Page 80 of Through the Fire
“What’d he see?”
Finally. “He described a woman—small, young, dark hair, either white or Latina.”
There was silence on the other end of the call, so Kit continued.
“I showed him a picture of Elena, and he immediately identified her as the woman he saw leaving the house right before the fire. She walked into the woods.”
There was an extended pause before Hugh spoke again, long enough that Kit checked her phone to make sure she hadn’t lost the call. She hadn’t, but her battery was almost gone. Since she hadn’t planned to spend the night with Wes, she hadn’t brought her phone charger with her.
“Shit.” Hugh believed her. She could tell by the panic filling that one word. “This whole time, she’s—” He gave a grunt before his voice cut out abruptly. After a short, silent pause, there was a heavy thump.
“Hugh?” Kit checked the battery indicator again. It was deathly low, but the call was still connected. “Hugh?” Only silence answered her, but it didn’t feel like the emptiness of a bad connection. Pressing the phone more tightly to her ear, she listened, trying to hear something, anything, on the other end of the call. There was a faint sound, hard to make out, and Kit plugged her other ear, blocking out the noise of Wes’s truck engine. Faintly, she could hear someone breathing, and the wrongness of the sound made the back of her neck prickle with warning. Was that Hugh? If so, why had he stopped talking?
A double beep loudly indicated the call had ended, making her jerk the phone away from her ear. She stared at the “call ended” message for a moment, trying to determine what exactly had happened. “That’s not good.” Wes glanced at her, obviously picking up on the stress in her voice, but she focused on trying to call Hugh back. It went right to voice mail, and her pulse rate shot up as her fingers tightened around her phone. Why wasn’t he answering? Quickly ending the call, she ignored the tension twisting in her stomach as she tapped Theo’s number.
As it rang, she dug the fingers of her free hand into her thigh.
“Bosco,” he answered, and all her pent-up breath escaped in a rush of relief.
“Theo, you need to check on Hugh.” She spoke quickly, knowing she didn’t have much more battery life left.
“Kit?”
“Yes, it’s me. I was just talking to Hugh when he went silent. Can you check to make sure he’s okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” The background voices faded. “He’s just upstairs. What’s going on?”
“A witness just identified Elena as the person leaving the arson-and-murder scene.”
“What witn—?”
After a triple beep sounded, her phone screen went black.
“No, no, no,” she chanted, hunting around the cab of Wes’s truck. “Please tell me that you have an iPhone-compatible charger in here somewhere.”
By his expression, she knew before he spoke that his answer was no. “Sorry. My phone’s still at the tower.”
“It’s okay.” She said it more to reassure herself than Wes. “Theo was going to check on Hugh. Both of them are aware that Elena’s a suspect. They’ll protect the kids and everyone else at the house until we get there.” Despite her words, dread ate at her stomach lining, and she looked at Wes.
“Take us to Jules’s house as fast as possible.”
Without a word, he pressed on the accelerator, and the truck shot forward. Kit only hoped that they wouldn’t arrive too late.
* * *
“Kit?” Theo said, glancing at his phone. He cursed, muttering something about the lack of good cell phone reception at the lookout tower.
Alex smiled slightly before ducking back. Theo’s call with Kit must’ve been interrupted. How convenient for Alex. She slipped into Jules’s room, making sure she stayed just out of sight.
“Hugh?” Theo’s voice was sharp with alarm as his footsteps hurried down the hall toward where Alex had left Hugh’s unconscious body.
She raised Ty’s baseball bat and waited for just the right moment.
* * *
Two down, one to go.
Looking at the two trussed and unconscious cops, Alex allowed herself just a second of satisfaction in a job well done. She’d known that subduing the cops would be the trickiest part of her plan. So far, though, it had gone surprisingly smoothly.
