by KB Jacobs
I scanned the crowd, but there was no sign of Alex. My palms itched with the need to touch her again.
“That was some speech you made up there.”
I turned to find two older men, smiling at me. One wore a VFW hat over his gray hair The other wore his hat over what appeared to be a bald head.
“Um...thank you.” I guessed that was the right response. It wasn’t clear if he was congratulating me or just making idle talk.
“Just wanted to come over and shake the hand of the man who served with Jimmy.” The guy with the VFW hat held his hand out to me.
I stared down at it. This is why I’d never left my hobbit hole after the accident. All those people, wanting to shake my hand. My scarred hand. I took a deep breath and held it out to him.
Warm, gnarled fingers curled around my hand in a firm shake while the man grinned at me.
The bald-headed man gave me a friendly slap on the arm. “All right, Jonesy, let’s go get a beer before I die of thirst or they run out of the good stuff.”
The two men ambled away, and I stared after them. I just shook a stranger’s hand. No matter what happened, Alex had changed my life forever. I just needed to find her and tell her.
I glanced around the room again, but the crowd seemed to have doubled in the few minutes while I was talking to the veterans. I turned back to the bar when a loud boom echoed from the back of the building. The room went dark as the electricity cut off. The room fell silent with only the echo of surprised gasps and the tinkle of shaking bottles filling the void.
“Shit,” Lake’s voice carried over the silence as she and Walsh bolted toward the kitchen. I pushed through the crowd to follow them.
Shoving through the door behind the bar, I ran into the dark room still filled with the sizzle of fried food. Walsh and Lake were only a few feet in front of me.
“What happened?” Chef Luke yelled as we ran through.
“We don’t know yet,” I told him. “Hang tight, and do what you can to keep everyone calm.”
The door pushed open again, and Melissa and Anthony ran in followed closely by Alex. I finally found her, but this was hardly the time for a declaration of love.
In the back of the brewery was a small room between the newly renovated kitchen and packaging that held all the utility equipment that ran the brewery...the fuse boxes, the main control panels for the heavy brewing equipment, the water heaters, backup generators, etc.
Smoke seeped out from around the frame of the door to the equipment room. Walsh stepped to the door and placed his palm on it, checking to see if it was hot. I grabbed a fire extinguisher from the entrance of the kitchen.
“Everyone stay back,” I instructed with a quick glance to make sure Alex was far enough away that she couldn’t get hurt by whatever was behind this door.
In a carefully executed tag-team maneuver perfected after serving years together in the military, he swung the door open, and I dropped, aiming the fire extinguisher. Although there was a ton of smoke billowing out of one of the brewery control panels, there was no fire.
Warner lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, a pair of pliers dropped beside him.
“Someone call 911,” I said as I rushed to his side, feeling for a heartbeat. It was there, but it was faint. His blackened hands along with the blood seeping from his nose and ears showed that he’d been electrocuted by whatever he’d been doing in here.
I exchanged a look with Walsh.
“Is he alive?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. It’s faint, but he has a heartbeat, and he’s still breathing for now. Hopefully, the ambulance gets here quick.” I didn’t like that blood coming from his ears and his nose. If it had just been his ears, it could mean he’d ruptured his eardrums, but both could signal an issue with his brain. I looked around the room. “What was he doing in here?”
Walsh nodded at an equipment schematic book lying on the floor behind me. “I think we just found our saboteur.”
“Warner?” I looked down at the unconscious man who looked little more than a young boy. It was hard to believe the evidence in front of me. He seemed so harmless.
A wail of sirens sounded outside, followed quickly by paramedics rushing the room.
“Warner!” One of the paramedics dropped beside the fallen man and immediately began to assess his condition, yelling out instructions to his partner.
I backed out of the room. Alex was there, standing close enough that I could reach out and wrap my arms around her. But I didn’t. It took every ounce of restraint I had not to touch her. But I hadn’t earned that right yet.
“That’s Noah.” She nodded at the paramedic, and I could hear the emotion in her voice. “He’s one of Warner’s brothers.”
At least she was talking to me.
Suddenly, the area was swarmed with police and fire personnel, shuffling us out of the way.
Alex snagged one of the police officers and asked, “Is Detective Murdock coming? If not, someone should call him. He needs to be here.”
The guy nodded. “He’s on his way.”
“I don’t understand,” Melissa said, shaking her head with tears in her eyes. “Warner’s always been so sweet. I don’t believe it. I can’t believe he would have hurt me. He’s my friend.”
Anthony wrapped her up in his arms.
“We don’t know anything yet,” Lake said. “Let’s just concentrate on positive thoughts for Warner right now. We’ll sort the rest of it out later.”
I exchanged a glance with Walsh. If Warner was behind the sabotage, it was going to kill Lake. Even I’d been around her enough to know that she thought of him like a little brother.
“Um, guys.” Alex pulled at Melissa and Lake. “We need to go into the Brew Pub and light the candles and reassure our patrons that everything will be back online shortly.” She cast a worried glance at the equipment room and another at me that I couldn’t read.
They appeared to be about ready to roll Warner out on the stretcher.
“That’s a good idea.” I nodded at her. They needed to get Lake out of here before they rolled Warner through. “You all go out there, smiling and reassuring. Once we can get to it, Walsh and I will see what we can do about resetting the breakers. I don’t think he damaged the main power grid, just overloaded it.”
Forty-five minutes later, no one would have ever been able to tell anything had ever happened. A whole section of the brewery was down, but none of our patrons would have guessed. Everything in the Brew Pub was flowing smoothly.
Melissa and Anthony had gone to the hospital to wait and hear about Warner’s status while the rest of us held down the fort at the brewery. But nothing was calm again for the rest of the night.
My brain kept running through a list of questions as I worked. I passed Alex but never had a moment to stop and talk to her. Would she hear me out? Would it make any difference? And why had Warner done it? What was his beef with Naked Brews? And most importantly...was the danger over?
Chapter Forty
Alex
I pulled the car to a stop in the hospital parking lot and stared up at the hospital building. It had been two days since Warner had almost fried his brains out, trying to ruin the opening of Ice’s Brew Pub. We thought that was the end of the mystery, but the more we learned, the less we knew.
According to Chief Klune, Warner was definitely responsible. A search of his apartment turned up evidence from most of the attacks on the brewery. Photocopies of Lake’s signature used to falsify order forms, schematics for our electrical box and the old bottling system, and print outs on how to create a controlled fire. But his computer turned up the worst evidence. Warner wasn’t working alone.
His computer held dozens of emails from a conspirator. At first, they simply urged him to act based on his anger over Melissa rejecting him. At one point, he’d tried to stop, but whoever was part of this had threatened to turn him in if he didn’t keep working to take down the brewery. All the emails came from an IP address hidd
en under layers of heavy encryption, and the chief wasn’t sure when or if they’d ever be able to trace them back to their origin.
“Well, if I want to know who’s really responsible, the answers are in there.” I nodded toward the door.
I walked into the lobby where Walsh, Lake, Melissa, and Anthony waited for me. Damian was there as well, standing a bit off to the side as if he couldn’t decide if he was with the group or not. The past two days had been a delicate dance of avoiding him while not being obvious about it. As much as I wanted to run into his arms and bury myself in them, I couldn’t afford that luxury. He was only here temporarily, and I needed to keep my guard up if I my heart was going to survive.
Chief Klune came around the corner with some detective I didn’t recognize. The minute Warner had become suspect number one, his brother had stepped down from the case. He was dealing with his own issues, knowing he missed the signs of his own brother being responsible.
“Lake, girls.” Chief Klune shook hands all around. “This is Detective Morris. He’ll be handling the investigation from here on out. He’ll also be in the room so that anything said can be used to secure further warrants and hopefully track down the bastard responsible. The sooner, the better. The whole department is sick over this.”
Lake gave him a pat on the shoulder. “I think the whole town will sleep better once this is done.”
The chief nodded and turned the floor over to Detective Morris.
“I’m Sean Morris. It’s nice to meet you all. Sorry it’s under such awful circumstances.” His soft voice had a slight southern accent. Not an Aspenridge native, then. No wonder Lake didn’t know him. “Which of you is Melissa?”
Melissa raised her hand, and Anthony took a step closer to her, wrapping his arms protectively around her waist. My skin tingled with the memory of Damian touching me that way.
Sean nodded. “How are your acting skills?”
Melissa swallowed nervously, and her neck took on a fine shade of pink.
I stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. “Melissa, I love you like the sister I never had, but you are the world’s shittiest poker player. You couldn’t tell a lie if the world depended on it. The only reason you and Anthony got away with a fake relationship is because you fell head over heels in love with him. How about you let me take this one?”
Detective Morris gave me a questioning look. “I’m not sure that works. Melissa is Warner's unrequited love so he’s more likely to give up information to her than the best friend. No offense.”
“We haven’t met yet.” I held out my hand. “I’m Alexandra Nichols. Daughter of Brittney Boone-Nichols. Perhaps you’ve heard of her?”
The detective nodded with a glazed-over look in his eye. Perfect. What better way to convince my heart I was over Damian than throwing myself at another man? Even if it was pretend.
I moved behind him and ran a hand down the side of his face as I pushed my body flush with his back. “I have no idea why Melissa didn’t jump at the chance to date you. Any girl would consider herself lucky to find a catch like you, Warner. Any girl.” I moved my hand down the detective’s chest, and he stiffened up like cardboard. “I’m any girl. We could be together, but first, we need to prove to everyone that this wasn’t your fault. We just have to find the person who made you do those things I know you didn’t want to do.”
Stepping away, I smiled knowingly at Morris’s shocked expression. Living with a pack of liars had its advantages.
From the back of the group, I could swear I heard Damian growl, but his face was blank. Wishful thinking.
“It’s not the most conventional tactic, but it’s worth a shot.” Sean rubbed at the back of his neck. “He refuses to speak to anyone on the force, and Mayor Murdock brought in a lawyer from out of town who keeps telling him to keep quiet. This might be our only shot.”
“Then it’s a done deal.” I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. Brittney Boone-Nichols might be my mom, but that didn’t mean I had her confidence.
Morris led us around the corner to the bank of elevators and up to the third floor. I pushed myself into the corner as far from Damian as I could get. This close, I couldn’t trust my hands not to reach out to him. Not when I could really use the steadying calm of his hand in mine.
We made a mass exodus from the elevator, the seven of us flowing out like we’d ridden in a clown car. The hallway was calm. Morris nodded at the two women behind the nurse’s station. One of them came scurrying around the counter.
“Detective Morris,” she purred, twirling the stethoscope around her neck where her scrubs dipped to reveal a hint of cleavage. “I wasn’t expecting you. Your partner is already inside.”
“What the...” Morris turned to stare down the hallway just as a familiar man left one of the rooms.
I took a step away from the group. “Vincent?”
He stopped, turned toward me, his eyes widening in alarm. “Alex.” He gave me a tight, fake smile.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
Lake stepped up next to me. “That’s not Vincent. That’s Roger from Mountain Brews.” She looked at me like I’d gone crazy.
But I hadn’t.
“Were you just in room 329?” Detective Morris called from the back of the group. “That room is off limits to unauthorized visitors.”
Vincent froze for a second, his face pale and his eyes wide. The stillness erupted with the sound of alarms coming from the room behind Vincent and the nurse’s desk behind us. Staff flew into action, but no one moved faster than Vincent. He turned and sprinted to the other end of the hallway.
Before I could say another word, Damian flew by me, running faster than should be normal. He hit Vincent in the back and wrapped his arms around his waist as they both sailed off their feet to the floor.
“Holy shit.” I ran to where the two of them tangled on the floor, but Damian yelled for me to stay back.
Detective Morris helped Damian hold Vincent down while he cuffed Vincent’s hands behind his back.
I leaned against the wall and stared at the chaos around me. Just how deep did this rabbit hole go?
Chapter Forty-One
Damian
The next day was rough as we all went about business as usual at the brewery. Except everything was light years away from usual. We were too busy for me to get Alex alone, and she avoided me like a ticking time bomb. Not to mention Warner’s obvious absence and news of his deteriorating physical condition.
Vincent had injected Warner’s I.V. with a poison that caused a heart attack. On top of his already weakened condition after the electrocution, Warner’s heart had stopped beating three times that day before he slipped into a coma. The prognosis wasn’t looking good.
Although Alex knew the facts and logic of the matter, she couldn’t help blaming herself for getting Vincent even closer to the brewery and putting Warner and everyone else at risk. I’d caught snatches of her hushed conversations with Lake and Melissa. She’d trusted Vincent, and he’d betrayed that by using her in the worst possible way.
The thing that no one knew yet was the why of the matter. But Detective Morris had called us into the brewery because he had some new information about the case. I would have come in for him to brief us on color options for new uniforms if it meant I could spend time in the same room as Alex.
I parked my bike in the entryway and then entered the brewery. It was still early in the day, so the tasting pub was empty besides Eric who stood behind the bar, wiping down glasses.
I nodded at him. “Are they in the restaurant?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re the last to arrive.”
I’d been over at the theater with the inspector, making sure I knew about all the structural issues with the building before the sale was finalized later in the week. My roots were settling down here in Aspenridge, but I still didn’t know if Alex would be a part of my settling down.
“The detectives came in right before you,” Eric added.
“Detectives? Is Spencer here, too?” As Warner’s brother and the original detective on the case, it would be hard to keep him out of all this.
“Yeah.” A flash of pain and then the subsequent guilt crossed Eric’s face.
It was a look I’d become accustomed to since the day of the opening. The Naked Brews crew hated Warner for what he’d been doing to the brewery, but they mourned for their friend. It was a difficult situation for all of them to handle.
“Thanks.” I slid the door open to the restaurant. The group sat in the corner, talking in low voices. I searched out Alex and met her gaze across the room. I could see her worry and the toll the week had taken on her, but she still took my breath away.
As I glanced around the table, it occurred to me that everyone there looked equally frazzled. Harlan had aged a couple of decades. Melissa obviously wasn’t sleeping, but I liked the way she leaned against Anthony. Her strong man would help keep her steady.
I pulled up a chair and slid up to the table next to Alex. Her body stiffened, but she didn’t get up and move. I’d call that a minor victory.
“Did I miss anything?” I asked.
“No.” She nodded to the two detectives talking to Lake and Walsh over by the kitchen. “I think they’re giving Lake a heads-up, and then they plan to come talk to the rest of us about what it all means.”
I nodded. Finally, we’d have some answers.
A minute later, Lake and Walsh joined the rest of us at the tables. Lake looked pissed, but Walsh kept her close as if she might shatter at the slightest provocation. Considering the bags under her eyes were pretty deep, she just might.
Detective Morris stood back and let Spencer take the lead, which I found surprising since as far as I knew, he’d been taken completely off the case.
Spencer cleared his throat. “I’ve already told her personally, but I need you all to know that I appreciate you hearing me out. I’m so damn sorry I didn’t see what was happening right under my nose.”