“Dead. I know. But he’s not.” She left the room.
With a sigh, he headed to his dresser for clothes. He’d gotten into a dry pair of jeans when he heard her keys jangling. “Kenzie,” he called out. Dammit.
“Wait.” He grabbed a shirt and headed down the hallway just as she opened the front door. She hesitated when her cell phone beeped an incoming text message.
“Is it…him?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s him. Texting me from the dead.” She opened her phone and let him read over her shoulder.
Go home. I’ll find you there when this is over, when you’re safe.
As they stood there in his open doorway looking down at the screen, a huge trash truck lumbered down the street, making the earth shudder as it went past-
Boom.
Kenzie’s bright red sports car vanished in a cloud of smoke and flames and flying metal as it exploded.
KENZIE SAT ON AIDAN’S CURB looking out at the street, which was littered with cops and various other official personnel, including Tommy and the chief. And lots of red car parts.
Everyone was trying to figure out what the hell had happened.
Her car had gone boom, just like Blake’s Girl, that was what had happened.
“Kenzie.” Aidan’s athletic shoes appeared in her peripheral vision, and then the rest of him as he sat at her side.
“My insurance company isn’t going to be happy,” she said. “I blame the trash truck.”
“The trash truck saved your life. You car had been rigged to blow when you got into it, but the truck vibrated the street so much it went up early.”
“Oh.” She winced. “I wish I didn’t know that.”
“Give me your cell phone.”
“Why?”
“So I can call whoever’s been calling you.”
“Blake. Blake’s been calling me.”
“Whoever it is.” His mouth was grim as some of his clear frustration and fear for her filtered into his words. “I just want him to stay the hell away from you.”
“This wasn’t him.”
“Then who?”
“I’m working on that.”
He looked down at her. “By yourself.”
“It’s how I work best, apparently.” She stood up. During the time she’d been gone from Santa Rey, she’d closed herself off, both her heart and soul. It was a hell of a time to realize that. But no matter what happened here-whether she left and went back to Los Angeles, or whether she stayed-whatever she settled on for herself, she couldn’t go back to closing herself off.
“Kenzie.”
“I didn’t mean to get so good at being alone. I didn’t realize, living in L.A., the land of pretend, that I’d never built myself any real relationships.” She let out a long breath and met his gaze. “But that changed when I got here. When I was with you. I love you, Aidan. Again. Still. I love you.”
And while that shocking statement hung in the air, someone called for Aidan. But he just stared at Kenzie. “You-”
“Aidan!”
With a grimace, he looked over his shoulder. “Shit, it’s the chief.”
“Go.”
“Kenzie-”
“Go.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Don’t move, I’ll be right back.”
Nodding, she watched him walk toward a tall man whose back was to her, stretching out a dark blue shirt that said Chief across the shoulders.
Then she walked away. She didn’t have a car, so she had no idea where she thought she was going, but she had to leave.
In her pocket, her cell phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Another half block. Gray car.
I LOVE YOU. Aidan muttered the three little words that Kenzie had said to him. She’d said them, and then she’d vanished, and he had no idea where she’d gone. One moment he’d been talking to the chief, and the next…She’d been gone. It’d been hours, and not a word.
He was at the station now, and she still hadn’t answered her damn cell phone, and he was starting to lose it. He shouldn’t have walked away to talk to the chief, he should have dragged her with him.
“Hey, Mr. 2008.” Cristina came into the station kitchen and went straight for the refrigerator. “What are you pouting about?” She helped herself to someone else’s lunch.
“You could bring your own.”
“I could.” Cristina pulled out a thick turkey sandwich. “But I don’t.”
“Hey, that’s mine,” Dustin said, joining them from the garage. “What did I tell you about stealing my sandwich?”
Cristina spoke around a huge mouthful. “If I was still sleeping with you, I’d bet you’d give me your sandwich.”
Dustin’s eyes darkened. “You slept with me once.”
“Your point?”
“My point is that if we were still sleeping together, I’d make you your own damn sandwich.”
She took another bite, chewing with a moan. “You know, I should give that some thought, because you do make the best sandwiches.”
Dustin tossed up his hands and walked back out of the room.
When he was gone, Cristina dropped her tough girl pose, watching him go with a naked look of longing.
“You could just tell him the truth,” Aidan said.
“What, that he makes crappy sandwiches?”
“No, that you’re scared. He’d understand fear.” Hell, he understood it all too well.
“Are you kidding me? I’m not scared.” Cristina tossed the sandwich back in the fridge. “I’m not scared of anything.” But as she shut the fridge, she pressed her forehead to the door. “Ah, hell. I’m scared. Everything’s messed up. Dustin’s mad at me. Blake’s gone. There’s no good food. Blake’s gone.”
“You still miss him.”
“Hell, yeah, I still miss him. He was a great partner. And now even the chief, his own flesh and blood, wants to make him out to be a monster that we know he wasn’t.”
“Wait.” Aidan grabbed her arm. “What?”
“He wasn’t a monster.”
“The flesh and blood part. What did you mean about that?”
Cristina’s lips tightened. “Blake asked me never to tell.”
“He asked you never to tell what?”
She sighed. “That the chief’s his uncle. They were estranged, though. Blake’s parents were-”
“Dead. They died years ago.”
“Yeah. But his father was the chief’s half brother.”
Blood is thicker than water…Good God. “If that’s true,” he asked hoarsely, “why did Blake and Kenzie spend their childhood in foster care?”
“Because the chief didn’t want kids. Or something like that.” She shrugged. “Not sure on the details.”
Neither was he. Except that somehow…Christ. Somehow the chief-
His cell phone rang. When he looked down at the screen, his heart skipped a beat. “Thank God,” he said to Kenzie in lieu of a greeting. “Listen to me. I just realized-”
“Aidan, I need you. I’m sorry, I know I don’t really have the right to say that to you, but I do. Can you come meet me? Now? Please?”
“Just tell me where.”
AIDAN BURST INSIDE the Sunrise Café and looked around the tables.
No Kenzie.
“She’s on the roof,” Sheila told him, standing behind the bar drying glasses.
“Thanks.”
“Something about Tommy being on his way, and having all the answers you need…”
Aidan had the answers. He just didn’t have the girl, which he intended to rectify. He headed for the stairs as Sheila turned her attention to someone else. “Hey, there, good-looking,” she called out with a smile of greeting. Aidan took the stairs without looking back, coming to a relieved halt on the roof at the sight of Kenzie sitting on the bench.
“Tommy’s on his way,” she said, standing up. Someone stepped out from the shadows behind her and Aidan’s heart stopped.
It was Blake, who by all logical accounts should be dead.