Page 139 of Fire Fight

“That one of Trey’s?” Lane asked, pointing his pen at the keypad mounted on the wall in the entryway.

“You know it is,” Wyatt said with an eye roll.

“Put it in for free,” Ward added, puffing his chest out proudly, glancing between Lane and Crew. “Good man, your brother.”

“He’s something,” Crew mumbled, only loud enough for me to hear.

Lane gave them a curt nod and closed his notebook, then extended a hand to Ward, who accepted it reluctantly.

“Sorry about this, Ward,” the sheriff said. “I’ll confirm with Trey that the system was armed all night, and we’ll put this all behind us.”

“No problem, Sheriff. I understand you’re just doing your job,” Ward assured him as he led us back to the door.

We’d only been in the house for about ten minutes, but I was grateful to be leaving. The air here was charged with something I couldn’t name. While I didn’t catch any bad vibes from Ward, something about the way Wyatt acted told me maybe we needed to dig a little deeper.

Once we were back in Lane’s cruiser, Crew released a sigh. “Well, that was a bust.”

“I’m not so sure,” I said, closing my eyes and replaying the entire interview over in my mind.

“You caught that too, huh?” Lane asked, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

I popped my eyes open to see Crew shift in his seat, his baby blues shifting between me and his brother. “Caught what?”

Lane put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb, and my attention remained locked on the house until we turned the corner and it disappeared from view.

When Lane spoke again, his tone was edged with excitement, like he was a search dog that had picked up a trail.

“Wyatt Saunders knows something.”

thirty-six

. . .

CREW

“What do you mean,Wyatt knows something?”

“She was fidgety,” Aspen provided.

“And she refused to look me in the eye. Telltale signs that someone is lying.”

I gaped at my brother. “Wyatt Saunders wouldn’t hurt a fly. You’re telling me you thinksheis responsible?”

“Of course not,” Lane assured me. “First of all, she’s not nearly old enough. But what I am saying is that she’s keeping something from me, and I intend to find out what it is.” He shifted to glance at Aspen in the rearview. “You feel anything in there other than Wyatt being shady?”

“No. In my gut, I don’t think Ward was the one who attacked me, but I’ve been wrong before.”

The end of that statement piqued my interest enough that I shifted around in my seat to look at her. “What do you mean?”

Her shoulders raised and lowered dramatically as she heaved a sigh, gnawing on her bottom lip, almost like she didn’t want to tell me.

“Is this about the Bullough story?” Lane asked.

Aspen nodded, giving into a shiver, like the name elicitedmemories she had no desire to revisit. “The story that cost me my career—and almost my life.”

Wisely, though I had a thousand things I wanted to say, questions I wanted to ask, Lane and I kept our mouths shut and let Aspen proceed at her own pace.

“Bullough Enterprises was a venture capitalist firm in Chicago. About six months before I left everything behind, I got an anonymous tip that they were skimming from their investors. According to my source, it wasn’t anything crazy at that point. A few hundred thousand here and there. But it had the makings of an elaborate Ponzi scheme. If I could prove it, that kind of story could make my career. I had aspirations outside of Chicago, you know? So I started digging.”