Page 26 of Flashback

The crew moved in a line around trees, rocks, and brush. Kane worked next to him, sawing down vegetation to stop the fire from spreading toward a small community of homes nestled in one of the mountain valleys. One of the guys up the line blared Metallica on a small speaker. Hammer called for his brother Mack to throw him a water, which he caught easily. Dakota’s chain saw buzzed and spat sawdust into the air as he cut into the trunk of a beautiful spruce. A sad but necessary sacrifice. He moved on to the next tree.

On the outside, he was pure hotshot. Part of a team again.

Inside?

The cop instinct in him wouldn’t die. And it was an instinct that might get him into trouble.

He wanted to snatch Ethan and Nolan out of Ray’s grasp and find a safe place for them. And while one part of him regretted coming to blows, the other part hadn’t got in nearly enough to satisfy the burning rage against the injustice of it all.

With one last slice of the chain saw, Dakota felled a scrubby tree. He killed the saw, hefted the skinny trunk, and pitched it over the break line.

“You got some anger there you’re trying to quench?”

Huh. Kane talking? That was new. Usually he just sat around listening, rarely joining in the conversations and banter in their short breaks.

“Maybe.”

“This about those lost boys and their stepfather?”

“You heard about that?”

“Heard you got into a fistfight.”

Wonderful. Who else knew? Hopefully it didn’t get back to Commander Dafoe. Dakota still had a lot of money to pay back to his brother, and the sign-on bonus he was counting on to do that was only good after three months. Not to mention, with Emily Micah here and Allie and her connections in Benson, Will would definitely hear if Dakota got kicked off the team.

“Who did you hear it from?”

Kane shrugged and killed his own chain saw. He picked up the big branches and shrubs he’d cut and threw them out of the way. “Doesn’t matter. I’m guessing you had your reasons.”

“I did. Innocent children shouldn’t be subjected to living with a man like that. Those boys are in danger.”

“You think the stepdad is beating up on them?”

Dakota hefted another heavy limb, but it barely budged. “I don’t have proof, but yeah. I do. I don’t get how Jen can stay with someone like that.”

Houston James came and helped lift the fallen pine. “A lot of people in those situations think that’s what they deserve. They don’t really believe that there’s anything better. She may even come from an abusive situation herself, where it seems normal.”

“How do you know all this?” Dakota grunted as they carried the log across the break line.

“I’m a youth pastor. Well, Iwasa youth pastor. You see a lot working with teens. A lot of brokenness.” Houston nodded and together they dropped their load.

Dakota picked up a branch light enough to throw this time. He pitched it to the other side. “Yeah, but Jen is a grown woman. She can leave. She can report Ray. But she’s choosing to stay. Staying at the expense of her own children.”

Okay. He’d done enough therapy in rehab to admit it might be harder to empathize with her with all the history he had with his own mother. He’dbeenEthan and Nolan. But even his own mother had eventually left. Did Jen have any idea what staying was doing to her sons?

Did she even care?

“Did the boys say anything to you?” Houston asked.

“They might’ve made up some story of seeing a bad man get shot in the forest, but I think that’s just a cover up.”

Kane stopped. “They said they saw someone out here get shot?”

“Yeah, but I think it was all made-up.” Dakota mopped the sweat off his forehead with his bandanna.

Houston stilled too. “What exactly did the kids say?”

Dakota played back the conversation with Ethan. “He said they went off-trail and saw a man with a ponytail shoot a guy in the back and then the head. They mentioned a necklace too.”

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