Stoking the Embers (New Adult Romantic Suspense): The Complete Series

by Johnson, Leslie

  No. Not Stephanie. Her fucking ex is torturing her. But how? I’ll find out how and I’ll make sure the pussy pays for what he’s done to her. To us.

  “I’m cool, guys. Let me up.” I shake off the hands still holding me in place, then take the one offered and haul myself up from the mud. I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, then rake them through my hair. I can’t wrap my head around all this. The video via a freakin’ amber alert? How could the asshole pull something like this off?

  I look at Captain Frank and ask the question of the hour, “How could someone hack the alert system like that?”

  He shakes his head and clamps his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know, but we’ll damn well find out. We need to get out here.” He points at Ed. “Drive him home; Jeff can follow in your truck.”

  “I can drive—”

  “That’s an order!” he interrupts, his eyes narrow in his ‘don’t fuck with me’ look. “You’re not getting behind the wheel right now. Don’t make me duct tape your ass to a seat. I don’t want to see or hear from you again until O-nine-hundred tomorrow. My office. Got it?”

  “But captain, it’s my shift tomorrow.”

  “One of the guys will enjoy the overtime. Just be in my office at nine.”

  I nod. “Got it.” The captain then turns sharply on his heel and walks away as thunder rumbles through the sky.

  “Let’s go,” Jeff says, holding a hand to his busted nose.

  “Sorry about your face; I didn’t mean to do that.” I give him a quick once-over; it doesn’t look broken, but he’s already got the beginnings of a shiner.

  “No problem, man. I would have reacted the same if I were in your shoes. That’s crazy man. Damn sorry it happened. We’ll find the bastard who did it.”

  Jerome. Even thinking the name stokes the fire of my rage.

  “Come on,” Ed says as lighting blazes a trail across the sky. “It’s about to get nasty.”

  I look up at the sky and thunder vibrates the ground.

  Nasty.

  It already is.

  Chapter 3 – Steph

  “Steph, are you okay? Steph?” Beth’s voice is so soothing, but I don’t want to wake from this dream.

  Is it a dream? Or is she part of the dream? I slip from reality to fantasy without knowing the borders between the two.

  In the distance I hear her. “Steph, it’s me, Beth. Are you okay?”

  Okay? I’ll never be okay. Is that my real self or my sleeping self wallowing in loathsome self-pity?

  It’s a dream: girl meets boy, girl falls for boy, girl causes boy’s life to turn to shit. No, that’s reality. No, a nightmare. Both. I keep my eyes closed, unwilling to allow consciousness to sort this all out.

  “Steph, wake up.” Beth’s hand is gentle as she shakes my shoulder. I roll onto my back and squint into the late afternoon sun streaming through my front window. I try hard to focus, but my eyes blur with unshed tears when I see the compassion in Beth’s face.

  “Tell me it was a dream,” I say to her, still clinging to the hope. Beth’s face collapses and I know the answer without her needing to say a word. She pushes my hair back from my face as the first tear falls.

  “What can I do for you?” she asks, laying her cool hand on my forehead as if checking for a fever. “Can I get you something to drink? We need to get you out of these wet clothes. How about you change while I make some hot tea?”

  Without giving me time to answer, she stands and begins rummaging through my dresser. She pulls out a pair of sweatpants and a tank top as well as my favorite fuzzy socks. She steps into my bathroom and turns the shower on full steam, then walks back to me, takes my hand and pulls me to my feet.

  “Take your time,” she says. “I’ll be just outside. I’ll leave the doors open, so yell if you need anything.”

  Like a robot, I strip and step under the hot water. It’s fiery hot, but I don’t turn it down. I wash my hair, scrubbing at my scalp. I wish I could scrub my brain clean too and let all the filth lingering there wash down the drain.

  I stay until the water turns cold and I’m shivering, even colder than before. I pull on the clothes and wrap my hair in a towel turban. Then I find a warm cardigan to pull over my tank top and walk into the living room, adjust the air conditioner to warm the place up a bit, then sit down with a worried looking Beth.

  “A detective is coming by in a few hours. Apparently the, uh…” she presses the heels of her hands into her eyes. She blows out a breath and looks at me. “Apparently, Ken told the police that the sex scene was videoed from your couch. So the camera that filmed it has to be in this room.”

  Swallowing, I pull out my phone and click the horrid link to watch the video again. File not found. The video has been removed. I lay the phone down and look around my home.

  “I don’t remember much,” I begin. “I think it was instant shock, but if I remember correctly, he’s right. It was from the first time we were together. Right here.” I pat the seat cushion beside me, remembering how wonderfully special it had been. Ruined. Now the moment is ruined forever. I’m surprised at how much the loss of it hurts my heart.

  Beth stands up and moves around the room. She peers at the pictures hanging on the walls and even fingers a spot on the wall where the paint has chipped. Turning, she says, “I don’t see anything that looks like a camera lens.”

  I lean forward and look at the tiny black dot on my laptop, the camera built into the computer. Beth shakes her head. “I already thought of that. But the video looked like it had been filmed from across the room. There wasn’t anything… uh... close up.”

  I bury my head in my hands. “This is a nightmare, and now the police are involved? Did Ken call them? Do you know what happened? Can you tell me everything you know?”

  Beth shoves a mug of tea in my hands and then sits down and picks up one for herself. “It started when I got a text message; it was an amber alert. The weird thing— well, one of the weird things anyway—is that I never signed up to receive messages for them. But, there it was. I opened it and couldn’t believe my eyes. It said to watch a video of you and Ken together, click here.”

  “You clicked.” It wasn’t an accusation, just a whispered assertion.

  Beth nods. “I thought it had to be a joke. At first, I almost didn’t open it. I was afraid it was one of those viruses stupid hackers send out. Then, I had to know. As soon the video started to play, I shut it off.”

  How? Why? The questions continue to haunt me.

  “I immediately called your phone, but I couldn’t get through. There was a weird beeping kind of ring and then it would go silent. I called and called, just kept hitting re-dial. Finally, a man answered. He said his name was Gage and he was bringing you home. I told him I had a spare key and would meet him here.”

  Beth takes a long drink of her tea and grimaces as the hot liquid burns her tongue. “Gage and another fireman or paramedic, I’m not sure, carried you up the stairs and brought you inside. You were pretty out of it. They told me the police had been notified and that it would be considered a federal crime because someone had hacked the amber alert registry to send the message out.”

  “How’s Ken?”

  Beth moves around the table and wipes away the tears falling down my cheek. “Do you want me to call him? I’m sure he’s worried about you too.”

  Leaning forward, I put my head down into my palms. “No, I’ll call him later. I don’t want to talk to anyone right now.”

  Beth’s eyes widen and she curls her legs into the chair. “Why? Is there something you’re not telling me? Did he do something to you?”

  “No.” I shake my head and pull the towel from around my hair. I comb through the wet strands with my fingers. “At least, I don’t think so. I don’t know. It’s all so confusing.”

  “Let’s start from the beginning then,” Beth urges. “I’m totally confused here too.”

  “Well, let’s just say that the video was only the highlight of an extr
emely weird and emotionally fucked up day.” I almost laugh. Almost. I’m afraid to, though. I’m afraid I can’t control it, that once the first burst of it is unleashed, it would never stop and I’ll be dragged, kicking and screaming, into an institution for the insane.

  “What else happened?” Beth’s question brings me back to reality and I tell her about my bad grade, my lunch with Professor Donovan and how Jerome crashed Planet Hollywood with his elaborate proposal.

  “You’re shitting me!”

  “No, he was on one knee, holding up this freaking huge diamond, professing undying love. Proposal 101 right in front of me.”

  “What… what did you say?”

  “I asked him to leave and he went ape-shit crazy. Beth, he stood up in the middle of Planet H and yelled at every woman in there. He asked if they wouldn’t have loved having a man propose like that.”

  “He didn’t,” Beth gasps.

  “Oh yes he did. And the horror of it all, is the women were looking at me with daggers in their eyes. Like I was the crazy one.”

  “Oh no,” Beth groans, biting at the cuticle of her thumb.

  “Finally, he leaves and the good news is that Professor Donovan was appalled for me. She said she had gotten goosebumps the moment he approached us, like someone ‘walked over her grave,’ is how she put it. She asked me if he did drugs and I told her I didn’t think so. She had asked because she said his pupils were so dilated and he looked strung out. Mad. Like crazy whacked out mad.”

  Beth continues to chew on her thumb. “Do you think he’s behind the video?”

  I stare at her and slowly nod.

  “You need to tell that to the police when they get here. You need to tell them about the botched proposal and everything Professor Donovan said.”

  I continue to nod. She stands and goes over to my desk and pulls out a notebook and grabs an ink pen. She sits back down. “I’m writing all this down so you don’t forget.”

  I look at my friend. How did I ever get so lucky as to have Beth Richards in my life? She’s been my solid… the one person I could lean on and tell everything to. I thought I could lean on Jerome, but never fully trusted him enough. I had hoped Ken would be someone like that in my life.

  Tears well and then spill as I remember how angry he was at the park. I sank into la-la land. He hulked into rage. I can’t help but wonder if he hates me. If I’ll ever see him again. If I should.

  “What should I do about Ken?” I ask my friend and her head pops up.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m sure he hates me now. I would hate me if I were him.”

  “Wait.” She points the ink pen at me. “You’re automatically assuming that you’re to blame, the cause of all this? You’re a victim too, you know. You, in no way, shape or form, caused this to happen.”

  It was my turn to bite my cuticles. “I think this was Jerome’s doing. His revenge against me. Ken got caught in the middle.”

  “Stephanie, from the little I saw and from what I know about the two of you… Ken wanted to be in the middle. Heck, he jumped in the middle.”

  “I don’t know,” I say, unable to see her point. “You know what I worry about the most?”

  “What?”

  “I think Ken is too nice a guy to walk away and he might try to stay with me out of obligation. After all, it would be a shitty thing for him to do, to dump me after all that’s happened.”

  “And that worries you, why?” She snaps the notebook shut, tosses it on the table and picks up her mug of tea again.

  “I…” I blow out a breath. “I don’t want anyone to feel obligated to me.”

  Beth’s eyes fill with tears and she sits her mug down again and walks over to sit next to me. “You still don’t get it, do you?” she asks, stroking my wet hair, then twirling it between her fingers. “The people in your life are lucky to be in your life. You’re the best person I know.”

  Her kindness releases the sandbags I’d been holding in place, releasing the water from the dam of my soul. Tears flow unheeded from my eyes. Before I can succumb to them, I need to say the words clogging my throat.

  “As much as I care for him, I think I should let him go. I don’t want to drag him any further into this mess.”

  Chapter 4 – Ken

  I hoped a night of sleep would bring some sort of clarity to the morning. It hasn’t. Just a headache from the jack and coke I used to dull the anger and force the sleep I knew wouldn’t come on its own. I sit up in bed and my gut heaves. I swallow it down and sit there, willing the world to stop freaking spinning.

  I have to be in Cap’s office by nine. It’s eight-thirty, just enough time to hydrate and wash the stink of the whisky off me. I make it to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee to brew, then stumble to the shower and turn the water on full blast cold. I see the towel Steph used just two days before, still hanging on the hook, now dry. Two days feels like two years ago now. How can so much go wrong in so little time?

  After the cold shower wakes me up, I dress in off-duty clothes, but pull on my navy LVFD shirt for good luck. God knows I need it today. The captain is going to ream my ass; I lied to the man about seeing Stephanie. What comes around really does go around, I guess.

  Shit. I dread this. Dread the accusation I will surely see in his eyes. All these years of spotless duty, of fighting fires and running into the places people normally run away from, my career is now tarnished because my dick fucking refused to stay in my pants.

  Pouring a thermos mug of coffee, I grab a donut and head out the door. The desert sun is blinding, the storm of yesterday long passed. I shove my aviators onto my face. If only all storms could pass that quickly.

  Walking into the fire hall, I brace myself for what I knew to expect… cat calls, men dry humping the pole, stripper music, belly laughs… I can’t blame the guys for giving me hell. No man could resist dicking around with another man walking in my shoes.

  To my surprise, the entire hall grows silent as I walk into the bay. The guys look angry, not at me, but at the world in general. A few of them walk forward and slap me on the back.

  “Sucks man.”

  “We’ll find the pussy behind this.”

  “…shove his camera up his ass.”

  “Yeah, we’re going to take that bastard down.”

  Ed walks up to me. “You okay, man?”

  You’d think there’d been a death in my family. I guess there has been… death of dignity, death of privacy. I never really thought about it, but there are all kinds of deaths.

  “Hangin’. I’m hangin’ right now. Thanks.”

  Feeling like a man walking the green mile, I go down the hallway to the captain’s office. I knock on the door.

  “Come in.”

  I blow out a breath and turn the knob.

  All seriousness, Captain Frank tells me to sit and offers me a cup of coffee. I raise my thermos and he pours one for himself. The clock on the wall tick-tick-ticks on my nerves.

  “First off, how are you doing today? That was a pretty foul piece of business yesterday. The whole squad is angry, me too. I can only take a stab at how you’re feeling.”

  My head starts to pound again. I think I’d rather be yelled at than looked at with pity.

  “I’ll be alright. Just so damn pissed. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for embarrassing the squad and I’m especially sorry for not telling you the truth. Steph and I had wanted to keep our business private and well, I guess I just panicked when everyone started asking questions.”

  The captain nods. “How’s Steph?”

  I lift a shoulder and he scowls, “What do you mean you don’t know? You haven’t checked up on that girl? Did you see how she looked?”

  I shake my head. “I just figured she wouldn’t want to see me; thought she’d need some time before…”

  Captain Frank lifts a finger at me and I stop my useless babbling under the intensity of his glare. “You get your ass over there. And take flowers and maybe a bottle o
f wine. You think you’re hurting and embarrassed; you’re only feeling a fraction of what that girl is feeling. We still live in a society where you’re going to be cheered for getting laid, but she’ll be labeled a slut. She’s much too sweet a girl for that to happen.”

  I start to stand and he barks, “Not this minute, asshole. We have a few things to discuss first.”

  I freeze, my butt still two inches from the chair. I can’t believe he just called me an asshole. I sink back into my seat with a thud.

  “First, I accept your apology with a warning to never lie to me again. That’s the first I’ve known you to not tell me the truth, and I can understand why you didn’t. I was asking about a private thing, nothing official duty.” He sits back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. “That said, there is an official duty line being crossed. But, like I mentioned yesterday, the department doesn’t have a fraternization policy. You just need to keep business business and personal personal.”

  I open my mouth to respond, although I have no idea what I’m going to say. I’m saved from saying something stupid when he continues, “I spoke to the investigator about an hour ago and they’ve officially logged this as a federal breach. They want access to the computer or phone you stored that video on and–”

  “Wait.” I hold up my hand and lean forward in my seat. “We didn’t video tape that. I sure as shit know I didn’t and I don’t think Stephanie would either.” I stop and think, then shake my head. “No, that…” Fuck, this is embarrassing. “That video that was broadcast, I’m almost positive it was our first time together. It wasn’t planned, was totally spontaneous…” Hell, this is worse than talking with my dad about sex.

  Captain cleared his throat. “There was a camera, Ken, and that camera was recording. If neither of you hit that play button, then who did?”

  Heat burns through me. “That’s the fifty million dollar question and I’d bet every one of those dollars that it was Stephanie’s ex who did this.”