From the Ashes (Southern Heat Book 1)

by Jamie Garrett

  Mason glowered at the FBI agent and then reluctantly nodded. Several more questions were asked of Sloane, all of which she couldn’t answer. He could tell she was growing flustered. The pulse in her neck beat faster. She held her hands in her lap, clasped tightly. She bit her lower tip—another telltale sign of her agitation, one that he remembered from their past.

  “So let me get this straight,” Agent Mathews said. “You’re drawing a blank about everything in your past. You don’t remember anything before you woke up in the parking lot in front of the abandoned auto shop here in Monroe. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  Sloane stiffened. “That’s what I’m telling you. And it’s the truth.”

  The agent said nothing for a moment, and then gestured toward Bascom.

  Bascom cleared his throat. “Miss Maxwell, we were able to sift through the remains of the room where you were found in the auto shop.” He cast a quick glance toward Mason. “We found a cell phone in there. It looks like it had been taken apart, or else fell apart when it was dropped.”

  “Did you get anything from it?” Mason asked.

  “It was charred and it broke into several pieces. I’m not hopeful that we’ll be able to retrieve any data from it. It’s logged into evidence, and our techs are working on it.” He turned to Sloane.

  “What were you doing out there that night?

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why go to that area of town? To an abandoned auto shop?”

  “I don’t know!” she reiterated, her voice rising in frustration. “How many times do I have to tell you I just don’t remember!”

  The state patrol officer, the FBI agent, and the Monroe police detectives all stared at her, and Mason knew what they were thinking. They found it hard to believe that Sloane didn’t remember anything. The FBI agent flat-out believed she was lying.

  “Did you find anything else?” Bascom shook his head. Mason turned toward the state trooper from Savannah. “Did you find anything at the scene of the restaurant?”

  “It was a pipe bomb, as we suspected. We sent the remains to our state lab, but it could be a few days before they’re able to tell us anything that might help with the investigation.”

  The questioning went on again, around and around. Finally, Sloane erupted in a fit of temper. “I don’t know how many ways I can tell you that I don’t know the answer to any of the questions you’re asking me! What about my boss? Stavros Sakkas? What does he have to say?”

  “He says he has no idea why you were in Monroe.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Mason said. God, he was drained. Sloane must be completely exhausted. “I know a guy from the fire department. He’s friends with a guy who works at some computer security agency. He’s pretty fucking good. He might be able to retrieve information from the chip in that phone you found at the auto shop.”

  Bascom looked interested while the FBI agent seemed doubtful.

  “Look, if it was my phone, maybe he can access text messages, a call log, anything—”

  Bascom interrupted Sloane. “Anything like that would be encrypted, and if it’s password-protected, are you going to be able to give us the password? No. So I’m not sure how much good—”

  “What have we got to lose?” Sloane argued. “What have I got to lose? I’m telling you, I don’t remember anything!” She grew increasingly agitated, her hands balled into fists.

  “My guy would probably be able to access the encrypted data without a password,” Mason said. “And she’s right. What do we have to lose?”

  “Can you get ahold of him? Like right now?”

  Mason pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “I’ll call my friend.”

  Things moved fast. In less than half an hour, his friend had called some guy named Jackson Archer, who’d transferred them to a man named Tansy—what the hell kind of name was that, anyway—who setup a secure uplink to transfer whatever raw data the police station techs had been able to pull from the cell. While Mason watched the transfer zip by, Bascom found a laptop and projector from somewhere and Skyped an account Tansy gave him. There, suddenly larger than life projected on the wall, was—Mason assumed—the man himself. In actuality, he looked more like a hungover surfer than computer nerd. The small parts of his office that weren’t covered in giant screens and tech gear had reams of paper stacked everywhere, topped off with empty ramen noodle cups.

  “Give me five minutes,” Tansy said without preamble. He ignored everyone in the room, his fingers flying over the keyboard. No one else said a word and Mason’s own stress levels grew. Was it Sloane’s cell phone they’d found? She hadn’t had one on her person at the fire. No matter whose it was, would anything incriminating be on it? Would Tansy be able to extract any data from it at all? And what if—

  “I’m in, and I’ve got something,” Tansy announced. “I’m putting it up on the screen now.”

  Everyone around the table, including Mason, leaned forward. Tansy’s face disappeared, replaced by blackness, but his voice remained. “It’s a video.”

  Mason ripped his eyes from the giant black rectangle on the wall and looked over at Sloane. She was pale again, her hands trembling. He grabbed one in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze, resisting the urge to pull her into his lap. His own heart pounded with anxiety and a certain amount of dread.

  “Play it,” Bascom said.

  At first it was scratchy, just a fuzzy, somewhat snowy screen. Small gaps in the playback, black screen flashes, and then more blips of action. As the seconds passed, Sloane uttered a low moan and lifted a hand to her mouth, eyes wide with growing horror.

  Bascom shook his head. “Shit.”

  Mason stood frozen, disbelieving. What the hell? A chill ran down his spine and he swallowed hard, his pulse racing as he watched a cold-blooded murder taking place right before his eyes.

  15

  Sloane

  Sloane watched in horror. No one said a word, all eyes transfixed on the grainy video. The video played each second of the awful scene from her phone. She swallowed, the bile rising in her throat, and placed one hand over her mouth, another on top of her roiling stomach. She wanted look away but at the same time couldn’t. Had she been holding the cell phone, taking the video? The video was half obscured, as if the person filming it was hiding behind something. A structure? Peeking around an open doorway? Around the edge of a wall?

  She didn’t know and didn’t care. It didn’t matter where she, or perhaps someone else, had stood. The murder on the clip said it all. Two men arguing, maybe thirty feet away. Their voices muffled. She couldn’t make out what they said but their tone and body language was all anger. One man, facing the camera; dark hair, thin face, arms raised, shaking his head, protesting and denying something. The other was taller, heavier, and broader, holding something in his hand. What was it? Suddenly the bigger man stepped toward the thinner man, threatening him. Shoulders low, leaning slightly forward, his stance aggressive. His hand swung back and then darted forward.

  The thinner man choked out a garbled scream and bent double, clasping his stomach. Even the grainy video didn’t hide the dark splash of blood gushing from the wound and over the hands, even as he tried to hold back the spill. Sloane watched wide-eyed as the bigger man abruptly shifted his position, stepped behind the man who had just been stabbed, wrapped one arm around his neck and jerked him upright. A minor adjustment and the knife hand came up. Her stomach roiled again as his knife slashed left to right across the man’s neck, opening a gaping wound. Blood spurted. Arms flailing and knees buckling, the man dropped to his knees, teetered a moment, and shoved roughly by the bigger man, fell facedown.

  A noise, sounding close to the camera. The big man looking up, squinting toward her. Took a few steps in the direction of the camera . . . Oh my God. “Did I . . . that’s my camera? I took a video of a murder?” Her voice shook with the horror of it all.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked over. Mason gazed down at her with an incredulous s
tare. They locked eyes for a moment, his gaze hot and slightly panicked, and then he turned toward Lieutenant Bascom.

  “Lieutenant, as far as I know, there were no remains found in that building. I would’ve been told by now.” Strange how steady his voice seemed. Sloane’s entire body felt like it was shaking.

  Bascom shifted his gaze from Mason to Sloane, then glanced at the others gathered around the table behind the video tech. “Let’s verify if this video was taken in that abandoned auto shop. Can we do that?”

  “Sure,” FBI agent Matthews shrugged. “I’ll get someone on that right away.” He quickly left the room, pulling a cell phone from his pocket as he closed the door behind him.

  Rapid talk broke out among the others while Sloane stood frozen. Just like the night of the fire, everything felt so surreal. Others moved around her while she stood riveted in place. Who the hell was the man who’d been killed? What about the killer? And what the fuck had she been doing in that building in the first place? Mason stood beside her, still staring at the now blank makeshift screen, frowning.

  “Mason—”

  “Uh, Tansy, can you make us a copy of that?”

  The dark square on the wall changed back to the blond man. He nodded stiffly, his gaze darting to Sloane, softening for just a moment. “Of course.” The screen went black again and the connection dropped.

  “Good,” Bascom nodded before focusing his own attention on Sloane. His gaze drifted to Mason. “I think it would be a good idea if we put you both under protection.”

  “Do you really think that’s necessary?” Sloane interrupted, heart trip-hammering, lifting a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose in an effort to head off a growing headache, fingers trembling. She glanced from Mason to the lieutenant. “After all, has it been definitively determined that that’s my phone? Isn’t it possible that belonged to someone else? Someone that victim went to that building with?”

  Bascom hesitated. “It was in the area where you were found in the office. It’s highly likely that you are the one who was taking the video.” He held up a hand to interrupt her. “Obviously, you—or the slight possibility of someone else—were taking a video of the meeting between those two men.”

  Sloane couldn’t stand it. Her whirling stomach, her pounding head, her fear, her inability to remember—it was all so crazy. She stamped her foot on the linoleum beneath her feet. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Million-dollar question, isn’t it?” the lieutenant replied.

  She looked at Mason, standing silent, then back at the lieutenant. Sloane didn’t know if her idea would fly but she had to try. “Look, I don’t know what happened back there at the auto shop, or what the hell I was doing there in the first place. But I have to figure out what happened. I can’t remain in hiding for the rest of my life and neither can Mason. He’s got a job! He can’t just—”

  “Look, Miss Maxwell, I understand where you’re coming from, but—”

  “How can you possibly understand?” she demanded. Anger had instantly replaced her abject fear. “How can you possibly know what it feels like not to remember who you are?” Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them back. “Am I a criminal? A witness? You know what it feels like to not remember your own name?” She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t want to hide. If I hide, I might never remember.”

  “Sloane, I think you should listen to what the lieutenant has to say.”

  All eyes in the room were now focused on her. Studying her for any sign of deceit? Looking for telltale signs of guilt? Memory? Bascom’s partner, Larry Williams, paused half way through sending a text message. The Savannah state patrol officer shifted his gaze between her and Mason. “I think it would be a good idea if I didn’t stay at your apartment anymore. Look what happened in Savannah.” She swallowed hard. “Someone tried to kill us, Mason. Kill you. Because of me.” Again she turned to the lieutenant. “If you want to put Mason under protection, go ahead. I don’t want Mason hurt because of me but I need to . . . I want to help. I don’t want to be tucked away someplace, unaware of what’s happening. I understand that I may very well be involved in this, and if I am, I’ll deal with it. But I don’t think I am.”

  Bascom lifted an eyebrow. “And how can you be so sure?”

  “I can’t, it just doesn’t feel . . . there’s nothing in me that feels like I could do something like that.” It sounded stupid, lame, even as she said it, but it was the truth. The little bits and pieces that she had been remembering had so far revealed something evil. And that’s what she had just witnessed on that cell phone video. Evil.

  She couldn’t possibly have been involved in something like that. A murder. She didn’t recognize either of the two men in the video. Not that it was high quality, but nothing about the mannerisms or the size of the two men triggered any recognition. What had she been doing there? She had asked herself that question at least a hundred times since being carried out of that burning building.

  “Got something.” Detective Williams lifted a hand as he eyed his phone. “I did a quick check. Turns out there was a body found there.”

  “Found by our department?” Mason asked in disbelief.

  “Doesn’t seem so,” Williams shrugged. “The arson investigator found it. The body was shoved into a storage closet and covered with a mattress that some transient probably dragged into the place.”

  “Has the body been identified?” Bascom asked.

  “Nope,” Williams shook his head, still reading off his phone. “The crispy critter is still down in the morgue if anyone wants to take a look-see.” He read a little more and then looked up, putting his phone away. “The coroner is just waiting for some rush DNA results.”

  “DNA results?” Mason scoffed. “Not very likely if he was as crispy as you say.”

  “Apparently, the doc found a tooth . . . a molar. Extracted some material from it, hoping he could get a match.” He shrugged. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Sloane stared at the man in dismay. Perhaps it was common when you worked the job for years, death and murder became par for the course. Of course, that man could well have been involved in the attempt on her life—attempts. God, there had been more than one! Had the murderer hurt her after he realized she’d taken a video? Smashed her phone and then set the place on fire? Or was the video from a different night entirely and she’d been dumped there, left to burn with the building and any evidence it held?

  Sloane almost fell backward, slumping into her chair. What the hell was she supposed to do now? How could she even begin to defend herself if she had no idea what she’d done? Why had someone tried to kill her, not once, but twice now?

  “Anything else we can do for now?”

  Some glanced up at Mason and then turned toward the others still gathered around the table, watching them. Watching her. She frowned. Were they expecting her to announce out of the blue what the hell was going on? Fat chance. She was just as clueless as they were. She focused her frustration on the FBI agent.

  “Agent Matthews, it’s obvious you don’t believe me and you think I know more than I do, but I’m telling you right now that I don’t.” She gestured toward the computer equipment still sitting out on the table. She struggled to keep her voice calm. “If, God forbid, I was involved in any of that, I’ll take full responsibility. But I’m telling you, you’re wrong. So instead of glaring at me as if you’re trying to read my mind, what don’t you tell us what we should do? What do you want me to do?”

  The FBI agent merely cocked an eyebrow at her and gave a small shrug. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  The comment took her by surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Bascom interrupted. “Look, Miss Maxwell. I’m offering protection. We’ve got a safe house nearby. I think it would be . . . no, I know it would be a good idea if you stayed there for a few days, at least until we get some more information.” Sloane was about to protest, but Mason placed a hand
on her shoulder and spoke.

  “She’ll take you up on that offer, Lieutenant.”

  “No, I won’t!” She turned to Mason, prepared for further protest until she saw the look on his face. Her stomach somersaulted. Was that suspicion she saw in his gaze? Distrust? Worry? She couldn’t tell, but it made her heart flip-flop and the knot growing in her stomach tightened.

  “It’s not what you think, Sloane,” he spoke softly. “I don’t doubt you. But I can’t protect you at my apartment. You’re vulnerable there. I have to go to work. I can’t leave you unprotected.”

  No. She wanted to stay with Mason. His arms had been the only place she felt safe. But she couldn’t. Every second she stayed with him, Sloane was putting him in more danger. It was one thing to risk her own life, another entirely to put Mason at risk, too. All he’d done was help her, even though he owed her nothing, and she wouldn’t put his life at risk in return. He was right. Her shoulders slumped with disappointment and she crossed her arms over her chest. Protecting herself, or already guarding her heart?

  It was at that very second she knew. She was falling in love with him. Again. She didn’t remember their past, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want a future with him. They shared a connection, one unbreakable even now. And God, the sex. That had been more than just a physical release. More than chemistry. Much more. It was a psychological bond; a connection to a past that she didn’t remember.

  “Let’s just give it a few days, all right? Give them time to find out more. Okay?” Mason said. She looked at the other faces in the room. All of them somber. Wary. Sloane sighed. Could she blame them? No. How could she, when she felt the same way herself?

  16

  Mason

  Mason pulled up outside of his apartment after work, barely remembering the drive home. Last week his car insurance company had called and informed him that a check had been cut and he had picked it up. The following day he had bought a used, two-year-old Jeep much like his old one from one of the used-car salesmen in Monroe. Surprisingly little mileage. Apparently the vehicle belonged to an elderly woman, new widow, whose husband had only driven it around town.