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  Anger rose inside Janina with tidal force. Fifteen minutes or so ago he’d talked to her as if it was the easiest thing in the world, and just like that, not even a finger snap later, when it was far more important that he speak, he was gone.

  Her throat tightened, chin jutted and lifted. She turned her head stiffly, glanced at Maddie alone and emotionally naked across from her. Where Maddie stood there were no longer any barricades, no walls or protections, and the ramparts had long since been blown apart. Charlie had stolen her childhood, her youth, her adolescence, then they’d let him out of prison to tear away her heart, too. And Russ just walked away? Oh no. Not on her watch.

  Not while she was still married to him. This much Janina knew for certain: job to do or not, Russ Levoie did not get to stalk away from this. Not this.

  Not without at least some explanation.

  Sucking in a breath full of determination that was well on its way toward deeper, more treacherous waters, Janina headed after her husband, maintained focus on her objective: Russ and getting out of him what she knew Maddie needed.

  What she herself needed on behalf of the other woman—and in some strange fashion on behalf of herself and her marriage. As though that way lay some sort of proof. Kinship. Irrevocable…linkage.

  The true bonds of their matrimony, for want of a better term. For better or worse.

  More determined, ticked off and confused than ever, she stepped into the teeming police department hallway—and ran smack into Russ.

  With his arms full of clothing.

  On his way back for her and Maddie.

  “You’re not going anywhere without us,” Janina snapped, putting out a hand to catch herself against the wall before she crashed into it.

  Russ caught and steadied her, looked her up and down, then maneuvered her back into the office and shut the blinds. “What size boot you wear?”

  She glared at him, off balance. “What?”

  He dumped the clothing—jeans, T-shirts, lightweight police-issue jackets, belts and thick socks—on the desk and glanced at her bare legs.

  “You got nothing covering your legs, and not that you’re going to, but if it happens that you get out of the vehicle in a hot zone, your shoes’ll melt. Now, boots. What size? Maddie, you, too.”

  “Nine,” Maddie said hoarsely but promptly. “Wide.”

  “Oh.” Wind taken effectively out of Janina’s sails, her rising indignation had nowhere. It fell into her belly like heavy canvas and lay there flattened and becalmed. “Seven and a half. Regular, er, medium, I guess that’d be.”

  Russ clipped a nod at her. “I’ll see what I can find while you change.”

  She stopped him leaving with a hand, asked him for an explanation without saying a word.

  Insisted on knowing why getting exactly what she wanted from him wasn’t enough to kill the niggling rise of self-doubt that batted against her temples, the newly persistent qualm that said marrying him in haste might not have been exactly what she’d thought it would be after all, or the right—or best—thing for either of them.

  But the midnight eyes were unrevealing, filled only with an alien knowledge when he looked at her.

  He squeezed her fingertips and released them, headed for the door. “Get changed,” he said brusquely. “I’ll see about boots. Then if we’re goin’, we’ve got to go.”

  For all the effort, argument and agony, it wasn’t them.

  In the loudest silence Janina had ever experienced, they traveled to the build site where the bodies had been discovered.

  Outside, the sky was so smoke-filled it was nearly black despite the fact it was still late afternoon, and the air was so thick with drifting ash, a thin coating of it covered the department’s Yukon long before they’d reached their destination.

  As Janina’d suggested, Jonah and Carson came with them.

  The drive to Show Low took close to two hours. By the time they arrived, the bodies were ready for transport. Refusing even the thought that Maddie might accompany him before they knew for sure what they were looking at, Russ went alone for a first look.

  The sight was grim, even for someone who’d dealt with similar events before.

  Russ’s stomach rolled at the stench the instant the body bags were unzipped. He shut his eyes and turned to find a breath of cleaner air, then drew on a pair of latex gloves and went after what he was looking for, starting with the woman and relieved beyond believing when he knew it wasn’t Jess.

  It was more than hard after that to turn to the male, the body he knew wouldn’t be Charlie’s. Brutally difficult, in fact, because as badly as he’d needed the dead woman not to be Jess, he wanted the other body to belong to Charlie. Wanted Charlie to somehow have simplified things for all of them and wound up here beyond his own control, and so now out of Maddie’s life for good.

  But then, where would that leave them looking for Jess?

  He didn’t know. He just knew that something, somewhere along the way, needed to get simple because where he stood now with Janina—who was getting tougher to figure out by the second—and with Maddie continuously locked into the picture wasn’t good.

  He was torn. Duty, honor, friendship, family, life and now wife…all the pieces of himself stood to lose big if he couldn’t sort his priorities into their proper and exclusive cubbyholes soon.

  And the fact that t’t only priorities he had to pigeonhole, but constant everyday choices he had to make, didn’t help an iota.

  Again he breathed it all into himself and tamped it down deep the way he always did—had always done.

  Had learned to do when he’d discovered himself the oldest son, the leader by default, the heir to whatever examples had to be set for his brothers and Marcy when she’d come along much later and the one responsible for keeping them and his sisters safe.

  Guardian, keeper, watcher, custodian and sentinel.

  More often than not when he’d opposed them, they’d referred to him as “warden.”

  Because as it had turned out, he was not only the oldest but also the biggest. He could pound on them until they did what he said because he knew what was best for them. And damn it, he’d done what was best for them as long as it was possible.

  As long as they’d stayed near enough for him to get hold of them and run their lives for them.

  And Mabel, despite the three years she had on him, didn’t count. It wasn’t a matter of gender or chauvinism in this case, the way he’d often been accused, but of size and personality: he had almost fifteen inches and a good hundred and thirty or better pounds on her, and she had the owlish personality of a science geek, which didn’t go with, well, leading, warding or guarding.

  Or herding.

  Russ glanced half-resentfully over at the SUV full of people—women—he’d rather not have had with him just now. For a Pai he’d done an awful lot of herding instead of riding and peach farming—and other things his people were known for—in his time. Which meant that, like it or not, he’d been born with the traits and abilities for taking care of people.

  With a silent snarl that was directed at himself for letting a moment of self-indulgent intemperance get away from him, Russ short-chained his temper two links closer to the floor and proceeded with his examination of the male corpse. The body didn’t belong to Charlie.

  Hearing a commotion erupt from the direction of the SUV because Janina had decided to come see what was taking him so long and Jonah was doing his best to prevent her, Russ gave a quick thanks to the EMTs on the scene, stripped off and disposed of the latex gloves, and advanced on his wife and youngest brother.

  “Damn it, Russ,” they shouted at him in perfect—and comical—unison. “Would you do me a favor and remind him—her—that she—he—is not the boss of me?”

  Russ glared at them. “Then who is?”

  Clearly they’d spent too much time together lately if they could squabble at the scene of a tragedy that might have been Maddie’s like a couple of six-year-old siblings who’d
no respect for the dead. They were getting on each other’s nerves.

  His had been jangled all to hell and back long ago.

  He glanced into the Yukon where Carson hugged his door and tried to pretend he didn’t know anyone and Maddie actually bit her lower lip and almost smiled.

  It was a pale tray of a smile, to be sure, but even the caricature of her usual lightning-laced effort appeared genuine. As if she couldn’t help herself.

  Even as a little kid, Jonah’d had an uncanny knack for being able to make Maddie laugh when things were roughest.

  Thoughtfully, Russ eyed him and Janina again, but with a touch more discernment. Yep, there he caught it this time, the intentional steps Jonah took to bait Janina, rile her—and there…

  Russ coughed to cover startled laughter when Janina took Jonah so off guard he suddenly didn’t look as if he knew whether he was coming or going in their brangle. Then with a wink at Russ that made him choke, she wrapped an ankle behind Jonah’s and toppled him into a pile of ash on his butt, stuck her nose in the air and climbed back into the Yukon—into Jonah’s place in the front seat—dusting off her hands of the entire affair and leaving Jonah fuming in real outrage.

  Russ understood exactly to what lengths his wife would go to keep a friend’s mind off her troubles.

  His heart expanded to fit around her more securely and he winced over the thoughts he’d been thinking, the druthers he’d had that made him want to be out here doing his duty alone. He had a duty to fulfill, yes, but he wasn’t alone. Not this time.

  He crossed to her door, opened it and leaned in, took her face between his hands and startled her to bits by kissing her soundly.

  In front of everybody.

  Or at least everybody present.

  Janina’s amazingly shiny brown eyes shimmered up at him all puzzled and curious, liquid and full, anxious and…

  Almost forlorn.

  Then she blinked and the not-quite image disappeared.

  Disturbed by what he couldn’t be sure he’d seen, Russ scraped his thumbs across his wife’s cheekbones and kissed her again, gently and with circumspection. Eased away and murmured, “Thank you.”

  Her head tilted, and where she’d been bold back at the Fat Cat and at the station, she now tried to shrug shyly away, unsure. “For?”

  He smiled and let her go. “Being you.”

  Again that fleeting confusion coupled with sadness disturbed her features. Jonah advanced on the department vehicle. “I take it the news is…good?” he said to Russ.

  Russ glanced at his baby brother, his wife, stuck his tongue in his cheek by way of washing his hands of whatever was about to happen, and stepped over to the back door of the Yukon to confirm his news to Maddie first. “It wasn’t them.”

  She swallowed, nodded gratefully. “I didn’t think it could be, but thanks for saying.”

  “You know I’d wish it was him if we knew where she was.”

  A tiny blink of affirmation followed by a glance away when her eyes began to tear. “Me, too.”

  And from the direction of the front seat, “Hot damn, Janie,” Jonah howled, once again sprawled on his butt on the ashy earth’t know when or where, and you’re not gonna know how but, sister—” there was heavy, almost blackmail-weight stress placed on the single word “—you are goin’ down.”

  “Oh, you think you’re gonna take me?” Janina shook her head, turned on her dignity and climbed back into the SUV, slammed the door behind her. Looked over her shoulder at Russ and Maddie. “You wanna get this show on the road? I need a shower, playin’ with your baby brother. Boy needs a nanny…”

  She faced front again, planted her back hard against the seat, muttering more imprecations against her youngest brother-in-law.

  Behind her, Maddie pressed her lips together and cleared her throat hard, twice, before shakily losing her battle with a sobbing sort of laughter.

  That didn’t take long to turn into just plain sobs.

  Hearing them, heart aching in empathy, Janina turned to find Russ already reaching for the woman within whom Janina had discovered her own sort of kinship. She held out a hand to him, shook her head and hopped back out of the truck to climb in beside Maddie, take Russ’s place and fold the other woman in her arms.

  Russ squeezed Maddie’s shoulder and cupped Janina’s face gratefully then let his hand drift through her hair before he shut them carefully in, jerked his head at Jonah and got them the hell away from one more dead end.

  Chapter 13

  August 12

  The new trailer, approximately forty miles southeast of Winslow

  Night drifted down, still and restless with the summer’s heat and drifting smoke clouds from the distant fires, sprinkles of ash and an uncertainty that grew more cloying with every single lost hour of each unproductive day.

  Maddie’s nerves, long past raw, had simply frayed then frazzled, and had to be pinched back together and cauterized. She’d have sold her soul for a call from Charlie that didn’t come, had groveled on her knees to gods—any gods, including the one she’d long since stopped believing in—for some sign of them at the hovel she’d finally remembered Buddy Carmichael’s daddy sharing with Charlie.

  But by the time a team had been able to reach the place, the fire had gotten there ahead of them and erased almost all traces of human habitation, except for some utensils’ remains and the chains.

  They’d also found the underground vault she hadn’t chosen to remember, the place where she’d been used and degraded unspeakably. And the reason, Russ decided grimly, sickly, when he saw it, was that Charlie had wanted Maddie to find him and Jess there. It would be the place where the horror had begun and would, therefore, in the man’s sick, twisted mind, be where redemption would have to take place.

  At the least, it would hurt Maddie unimaginably to be there.

  But again, they found no bodies, living or dead. And the tracks that weren’t destroyed, that showed the woman running away before the followed, only led deeper into the forest, into the fire, and vanished.

  Discovering that, Russ had resolved to set Guy tracking the pair ASAP. His brother was the best tracker he knew under the worst possible conditions, but since Guy had sent word that Hazel was finally in labor and he was taking paternity leave, ASAP became a relative term at best.

  Which meant finding a second-best substitute fast.

  That had been days ago. And second best was turning out to be nothing short of disastrous in terms of turning up leads.

  And to top that off, he was pretty sure Janie was pulling away from him just as he was letting down more and more of his guards and letting out more of himself with her.

  A crack deep to the west drew his attention, made him cock his head and wait, listen for follow-up, for echo, for anything.

  When nothing came he wrinkled his mouth wryly, relaxed muscles automatically gone tense in anticipation of come-what-may-be-wrong, of protective instinct gone into over-drive. Hot damn he was getting sensitive to the slightest incident. His freaking skin was crawling with the heebies.

  The jeebies had eaten him alive days ago.

  With a rip, he tore the chains on his temper loose from the floorboards he’d shackled them to and slammed out of the trailer, making the door bounce violently on its hinges. Strode forcefully around and gave the propane tank a pair of savage punches. It banged up his knuckles and hurt like blazes, but he was prepared for that—he’d battled propane tanks in lieu of deadlier, less cooperative, less available demons before.

  He hated this. Hated the wait, the not knowing—the inability to just be able to go out and make it better.

  He wasn’t good at standing still. Wasn’t good at holding back.

  Wasn’t good at not being able to make it right.

  Whatever it was.

  Especially not where certain women were involved.

  And now he had the two most special women he’d ever met to take care of. His best friend and his wife.

  His wi
fe, damn it. His wife.

  And he couldn’t seem to do anything significantly right for either of them.

  Especially not Janina.

  It was bad enough watching Maddie’s eyes sink and go dark and bruised-looking, to know that she was losing weight because she wouldn’t, couldn’t eat. See her nose chapped and red from too much blowing, too much crying. Witness his toughest friend in the world act as though she’d finally given up, given over, give in and lose her battle with despair because she no longer believed Jess was either alive or would ever be found.

  But Janina…

  Whatever was going on there wasn’t so blatant. He could simply see her fade, and knew deep inside himself he had to be to blame. In fact, he could pinpoint the day, the hour, the minute, if not the specific cause—at the station, somewhere among his asides or requests to Jennifer the day the bodies had been dvered in Show Low.

  Desolation cut serrated slices deep enough to knick bone. His heart—no, his soul—would die if he couldn’t make things right for Janie, whatever these things were.

  While he’d been out on the job, she’d set up this place for them. And little as it was, short a time as they’d been in it together—anywhere together—it was home now. She was home. He couldn’t bear the thought of her shutting down and pulling away from him—and everybody else, if the looks and comments Tobi’d been casting his direction lately were any indication.

  He couldn’t stand the thought that he—or something un-said between them—might be the cause.

  Or that his job, his identity, or simply some gossip out of the past that he’d somehow missed hearing could be hurting her now because she’d found him drunk and un-customarily romantic, he supposed, and had run away with him on the basis of…

  A moment out of time that had looked like a bright shining truth they’d both wanted to believe in.

  What the hell had he done—had had the time to do? What could Jennifer or anyone else possibly have said?

  Nothing sufficient to keep her away from him at night, that was something. No, their lovemaking was more intense than ever, almost ferociously, desperately so, but the sadness that seemed to engulf and accompany her every time she looked at him—kissed him—made him wonder whenever she touched him if it was for the last time.