Page 40 of Through the Fire
“Yes.” It was a habit that had started when she was a teenager and realized that staying calm and using big words in an argument really annoyed her sister.
“Okay.” He grew serious again. “Back to the point. Grace didn’t tell Elena anything.”
Kit huffed, opening her mouth to challenge his statement, but he held up a hand.
“I didn’t even know about your ex-partner, so there’s no way Grace knows. I’ll ask Theo if he said anything to Jules, but I doubt it.”
Her eyebrows shooting up in disbelief, Kit had a hard time keeping her calm tone. “Are you telling me that you didn’t do a background check on me five minutes after meeting me?”
His look of innocence wasn’t very believable. “Five minutes after meeting you, we were still eating breakfast at the diner, followed by an arson-and-murder crime scene, followed by a run through the woods. There are limits to googling things on my phone, you know.”
A short laugh escaped, annoying her. She didn’t want to find Hugh amusing right now. “How’d Elena hear about it, then? My department handled the situation internally, so there wasn’t even any media coverage.”
He gave her another one of his penetrating looks. “He was fired?”
“Forced to resign.” Anger added an extra twist to her already sore gut. “He’s working for another town not too far away from my old department.”
The sound Hugh made was hard to translate. Kit hoped it was disgust that a dirty cop had been found out, but the discovery of his crimes had barely made a blip in his life. It could’ve meant anything, though. After what had happened to her and the way she’d basically been forced out of her last department, she knew better than to assume that everyone had a moral code.
“I’ll talk to Theo,” he repeated. “And I’ll have a word with Grace. Maybe she does have another source at the department.” His voice lightened at the end, however, telling Kit that he really didn’t believe that Grace told Elena about her. As they sped along the highway toward the multicar accident, Kit felt the all-too-familiar sting of having a partner who didn’t trust her. She firmly pushed it away, vowing not to let it affect either her mood or her work.
She’d already been driven out of one job. She’d be damned if she’d allow it to happen again.
Chapter 12
The snow crunched under Wes’s boots as he climbed. It was a beautiful day, with the late-afternoon sun shading to orange as it approached the mountain peaks it was about to hide behind, but Wes didn’t pay much attention to the scenery. He was intent on reaching the bat cave.
Despite its name, the bat cave was more of a rock overhang than a cave, but the bat part was true enough—it housed a good-sized colony of silver-haired bats. Researchers and animal-loving hikers frequently visited the location. Although Wes had gotten some striking photos at the bat cave, he hadn’t even brought his camera with him this time. He was more interested in the cell reception.
When the trail evened out, leading to a large, flat rock overhang, he pulled out his cell phone. Sure enough, he had reception. Finding his sister’s name in his short list of contacts, he called her. As he waited for her to answer, pacing back and forth across the granite ledge, he made a mental note to set up a cell-signal booster at the tower. He should’ve done it before, but he hadn’t missed phone service. Having to mindfully go somewhere with cell reception allowed him to control when and whom he called. It wasn’t enough now, though, not when there was someone he was hoping to call—as soon as he got her number.
“Wes!” Leila sounded winded. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Well, nothing except his social skills when women—not including his sister—were around.
“Oh.” There was a pause. “I thought there was an emergency. You never call except for every other Sunday afternoon.”
“No emergency.” He tried to mentally plan out his question. “I need some advice.”
“Advice?” Another silence fell, and Wes could almost hear the gears in her brain turning. He smiled. Leila was even smarter than he was, and she was a whole lot more intuitive and perceptive. That’s why he was calling her. “Does this have something to do with a woman?”
“Yes.”
She squealed, the sound so excited that he smiled wider even as he winced and pulled the phone slightly away from his ear. “Are you dating someone? What’s her name? When do I get to meet her? What does she do? Is she funny? Pretty? Smart? A badass? Tell me details, Wes!”
“Answering most of your questions might be premature.” As much as he wanted to talk about Kit, Wes knew it could be dangerous. The more he said, the more real the possibility of something happening with her felt, and he didn’t want to build up hopes too high. After all, the more excited he got, the harder the disappointment would hit if she never wanted to talk to him again.
“Fine.” Although Leila was obviously trying to sound calm, Wes could tell that she was thrilled, and it made him wonder if he’d done the right thing by calling his sister. Now there might be two extremely disappointed people if nothing happened between him and Kit. “Just answer the basic ones, then. Are you dating?”
“No. We’ve only met three times.” He didn’t think their radio conversation counted.
“But you like her?”
“Yes. I like her.” It seemed like a barely adequate phrase to encompass the fizzing excitement he’d felt around her—and even later, when he was alone and thinking about her. “I’m…interested in her.” That didn’t seem much more accurate.
Leila let out another small squeal, and Wes looked up at the sky, even as he felt his face heat. “Sorry,” she said as if she could see his long-suffering expression. “That’s out of my system now. Back to basic questions. Is she interested in you?”
