Page 53 of Through the Fire
Nan gave a small shrug. “I don’t know enough about him to answer that. There aren’t any dead wives in his back shed…none that I know about, at least.”
Kit blinked. “That’s…uh, good, I suppose.” Glancing at the twins, she saw their rapt interest and cleared her throat. “Anyway, we won’t be too long, no matter where we end up doing the training.”
“Thank you for doing this,” Nan said, going along with the change of subject without hesitation. “It’ll be hard to find a new home for her as she is right now. If she learns how to track, though, there are a number of search-and-rescue teams and law enforcement agencies that would be interested in adopting her. You’re doing a good thing, Sam.”
He flushed, ducking his head. “W-we sh-sh-should g-go.” He hurried away, flustered, and Kit followed after giving Nan a final smile and wave. She caught up with Sam and walked next to him on the packed-down snow, giving Justice enough slack so he could happily plunge through the deeper snow at the side of the path. The twins stayed by the parking area, tossing snowballs at each other.
Kit glanced back to see Ty throw a snowball that immediately dissolved into powder. “The snow here is useless for snowball making.”
“Th-that’s a g-good thing wh-when the twins are around,” Sam said, making her laugh. As they passed the exercise yards, small groups of dogs jumped onto the fence, excited to see them. Sam quietly greeted each one by name as Kit observed, liking the way he was calm around them. With people, he seemed to be tense and stressed, but he appeared to relax around the dogs. He barely stuttered when talking to them. She was relieved to see it. If Fifi was even half as sensitive to tension as Justice was, then having a tightly strung handler would’ve been a challenge.
They reached the last gate, and a bloodhound came galumphing toward Sam until she spotted Kit. Coming to a screeching halt, she dropped her tail and head.
“A little shy with strangers?” Kit asked, keeping her voice low and soothing.
“Yeah.” Sam slipped into the yard, and Fifi hurried over to him, still slightly crouched. She wrapped herself around him, her tail thumping against his leg. “She g-gets over it p-pretty f-fast, though.”
As if she understood him and wanted to prove him right, Fifi cautiously approached the gate, eyeing Kit and her dog. Fifi snuffled at him through the chain link, and Justice practically turned inside out with excitement at meeting a new dog, enthusiastically licking whatever part of her he could reach. Forgetting about Kit’s newness, Fifi started wagging her entire hind end as she play-bowed.
“Think she’s ready for us to join her?” Kit asked Sam.
He looked surprised—and pleased—that she’d asked. “Y-yes.”
Kit unlatched Justice’s lead and let him into the yard. The two dogs immediately began romping. When Justice tripped over his own big feet and went face-first into the powdery snow, even Sam let out a rusty laugh. Kit hid her surprise at the sound, carefully keeping her gaze on Justice as he shook off the snow and took off after Fifi again. She wondered what horrible things had happened to this sweet kid to make him so cautious and serious. Thanks to what she’d seen in her job, she could imagine too many terrible possibilities.
After a few more minutes of playing, both dogs ran up to Kit and Sam, and Fifi acted as if she’d known Kit all her life, thrusting her floppy muzzle under her hand for pets.
“Let’s head back to the car and see if the twins managed to burn the mountain down while we were gone,” Kit said, hooking Justice’s lead to his harness.
Sam gave her a look.
“What?” she asked.
“You j-just m-m-met them.” He grabbed the leash hanging on the gate and attached it to Fifi’s collar. “B-but it’s like you kn-now them already.”
“They remind me of my sister. That girl can find trouble. Thankfully, she’s smart enough that she usually can get herself out of it.”
“The t-twins are like that, t-too.” He grimaced slightly. “Somet-times.”
Smiling, Kit opened the gate, and the two of them walked the dogs back to the car, collecting the twins on the way. She couldn’t stop the flutters of excitement at the thought of seeing Wes again. Breakfast had been too short, and she also needed to talk to him about what his neighbor had witnessed. If Murphy could identify the person he saw leaving the house, that could be the break they needed in the arson-and-murder case.
And it might finally vindicate the growing unease she felt around Elena.
It wasn’t just the cop in her that needed to visit Wes again, though. Kit simply wanted to see him. She couldn’t seem to stay away from her wonderfully dorky lumberjack.
Chapter 16
He had an unexpected visitor. Wes divided his attention between the SUV that had just pulled up in front of the tower, giving him a view of the top of the vehicle, and the camera monitors. The sun reflected off the SUV windows, so he couldn’t see inside, and not knowing who was there bothered him. He knew the vehicles of his neighbors, and the only other people who came to the tower were a handful of the Monroe cops.
The back passenger doors swung open, and two people got out. Even from this angle, Wes could tell the boys looked enough alike to be twins, and they were barely in their teens.
Kids? He frowned, not sure if the fact that two of the visiting strangers were children made it better or worse. Wes didn’t have much experience being around kids—at least, once he’d stopped being one—but he suspected that they would find him strange and off-putting, just as adults did. Children, however, would more likely be outspoken about what they thought of him. Again, Wes didn’t know if that would be better or worse, and his indecision made him uncomfortable. The whole situation was uncomfortable.
The front passenger door opened, but Wes barely had a chance to take in the older teenage boy before the driver got out. His heart gave an odd little jolt that made him press his hand to his chest. It was Kit.
As soon as he saw her, he was up and moving. He hurried to the stairs and started rushing down when he heard the beep and click of the door unlocking. As it swung open, flooding the ground level of the tower with natural light, Wes reversed, charging back up the stairs. At the top, he paced to the windows and back, just out of sight of the people coming up the steps.
