Page 152 of Fire Fight

I chuckled. “You have no fucking idea. I’ll swing by Mozzy’s and grab some take-and-bakes. Have Mama fire up the oven, and I’ll be home in twenty minutes or so.”

“Be careful, baby,” she warned.

“I love you too,” I quipped and hung up.

Every single parking space on Cassia was taken, so I drove around to the alley and steered into the grass on the side, leaving my truck running as I entered through the back door. The wait was longer than I would’ve liked but after fifteen minutes, I headed out with three pies balanced in my hands.

I never saw the hit coming.

I was stunned enough that I stumbled, dropping the boxes ofpizza. Before I could react, a cold, blunt object pressed into the back of my head, and a distorted voice said, “Keep your mouth shut and I won’t blow your brains out right here.”

Still dazed from the blow, I wisely didn’t move. The barrel dug in harder as the person shoved me forward, toward a white panel van parked nose-to-nose with my truck. We went around back, where the doors were open.

“Get in,” the voice said.

I crawled in. The moment I was fully inside, but before I could turn to get a look at whoever the fuck this was, they reached out and pressed something to my neck.

First, there was a sting, then a jolt that reverberated through my entire body.

And then, there was nothing but blackness.

forty

. . .

ASPEN

“What’s the matter, dear?”

Birdie’s voice startled me enough that I yelped, then slapped my hand over my face in embarrassment. I’d been standing at the windows in the den, the ones that faced the driveway, willing Crew’s truck to come rolling down the gravel and ease the twisting in my gut.

“I’m so sorry,” I told her, then flicked my wrist to check my watch. “But…Crew should’ve been home by now. My calls are going straight to voicemail.”

Forty minutes had passed since he’d called to say he’d be home in twenty, and something about his tardiness wasn’t sitting right with me.

“I can feel it too,” Birdie whispered, gathering my hand in hers. “Something is wrong.”

“What makes you say that?”

She pressed her free palm to her heart. “A mother always knows.”

I sighed in relief that I wouldn’t have to try to explain this nagging sensation tugging at my heart. Birdie merely withdrew her phone from the pocket of the apron she perpetually woreand dialed a number. The ringing filled the silence between us, and a deep voice answered a moment later.

“Hey, Mama,” he said, and I recognized it instantly as Lane. “Sorry I’m not going to be able to make dinner. Things are moving on this case, and I’ll be stuck at the department until further notice.”

“Have you seen Crew?”

“Not since he left here about forty minutes or so ago.”

Birdie put the phone on speaker, and I said, “Hey, Lane? It’s Aspen. Look, it’s probably nothing, but he called me when he left there. Said he was going to get pizza from Mozzy’s and head home.”

“Fuck,” Lane breathed. “I’m assuming you tried calling him?”

“Yes. They’re going right to his voicemail.”

“Trey and I will go check it out.”

“Be careful, baby,” Birdie told her son, echoing the last words I’d spoken to Crew.