Ash Rising (DEAd Series) (17 page)

“
I’ll tell you everything later—I promise, cross my heart, beautiful—but I need you to go with them right now. Don’t have time to explain, but I need to be sure you’re safe. Do this for me. Please, Lizzie.”

She
shook her head, eyes wide. “I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t, sweethea
rt, and I’m sorry. I promise they’ll explain things to you on the way, and I’ll be there soon.”

“On the way where?” The
pulse pounded in her throat, her chest rose and fell with her accelerated breaths.

“To a friend’s place.
They’ll make sure you’re safe.”

“Safe?”
she gasped. “Oh, God, Ash, what’s going on? Does it have anything to do with what happened yesterday?”

“Kind of. S
ome bad people are involved, people who won’t hesitate to hurt anyone who gets in their way. Now, I want you to go inside and pack me a bag, okay? Pack some things to get me through the next couple days.”

“
But…Where are you going?” Her hand gripped his arm. “What if they hurt you?”

“
I’ll be fine. I know what I’m doing. I just need to be sure you’re safe. Don’t want to worry about you.”

“Okay,” she agreed
, pressing fingers to her trembling mouth. “When you put it that way… Okay.”

His shoulders sagged. Andy
gestured toward where his watch would be if he wore one, and Daniel put his hands on his hips with a grimace. Both were just as worried and tense as he was, so Ash shoved his annoyance aside. Daniel’s glare said he’d run out of time. He reached for Liz, held her close, and cupped her precious face in his hands.

“Go.
I’ll meet you later tonight and explain everything then.”

He had to leave right
now
to get the team in place and mic set up in time to make the meeting. He wanted her gone and safe as soon as possible.

“Ash,” she protest
ed, holding onto him when he would have turned toward his bike. “I want you to come with us.”

“C
an’t.” He pressed a quick, hard kiss to her mouth. “Go with Daniel and Andy, Liz.”

“No! No, Ash—
”

He gripped her upper arms,
struggling to be gentle in his urgency. He bent down to meet her gaze so she could see how serious he was, how important she was to him. “Go with them, Lizzie. You’ll be safe. You can trust them. They’re both cops.”

Her face went white and she sucked in a breath,
gripping him even harder. The fear and concern on her face, in every line of her body, left no doubt she knew what he was involved with, what Gina’s family did for a living.

“Oh,
God,” she moaned. “Ash, please—”

“Go, Liz. It’ll be okay, I pro
mise. Trust me?”

She nodded, and he kissed her one last time
. He pulled her close for a hug and heard Daniel’s frustrated grunt.

“Go.” He managed a smile for her. “You know I love you, right?”

A sob escaped, shook her shoulders. She covered her mouth with the back of her hand as her eyes filled with tears. She nodded again, too overcome for words. He took one step back, and then another, so his arm hung in the space between them. He shouldn’t have told her, shouldn’t have said anything, but he had to let her know—wanted her to know just in case. He wanted to say the words to someone, just once, and mean them.

“Go.”

“Come on, Liz.” Daniel placed his hand on her shoulder. “We should get moving. Don’t worry about him. He really is good at what he does.”

Andy fell into step behind
Liz and Daniel as they turned toward his apartment. He watched his best friends climb the stairs to the front door with the woman he loved before turning resolutely to his motorcycle. Strapping on his helmet, he looked up as the three figures made it to the threshold of the building. Daniel opened the door and stepped inside with Andy and Liz on his heels.

The
explosion split the air with a deafening, soul-sucking boom. Silence enveloped him as he floated backward, eyes filled with the horrific sight of billowing flames, dust, and debris where his apartment building had stood, where his best friends and his girl had just disappeared. He couldn’t make sense of what happened, not then.

The force
of the blast tossed him through the air to the other side of the street. His back hit the curb, and something inside him cracked and shattered. A split-second later, what remained of the bike landed on top of his chest, along with concrete, glass, and flaming wreckage from the building. He burned, he smoked, he scorched. He hurt.

He
screamed.

And then,
oh shit, oh no, oh holy fuck
, everything went black.

Liz…Daniel…Andy…

G
one. No one could have survived that blast. Not even him. No one. Nothing.

Except the pain.

Prodding. Poking. Pestering. Why would they want him to come out of the dark, the black, the sweet, soothing nothingness? He had nothing. He was no one. Only the pain waited. Nothing else. Just pain. Why wo
uld he leave the dark for that? Why wouldn’t they leave him alone? Why wasn’t he dead? Sweet, soothing blackness. The dark. He reached for the dark and embraced nothingness deep into his wounded soul. He was dead—he must be. He wanted to be.

Oh, God. The pain.

Liz…Daniel…Andy…Liz
.

Lizzie. His Lizzie. Gone.

The pain.

Voices talked to him, told him about funerals. He wanted to weep; he wanted to rage. He wanted them to shut up. He craved the darkness, the oblivion, the nothingness. Shut up.

Shut up.

Shut up.

Rising up from the ashes. Why did that sound so familiar? Like a phoenix from the ashes. Ashes. Ash. He was ash. No, that wasn’t right. He was Ash. No, that wasn’t right, either.

He was nothing.

Oh, God.

The pain.

The investigation of murder
created its own unique community.

DEA
Special Agent Emmaline Justice examined the open field ringed by a thick growth of trees. A pack of people stood in the clearing, but the vegetation absorbed the commotion and filtered the obscene from sacred green spaces. Miles from the city and civilization, the location was far removed from the bustling airport in Toronto she had arrived at only a few hours before.

After getting
the call Rico Salvatore’s body had been found, throat cut and dumped in a remote area outside the Canadian city, she immediately hopped on a plane at JFK. Representatives from both the Quebec Provincial Police and RCMP met her at Pearson International to take her to the site. Part of a joint undercover operation between the US and Canada that had been following Salvatore’s movements back and forth across the border for the past nine months, Emma knew most of the people at the scene.

Inspector Jim Blankenship
, her contact at the RCMP for the op, droned on about how the body had been found. A group of men gathered around a distinctive yellow sheet, and she watched them closely as she put on the gloves another agent handed her. Activity slowed as a tall, broad-shouldered figure next to the body rose to his feet and drew the attention of everyone in the clearing.

The mysterious man
turned toward them, and Emma sucked in a breath. She’d never been impressed by a pretty face, but his was stunning. Tall but thin, the kind of thin that didn’t fit with his height or wide shoulders. He’d obviously suffered an illness that dropped pounds off a once-impressive frame. The hollows of his cheeks were pronounced and not in an artistic way, his arms lean, and both his knit shirt and jeans hung loose on his body. His odd gait, a slight limp with left arm held against his side, confirmed her suspicion. His stance reflected the careful, upright posture of someone with back pain. Those details wouldn’t have been obvious to most people, but Emma’s observation skills were excellent. He’d been badly injured in the recent past.

When he approached their group and
stopped in front of them, blocking her view of Salvatore’s body, Emma didn’t bother to hide her scrutiny. He wasn’t as old as she had first thought, maybe even a little younger than her thirty-two years. The thinness of his face and ravages of illness made him appear much older. Still one of the most handsome men she had ever seen, she couldn’t begin to imagine how splendid he’d be when in good health. Close-cropped brown hair showed off the excellent structure of his high cheekbones, strong chin, and sharp jaw. His eyes were shockingly blue—the only bright spot in his otherwise dour expression.

“Inspector Asher Beaulieu, I’d like you to meet
DEA Special Agent Emmaline Justice.” Inspector Blankenship made the introduction. “She’s been working the case from the US side of the border.”

“Special Agen
t.” His eyes flicked over her with cool dismissal. He didn’t offer a hand.

Okay,
handsome but rude. Strain tightened the set of his shoulders and fine, almost imperceptible tremors shook the fingers resting against the top of his thigh. Maybe whatever mysterious injury he suffered prevented him from lifting his arm.

“It’s Salvatore,
Jim. No doubt. It’s him.”

“Thanks, Ash.” Blankenship clap
ped a hand over his shoulder. “Be done here in a minute.”

The too-thin inspector
nodded brusquely and then paused to tip his head toward her. She returned the silent acknowledgement, and he left the clearing with a steady, precise gait. Emma watched him walk away before turning to Inspector Blankenship with a brow arched.

“Beaulieu works
with Pete Davenport’s group. He was our UC with Salvatore and his bunch for close to two years.”

Emma’s
gaze shot to his retreating form. Davenport’s group, undercover. Impressive. Wait. She knew that name. Holy shit. Hadn’t he been—

“Inspector Beaulieu is the survivor from the
Tenth Street bombing,” Blankenship supplied.