“Don’t start.”

“I’m going to start, because it could have finished you. But maybe it was worth it to hear your confession of how you feel about me. It was probably only the fact that I have the same feelings that made me crazy enough to try to save you.”

“You do? I thought maybe it was just that you need me.”

“I do need you, and not just the way you’re thinking.”

“For getting me out of there—I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

“When this mess is over, we’ll find a way,” he said.

“Maybe my so-called confession of love was just in the heat of the moment.”

“Maybe there’s heat in every moment we’re together,” he muttered, and turned her in his arms to hold her sideways across his lap. He tipped her head back and kissed her hard.

She threw her good wrist up around his neck and held his lips to hers. His mouth opened, moved against hers. His beard stubble rasped her chin and cheeks, but it felt so good. Her back balanced against his good leg, she held to him, breathing to match his ragged breaths, kissing him back. His hand gripped her waist, slid up her rib cage to cup and finger a breast, then dropped to squeeze her thigh through her jeans. She leaned into him, her wrapped hand grasping his back. It was the most beautiful, stunning thing that had ever happened to her, as if the entire world was on fire...golden lights...the noise in her head and heart pounding...

It took Tess a moment to realize the meth lab had blown.

They sat up, clinging to each other as orange-red flames belched into the air and heated their faces. They blinked and ducked in the sudden brightness, before Gabe pulled her down, flat in the cold soil of the field, and covered her with his body. But they were far enough away. The ground shuddered with a second blast.

Finally, when the explosions stopped, they watched the old house burn. He spoke loudly to make sure she could hear. “I’m cursed when it comes to preserving evidence. I came looking for a kidnap site and got this.”

“There’s no way this can tie to the kidnappings. Those people weren’t smart enough to pull those off, I can tell you.”

“Except there’s the drug connection. I’d still bet on Dane for drugging his kidnap victims. Still, I suppose you could have had meth or some version of it in your wine to cause your hallucinations. And I never could figure how I kept missing the cookers by just a couple of minutes when I’d go to check a place. At least now I’ve got Jonas and Ann to interrogate, and they may give up names.”

“Could Ann have tipped off Dane that you had your search warrant and were heading for his place, so he panicked and killed himself?”

“Everything’s up for grabs. But panicked over what, since we found nothing in his house or the vet buildings? Ann volunteered to come in tomorrow even though it’s Sunday, because so many people will be in town for the evening church service, candlelight vigil and march to the gift shop. I’ll decide what to do about her then.

“Tess,” he went on as they watched the flames dance and crackle, “I’m sorry if it puts you in danger again, this time with the Simons clan if they find out you’re my witness. I swear, I’m gonna have to lock you up. I’d chain you to my bed, except I’m seldom in it.”

He held her tight as they finally heard the distant sounds of the volunteer-manned fire engine. They sat, arms around each other, as if they were watching a big bonfire on an autumn night. Even when the rain got heavier, it didn’t seem to calm the blaze. The old wood fed the fire like a giant torch in the damp, black night. But by that light, Tess saw something that convinced her even more that this could have been the house where she was kept prisoner.

In the flicker of the flames, off to the side, she glimpsed something she had not noticed in the dark.

“Look at those!” she cried, turning and pointing.

To her surprise, Gabe drew his gun. “I don’t see anything. Only old white man-made beehives. I think George Green once sold honey.”

“But to a child—me—upstairs, they must have looked like tombstones! And I remember those back stairs I was hiding on tonight, I’m sure I do! This must have been the place. You can hear the waterfall from here, and there’s a train track a couple of miles over, though I didn’t hear one tonight.”

“It’s enough to give me more reasons to question Marva. Whether it was Dane or her husband behind it, she would know—”

“But what if it was Marva herself? Maybe she wanted children around. But then where would Sandy be held right now?” She shuddered and glanced at the burning house again. “I pray she wasn’t upstairs.... Surely not in that tanning salon. The girls are still missing and so is a piece of the puzzle.”

“Like I said, I’ll start with Marva. And if Ann’s been tipping off her brother, who then phones the meth cookers, maybe she’s also been telling Jonas where I’ve been looking for his dogfight spots for years so he can stay one step ahead of me. What an idiot I’ve been with her. I may have to charge her as an accessory to these crimes—if I can nail Jonas. I hate to fire her, just when I need someone on the desk during the day. Want a temporary job?” he asked, giving her a little squeeze. “Peggy Barfield, the night dispatcher, could teach you the system.”

“Are you serious?” she asked, turning to look at him in the dancing firelight. “It would keep me out of trouble, you mean. Sure, I could help for a little while if it comes to that, but—this old farmhouse, the layout of it, now these wooden-frame stacked beehives that look like tombstones... I think I’ve finally remembered the place where I was held.”

“Walking into that house to get you tonight, I had a flashback to defusing bombs. Don’t need more of those memories.”

“But, as awful as they are, I need mine,” she said in a whisper when they’d been almost shouting to be heard over the roar of the fire.

They both jolted when the farmhouse roof caved in with a crash just as a train screeched its warning in the dark distance. All the clues Tess could remember fit this place, coming together just as it disintegrated in its fiery death.

24

“Sorry to get you out so early on a Sunday morning,” Gabe told his young deputy as they exited their separate vehicles. Dr. Nelson had taken care of him and stitched up Tess, though Gabe was still walking on a gimpy ankle. “But there’s three Simons brothers when I don’t even trust one of them anymore. I think we’ll find Jonas alone at his place, but you never know.”

“No problem about my missing church. Carolyn just said the memorial service tonight will count,” Jace said as they started walking through the trees and up the hill toward the house.

“Not a memorial service. A prayer service and candlelight vigil,” Gabe reminded him. “Memorial would mean Sandy’s gone, and I hope to God she isn’t.”

“Yeah, I knew that. Gotta admit I’m nervous, going in on a big, shifty guy who’s good with pit bulls and chain saws. You ever see that Chainsaw Massacre flick?”

“Save it. I’m hoping this will be a knock-and-talk at first, but I’ve learned to expect the unexpected, especially since I hope to arrest him. Just let me do the talking but cover me from a stand of trees where you can see us, like we planned. Even if he asks me in, I’ll have him step out into the open. I’ll give you time to get set.”

Gabe left Jace and limped toward Jonas’s large log cabin home. Ann had let slip that the new home’s interior was beautifully finished and cost a lot. Then she’d tried to backtrack on the expense comment. Gabe figured that was because Jonas’s job at the mill didn’t provide a big paycheck even if he did get a discount on wood. He might not be only running illegal dogfights but also getting drug money from tipping off the meth lab gang through Ann. Gabe couldn’t think of anyone else named Jonas around here, but there could be—though not with links to key information from the sheriff’s department.