Flashback Read online

  Before he could answer, Zach walked up to their table. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” Aidan said in surprise. “Kenzie, this is Zach. Zach, Kenzie is—”

  “Blake’s sister.” Zach’s eyes softened as he looked at her. “I miss your brother.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured. “Me, too.”

  Zach turned to Aidan and handed him a file.

  “What’s this?”

  “I wanted you to have it while I was gone. In case you need it for anything.”

  Aidan opened the file and instantly knew what he held. All the evidence Zach had gathered over the past few months on the mysterious arsons. Zach had been the first one to suspect something was going on and the first to go to Tommy for answers. Closing the file he met Zach’s steady gaze. “Thanks. Want to join us?”

  “Can’t. Brooke’s waiting for me. I just talked to Eddie and Sam. Did you know there was another explosion last night? The hardware store on Sixth.”

  “Injuries?”

  “Several, and one death. Tracy Gibson.”

  Aidan’s stomach dropped. The woman Blake had had a crush on for months before his death.

  Kenzie divided her gaze between them. “Who’s Tracy?”

  “She was an employee at the hardware store,” Zach told her. “Same setup as Blake’s Girl,” he said to Aidan, tapping the file with meaning. “So keep this.”

  Aidan understood. Zach thought he might need the info in the file when he was gone.

  “Nice meeting you,” Zach said to Kenzie. With a squeeze to Aidan’s shoulder, he left.

  “So what does that mean?” Kenzie asked. “If there was a similar explosion, maybe Blake’s boat wasn’t an accident.”

  “Maybe.”

  “A new serial arsonist?” she scoffed. “What are the chances of that in a small town like this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I know,” she said. “Next to nil.”

  She was watching him with sadness still in her eyes, along with a sense of sharp intelligence that said she wasn’t going to let this go. The brash tilt of her chin alluded to a strength of will, of passion, he knew firsthand, and suddenly he was afraid for her.

  For her, of her, and of the feelings she invoked inside him. Damn, not again…Not falling for her again, he told himself. But it didn’t matter that he was seated across from her in a crowded café, surrounded by people.

  She was all he saw.

  He watched her push her food around the plate for a few minutes, then wrapped his fingers around her wrist, guiding her fork to a large bite of eggs and bringing it to her mouth.

  She took it into her mouth, chewed and swallowed, all with her gaze never leaving his. “You keep looking at me like you care.”

  “I do.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not going to care about you back.” At that, she broke eye contract and stared down at the food. “At least not like I did before.”

  “So you’ve mentioned.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I believe you.” He also believed that she just might get her big wish, because looking at her sitting there, knowing she’d be walking away from him this time, caused a strange sensation deep inside him. He’d have sworn it was his heart rolling over and exposing its underbelly.

  Kenzie took another bite of food as his cell phone buzzed. It was Dispatch. “Sorry,” he said, standing. “I have to take this.”

  “No problem.” She was suddenly engrossed in her food, not even looking up when he went outside to get good enough reception to hear that two firefighters had come down with the flu. They needed replacements for the next shift. So much for a day off—he was going back on duty, starting now.

  He turned to go back inside the café and nearly bumped into Kenzie. “Sorry,” she said, flashing a smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes. “I’ve got to go.”

  Huh. That had been his line.

  “I paid the bill—”

  He reached for his wallet. “Let me—”

  But she put her hand over his and shook her head. “It’s on me. Consider it a very small down payment.”

  “For what?”

  “For what I owe you for saving my life.”

  “Kenzie—”

  “Thank you,” she said softly, looking into his eyes, making his head spin. “I’m not sure I said that enough. I am extremely grateful.”

  Wait. That sounded like a good-bye. “Okay, hold on a second. Are you—”

  Going up on tiptoes, she put a hand to his chest, leaned in and kissed him on the jaw. She added a smile to the mix, one that went all the way to her eyes this time as she touched her fingers to her lips and then blew him another kiss.

  Then she turned and walked away.

  As he’d once done to her. “Kenzie.”

  But she’d already gotten into her car. Where the hell was she going? She revved the engine and was gone, out of the lot, perhaps out of his world. He stood there a moment, absorbing a barrage of emotions, starting with regret and ending with a surprising hurt, and then he shrugged it off and walked inside to say good-bye to Sheila. That’s when his head stopped spinning and it hit him.

  Kenzie had stolen his file.

  10

  UNFORTUNATELY FOR KENZIE, the doggie convention was still in town. She tried a couple of B and Bs and got excited when a cute front desk clerk recognized her and said he’d stir up a room. But then he picked up his phone and yelled, “Ma! Get out of the room, I’ve got a girl!”

  Kenzie shouldn’t have been surprised, since her karma was clearly still on vacation. She made the clerk leave his mother in the room and escaped. Back in her car, she sighed, feeling very alone.

  She missed Blake.

  And dammit, she already missed Aidan, too. Missed his voice, his smile, his touch.

  How was that even possible? She’d just left him. She’d stolen his file for God’s sake. No doubt he was cursing her right this minute.

  And definitely not missing her.

  She pulled into the library and made herself comfortable on a large chair in a far corner, then opened the file. Almost immediately she felt an odd prickle of awareness, and then the hair on the back of her neck stood up.

  She was being watched again.

  She craned her neck left and then right, but no one in her immediate area was so much as looking at her. Behind her was a set of shelves, and she shifted, trying to see through a gap to the aisle on the other side.

  Nothing.

  Clearly she was still in the process of losing her mind. Determined, she went back to the file. Zach and Aidan had been thorough. There was a list of fire calls from Firehouse Thirty-Four over the past six months, five of them highlighted. The questionable fires, she realized.

  The arsons Blake had ultimately been accused of starting.

  Attached were details of those five properties: architectural plans, permits, a history of ownership, purchases and sales. Each had been plotted out on a map, and scrutinized up one side and down the other, including everything that had been found on site after the fire.

  Zach had noted finding a metal mesh trash can at each site, and even had a picture of one, from the fire just before the one at Zach’s own house. As she was looking at it, her cell phone vibrated. She nearly ignored it until she saw it was the same local cell phone number as before, and she grabbed it. “Hello?” she said breathlessly.

  When several people in chairs nearby glared at her, especially one older woman going through a stack of history books, Kenzie hunched her shoulders, mouthed a “sorry” and whispered “hello” much more softly.

  An equally soft voice spoke in return. “Forget about it, forget about all of it, and go back to Los Angeles.”

  Kenzie clutched the phone. She couldn’t tell if she recognized the speaker because the voice was purposely being disguised. “Is that a threat?”

  “You’re going to be stubborn. Goddammit.”

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