop, she’d thought it was Adam. Too foolish to question why his voice sounded different and so far away, she’d said the words which gave her rapist permission to continue.

  No. Just…I wasn’t ready but it’s all right. Don’t stop.

  How could she tell Adam that? How could she survive the shame of telling him the woman who’d claimed to love him didn’t even recognize she was having sex with someone else?

  ~~~

  “Brynn? Hello, Earth to Brynn…Brynn.”

  Shaking her head, she came out of the trance she'd been under. She looked at Adam and quickly glanced away again, but it wasn't quick enough for him to miss the look in her eyes. It reminded him of a child who'd just woken from a terrifying nightmare. “What were you thinking about just now? I had to have called your name about twenty times.”

  “Um, I'm sorry. What were you saying?” Brynn absently smoothed her blouse with trembling fingers. She looked at him but not in the eye, it seemed a struggle just to do that much.

  “I was asking if we should talk about what happened thirteen years ago. Are you all right? You look a little pale.” Her skin had turned white as a ghost, and a fine sheen of sweat glistened on her upper lip, but he didn't see how knowing that would help her.

  “I'm fine.” She answered quickly, too quickly, as she reached across Chief Parker's desk and grabbed some tissues to dab her face.

  “I'm just anxious to get to work. Chief Parker’s right. Let's just put our feelings aside and get this case over with.” She wiped the sweat from her face and tossed the tissue into the wastebasket by the chief’s desk. “I've got some other things going. Hopefully, by the time we've got this case solved, I'll have earned enough money from my other jobs to leave. There's no sense in rehashing everything now when I'll be gone soon and you won't have to think of me or what happened again.”

  The muscles in his chest contracted, desperately seeking air. It was as though she'd sucker-punched him with mere words. She was leaving him again.

  Brynn didn't come back for you, he admonished himself, and you're not hers to leave behind. Still, it felt the same way, and he realized, then, that a part of him had rejoiced at her return. He choked back laughter, amazed at his own ignorance. A part of him had believed it was a second chance. He'd actually believed somewhere deep down that she sti
ll carried a spark of what they'd shared thirteen years before, and that it was enough to keep her, but she didn't have any intention of rekindling anything with him. So why had she looked so miserable a moment before? She had to care.

  “I saw the look on your face when you were going down memory lane just now, Brynn. It was guilt. Tell me what went wrong and we'll both deal better—”

  “Stop it, Adam.” Brynn's sharp command cut him off. “You said it yourself. The chief is right. We need to let it go and move on. Do it for your brother and I'll do it for my son and our future.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “What we had was over years ago and I know there are still feelings there, but we have to just sweep all that under the rug and go on with our lives.”

  “How can I move past it when there's this big question hanging over me?”

  “Trust me, Adam. There's nothing I could tell you now that would fix things.” She looked at him, her green eyes pleading. “Too much time has passed. Things that should have been said weren't. Discussing what happened won't help at all. Just believe me on this.”

  Adam looked at her, saw the desperation in her eyes and reluctantly gave in. She'd called him all those years ago to explain her side of the story, but he'd slammed the phone down.

  He couldn't get the image of her and Cal out of his mind long enough to give her a chance to speak. Zeke's words had kept running through his mind—She’s cheating on you with your own best friend, everyone knows it—and if she'd been a man he would have beaten her to death, he was that furious, that hurt. Now she wasn't going to tell him anything, and he was just going to have to live with being haunted by the questions he hadn't cared to have answered when he'd had the chance.

  “Fine,” he said, conceding to the fact he was asking for answers thirteen years too late. “We focus on the case and then go our separate ways. You're the one with the investigation experience. What's our next step?”

  She seemed to let out a breath of relief before rising from her seat to walk to the door. With a glance over her shoulder, she announced their next move.

  “We look into the disappearance of Rachel Wood.”

  Chapter Eight

  Adam leaned back in his chair and watched in amusement as Sheriff Clarkson squirmed under the weight of Brynn's killer glare. The agitated woman leaned over the man's desk, her fists firmly planted on the oak top.

  “What do you mean there isn't much to tell? A young, pregnant girl goes missing and you don't know anything? You should have a whole file on her.”

  “Brynn, we know this girl,” the thin but powerfully built sheriff explained using a mellow, soothing tone as though he were calming down a two-year-old in the middle of a tantrum.

  “The Wood girls are nothing but trouble. She most likely skipped town with whoever the father of her baby is.” He raked a long-fingered hand through his short crop of brown hair.

  “Most likely isn't a definite, is it, Sheriff? It's not your job to assume what Rachel Wood did, it's your job to find her.”

  “Now look here, little lady,” Sheriff Clarkson rose from his chair behind the massive desk.

  “Wait a minute, both of you,” Adam spoke for the first time since the two had entered the office.

  “There's obviously a lot of temper in this room and it's not going to help us do anything productive. Brynn, the police apparently have reason to believe leaving town unannounced is normal behavior for Rachel Wood.” He held his hand up, palm outward, when Brynn started to speak.

  “Sheriff, Brynn and I have reason to believe Rachel might not have left town of her own free will. Let's call a truce and work together, shall we?”

  Both members of his audience huffed, but nodded their heads in agreement before seating themselves, Brynn taking the chair next to Adam. Adam shook his head. Brynn had always had a bold tongue and Sheriff Clarkson wasn't the type to take kindly to being questioned about his actions. It was inevitable the two would butt heads.

  “What do you know?” Brynn asked Clarkson, not bothering to hide the irritation in her tone.

  Sheriff Clarkson gave Brynn a curt glare before turning his head to meet Adam's gaze, speaking directly to him. “Rachel was a young, unmarried, pregnant teenager. She had no job other than helping out in her family's store and nobody knew who her boyfriend was, yet she ended up pregnant and had enough money to leave town.”

  “How do you know she had enough money to leave town? How do you know she wasn't murdered?” Brynn sounded genuinely curious.

  Clarkson leaned closer, his light brown mustache twitching as he curled his lips into a sneer. “Because we haven't found a body. This isn't the city, Brynn. People don't just up and get killed here daily. Zeke's death was an anomaly, and there's no hard proof it was intentional murder. Why are you asking about Rachel Wood, anyway? You're supposed to be investigating the arsons.”

  “We are,” Adam answered before Brynn had a chance to snap out something rude. He had a feeling the sheriff was only being lenient of her attitude out of respect for her deceased father. He didn't want to put the man's tolerance to the test. “If Rachel didn't leave, if she was abducted or worse, it could tie in with the arsons and my brother's death.”

  “How so?” Clarkson cocked his head, raising a brow.

  “It's been rumored that my brother was Rachel's boyfriend,” Adam conceded, the words leaving a bad taste in his mouth.

  He looked away from the sheriff, feeling as though he'd just done the verbal equivalent of pissing on his brother's grave, but Brynn was right. If they were going to discover what had happened to Zeke, he was going to have to look at his brother objectively. And if he had to drag his brother's name through the mud in order to find his killer, then so be it. If he were murdered, he wouldn't care what tactics were used to put his murderer away. He hoped Zeke felt the same way.

  Clarkson managed to stop gawking long enough to clear his throat and reach for the phone on his desk. “One of my guys, Jimmy Nelson, was close to Rachel Wood at one time, if you think he might be of any help,” he said questioningly with his fingers poised over the phone's keypad.

  “Anything he could tell us would be very useful.” Brynn answered before Adam had a chance to. She inched forward in her seat, her emerald eyes bright and alert. Adam knew that look. The woman was chomping at the bit to question the policeman.

  Clarkson nodded and placed the call, ordering Jimmy Nelson into his office immediately. “Are you sure about this?” he asked Adam after disconnecting the line. “Zeke was a good man. I know we all have our secrets, but still.”

  “It appears Zeke wasn't the golden boy everyone thought him to be,” Brynn interjected, a trace of contempt in her tone.

  “We don't know if these rumors are credible yet.” Adam let the rush of anger he felt coat his words. “Innocent until proven guilty, remember, detective?”

  “Of course,” she snapped, her hands tightened on the arms of her chair.

  Jimmy Nelson entered the office, a deep set of frown lines marred the smoothness of his baby face as he noticed he wasn't the only guest in the sheriff's office.

  Adam knew the young man, had played ball with him a few times during the annual fire-versus-police department games. Too lean to go against the big guys in football, the pale, strawberry blond-haired kid mostly played basketball or baseball, and if Adam recalled correctly, he'd had one hell of a crush on Rachel Wood a few years back.

  “Jimmy, you know Adam and this is Brynn Harlow with him.” the sheriff introduced them. “They're looking into the disappearance of Rachel Wood.”

  “You've been hired to find her?” Jimmy leaned his hip against the corner of the sheriff's desk.

  “We're looking into her disappearance in connection with the arsons,” Brynn answered. “I understand you knew her well.”

  “I guess,” Jimmy’s voice wavered slightly, a reaction Adam noted as interesting. “We used to talk what, I guess, would amount to a lot. We aren't best friends or anything.”

  �
��But you do know her pretty well?” Brynn pressed, leaning forward.

  The kid looked between him and Brynn, then shrugged. “I suppose I knew her as much as she'd let anyone know her.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Adam ignored the subtle glare he received from Brynn. The last he'd checked they were both working the case.

  “She was real secretive.”

  “Secretive about what?” Brynn tried to regain control of the questioning.

  Jimmy grabbed a retractable pen off the sheriff's desk and started clicking it repeatedly while he chewed lightly on his lower lip. “Rachel was a good girl for a while. She met someone though, a guy, and she just started to close off.”

  He paused for a moment, dropped the pen back on the desk and crossed his arms. “Look, Rachel just up and left town with whoever she was screwing. It's that simple.”

  Adam met Brynn's sideways glance with his own and knew she too had picked up on the man's angry undertone. “Do you have any idea who the guy was?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “She knew a lot of guys. Most of them from out of town.”

  “Are we talking in the biblical sense?” Brynn asked.

  “She had a lot of relationships with various males.” He narrowed his eyes on Brynn. “I didn't pry further than that.”

  “What was your relationship with Rachel?”

  Jimmy stood straight, his hands fisted tight. “What's that—”

  “Answer the question, Nelson.” Clarkson gave the command in a tone that left no room for negotiation. The sheriff had been sitting back quietly in his seat until he’d seen the young cop take on the defensive stance.

  “It would help us to know,” Adam interjected, sensing anger rising in the young man. He had a hunch Jimmy would feel more comfortable answering the question for him than for Brynn, who, although she'd been born and raised in Black Bear Gorge, was still viewed by most as an outsider.

  Jimmy flexed his right hand, looked between the two and nodded. “We were friends, nothing more. But like I said, toward the end she closed off and our friendship kind of burned out.”