The Time in Between by Kristen Ashley
“I still don’t understand the fires,” she said unsteadily.
“I don’t know his state of mind, but I knew it back then. He was setting up to be the kingpin of Denver. He had schemes of taking out much bigger players than him to take over their operations. He was even making plans to build his army so he could take down actual gangs in order to get their turf. He was like a drug dealing Napoleon. He had delusions of grandeur. He had the charisma, and he was smart, but he didn’t have the kind of intelligence he’d need to see those kinds of plans through. He was not happy for more reasons than getting arrested and thrown in prison. He had big dreams and he was enraged when I killed those dreams. After he went down, he was paranoid that his crew had turned against him. The only one he trusted was Maria because he put her to the ultimate test and she passed. So now, I don’t know if he doesn’t give a shit if he’s caught again, but my hunch, he knows he will be caught but he’ll only give a shit if he’s caught before the job is completely done.”
“And the fires?”
“Distractions. Cover so he can get the job completely done. This was his MO. Back then it wasn’t fires, but to throw cops and enemies off the scent, Lars connived to have shit happen to turn attention away from the real shit he was doing that would put a focus on him and his operation. Now, you just got the deaths, one after another, easy to link individual murders in that crew with known associates in past felonies and pinpoint the perpetrator. But if you take your time, which he is, and the cops’ attention is turned to investigating an arson and not turned to investigating what appears to be a random murder, their focus on the fire, the fact it’s arson, the fact there were others before it with the same MO, doesn’t translate to linking that with what would appear to be random murders days or weeks later. And Lars is not a firebug. He’s a dope peddler. A good choice to go outside his norm giving him more of a smokescreen to put investigators off the scent. But just to say, in the mess of crime that can happen in places like Reno, Denver and Cheyenne, thin links like that can get lost. That slim link beefs up when Mills jetty goes up in flame and something happens to you or me.”
“Saved those for last,” she murmured.
Coert said nothing.
But he didn’t think that was where it was at.
The Minnesota fire and the ensuing murder had happened only three months ago.
So his guess was, he and Cady were just the farthest away and Lars simply worked his way east, and now, at the end of the road, he didn’t care what links were made.
Actually, his guess was Lars had no intention to go after Cady but she’d moved into Coert’s town, so she could end up being icing on his mindfuck of a cake.
“It still seems thin, Coert,” she noted. “How did you put it together?”
“Arsons with the same MO in those different places, I wouldn’t have if it didn’t happen in Colorado, Minnesota and here. Minnesota being the change of location to report for parole that one of the crew requested so he could go there and look after his sick mother. Add those together, run the other names, find them all dead, it fit together.”
“Are they all gone?” she asked.
“No. But there are only three of us left. You, me and Maria.”
“He can’t get to Maria,” she murmured.
“He won’t get to Maria. No way he’d take down his Josephine.”
“I never caught that,” she said like it was to herself. “You told me to watch for it, be careful around them but I never caught it.”
No she didn’t. She knew her friend was making exceptionally poor decisions, but she’d never caught how bad it was getting. Part loyalty. Part history. But mostly she’d been wrapped up in Coert.
“You weren’t watching as closely as I was, Cady,” he said gently.
“Yes,” she whispered then asked, “Do you think she knows he’s doing this?”
“She can’t have any contact with him, so unless he’s being clever, I doubt it.”
“He could write to her under another name that maybe she’d know but the prison people wouldn’t.”
Prison people.
He’d laugh if he wasn’t entirely freaked out.
“He didn’t strike me as a letter writing guy,” he shared.
“Right,” she murmured. He knew he had her gaze again when she asked, “Um . . . why are we going to the pound?”
“To get you a dog.”
“I know but . . . well, shouldn’t you be looking for him?”
“You need a dog.”
Again with the silence but this silence was weighty.
She broke it this time too.
“Five days to three weeks, Coert. It’s been five days since that fire.”
“He’ll come after me.”
“Your little girl.”
“Cady, he’ll come after me.”
“How do you know?”
He didn’t.
He just didn’t want her scared out of her mind.
“Dog, peephole and we’ll order you an alarm installed.”
It was then he knew she’d turned to look out the side window when she said, “When will all that stuff be over? It feels like we’ve lived it for eternity.”
Those words hit him in the gut because she was absolutely fucking right, it did.
But it never occurred to him she shared that with him.
He thought she’d gone on to live her life with her sugar daddy, and he was not unaware that she kept tabs on him, but he refused to allow himself to think on that or why she’d do something like that, telling himself she was screwed in the head and that was all the reason anyone like that needed to do anything.
But far more recently, he’d also been refusing to see that she’d been just as haunted by all of this since things ended between them as he had.
And she hadn’t kept tabs on him, her husband had.
But she’d absolutely lived those years just like him, being haunted by all the shit that had gone down that led to the end of them.
He didn’t comment on any of that. He couldn’t even take the headspace to process it.
Not then.
He said, “When people like that infest your life, sometimes it’s never over.”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s how Lonnie’s parents feel.”
She said that and fell quiet again.
That time, Coert broke it.
“You really never went to visit her?”
“I do believe your colleagues probably shared that we had a rather dramatic altercation when I visited her in the police station.”
He couldn’t help it, he grinned at that because that was not only shared, it was on tape and he’d watched it.
She’d gone apeshit on Maria.
And even with a glass partition separating them, Maria had gone apeshit right back.
“He was messed up but he was a good guy,” she said pensively. “He was funny and sweet and he’d do anything for you. He had a crush on me and that wasn’t right but you can’t control who you like. I know that wasn’t his worst transgression but he didn’t deserve that.” She took a moment and finished quietly, “He didn’t deserve that.”
“No, Cady, he didn’t deserve that.”
They drove the rest of the way to the pound in silence and he knew they both had their heads in the same place, and that place was all over the place, none of it good.
When they got inside the shelter, Coert took the lead.
Without preamble or greeting, he declared, “She needs an adult dog, not too old, well-behaved, large, protective, loyal, unfriendly to strangers with a loud bark.”
The shelter worker stared up at him with her mouth open.
Coert was about to prompt her to get her ass moving and show them some dogs when he felt Cady sidle up next to him, and then he felt her knuckles graze his before her fingers closed around his own.
And for the first time since he put it together, he was not thinking of Lars or his daughter’s safety or Cady being in danger.
His father had been smiling but his voice was stern in a way that captured Coert’s full attention, and that and what he’d said created an unforgettable memory when he’d replied, “Trust me, when you find her, the woman you’ll wanna spend the rest of your life with will always be the girl you wanna hold her hand.”
He’d held hands with a lot of girls and his fair share of women.
But he and Cady didn’t move anywhere if they were in close proximity without his fingers curled around hers.
He’d missed her smell. He’d missed those green eyes. He’d missed the feel of her hair. He’d missed his hands on her ass. He’d missed her sense of humor. He’d missed how she might not have had a lot of experience in bed, but she was the best he’d ever had not (only) because of her enthusiasm, but because she was so fucking into him, she’d loved him so fucking much, that spilled out—especially when he had his hands and mouth on her, his cock inside her.
But there had been more times than any of those since he’d lost her that he’d missed just holding her hand.
Moving slowly like he was forcing his way through molasses, he looked down at her to see she was sending a gentle smile up to him.
“You can’t custom order them, honey,” she whispered.
He had no fucking clue what she was talking about.
He just knew he never wanted to move from that spot in that position staring down in those green eyes with her fingers wrapped around his for the rest of his life.
She was not caught in the same spell, he knew, when she turned to the shelter worker and said, “Can you just show us to the pups?”
At her last word, Coert forced himself to pull it together and squeezed her fingers.
“You’re not getting a puppy, Cady,” he told her when she looked at him.
“They’re all pups, Coert,” she replied.
“That’s very true,” the shelter worker finally spoke.
Cady shot her a grin before she turned into Coert and tipped her head way back.
“We’re here, we’re safe,” she said under her breath. “I’ll go look at dogs and you probably have some calls you want to make.”
He did and she was right.
She could look at dogs and he could make sure shit was in motion to find Lars.
He nodded.
Her face got soft, her fingers closed tighter around his and then she let him go and walked away with the shelter worker.
Coert spent forty-five minutes getting briefed from his senior deputy then calling Denver to give Malc and Tom a heads up about what was happening and getting them started on their end of the chase.
He’d find it was forty-four and a half minutes too long when he followed where Cady had disappeared and saw her in the middle of a wide hall in a large room filled with big cages on either side, most having dogs in them.
He tried not to look.
If he looked, Janie would also be getting a dog (or three) and he needed to take care of a dog as well as his daughter and a whole county like he needed someone to drill a hole in his head.
Cady was on her ass on the floor and she had a dog out of its cage. The dog was sitting between her legs, letting her pet it and looking like it was enjoying the attention if the amount of licking of her face the dog was attempting was anything to go by.
At first glance, it appeared she’d chosen well. The dog was large, formidable (not counting the licking) and looked like it had a lot of German shepherd in it.
Then he got closer, the dog went on alert, awkwardly getting on all fours, and the shelter worker moved cautiously toward the pair.
“Cady, no,” he said before he even arrived at them. “That dog’s lame.”
And it was, its left rear leg was holding some of its weight but not much, it was misshapen, having been injured so badly it clearly was unable to heal properly.
“She’s beautiful,” Cady murmured, hands in the dog’s ruff trying to get her to turn her attention back to Cady.
“Cady—”
Her head tipped back and Coert shut his mouth at the look on her face.
“Her name is Gorgeous Midnight Magic,” she whispered reverently. “Isn’t that perfect?”
Shit.
“Cady—”
“She’s purebred German shepherd, black,” the shelter worker said. “We were given her history and an elderly gentleman answered an ad for her in the paper. Her owners said her back leg was caught in a trap, but the gentleman was suspicious of this information and regardless that she was lame and exhibiting some behavior he found concerning, took her on. A vet confirmed his suspicions that the injury wasn’t due to a trap, but to abuse and the fact the injury received no medical attention, so it never healed as it should have.”
Shit.
The worker continued, “The gentleman unfortunately passed not long after and as his daughter and son both had a number of pets, they had to bring her here. She’s been with us for a while, and so we find her the right home, I have to disclose she has issues when it storms. She displays those mostly just trembling and hiding, usually in closets.”
Fucking shit.
“Cady, just to say, it storms a lot in Maine,” he pointed out.
The shelter worker wasn’t finished. “She also is perhaps a little on the overprotective side and has been known to corner humans that are strangers to her, and it’s been reported to us she can seem quite vicious, though to anyone’s knowledge she’s done no harm. However, she can only be called off by someone that’s known to her. And it’s important you know she’s a one-owner animal, and although friendly and affectionate to people that she knows or that she senses are okay from her owner, it’s been noted that her loyalty is focused almost solely on her owner.”
Coert looked to the worker. “We’ll take her.”
The worker’s lips quirked and she said, “We have an application process that takes just a few days to get approval.”
“We’re circumventing the application process,” Coert announced.
“Coert,” Cady murmured soothingly as he sensed her getting to her feet.
“I can see you’re the authority, sir,” the worker began, eyes tipping to his sheriff’s shirt and jacket. “But the procedures we have in place are for our animals’ protection and we take them seriously. The application process only takes three days since we also obviously want our animals to find their way to the warmth and comfort of home.”
“Ms. Moreland will apply but she’s taking the dog right now and if you have any issues with her application, you can inform her and we’ll deal with it then. Since you won’t, it’ll all be good.”
“Sir—”
He wasn’t one to throw his weight around.
Unless something like that was necessary.
Like now.
“Sheriff,” he corrected.
The worker sought help from Cady by looking her way.
And Cady did her best, saying to him, “I can wait three days for this beauty.”
The dog was sitting next to her, Cady’s hand in the fur between her ears, her tongue lolling, her eyes on Coert.
Coert looked to the worker. “How long has the dog been here?”
“About four months.”
Cady made a distressed noise Coert did not like at all.
Right.
“We’re circumventing the procedure,” he declared.
“Sir . . . I mean, Sheriff—”
“Do you seriously want this dog to stay in one of these cages for three more days?” Coert asked.
She looked to Cady, the dog, Coert and then she sighed before she said to Cady, “I’ll get you the forms.”
She took off and Cady got close.
The dog came with her like she was born to walk at Cady’s side.
Brilliant.
“Coert, I don’t have a lead or c
“We’ll stop by the pet store.”
Her brows shot up. “Don’t you have a fire-starting, murdering, ex-drug peddler to catch?”
“Fortunately, I have sharp deputies that kinda like me and are fully briefed about the fact their boss is a likely target of a fire-starting, murdering, ex-drug peddler so they can get shit started while I take you and your new dog to the pet store.”
“I think you’re kinda crazy,” she whispered.
“I think I kinda already won’t sleep jack shit until I know Lars is caught, so maybe you can help me out by letting me set you up with a freaking dog so I might get a whole hour’s sleep at night instead of, say, none.”
She stared at him with big eyes for several very long beats before she said, “Okay.”
“Okay, now let’s fill out this application and get this girl outta here.”
To that she gave him a smile.
“Okay.”
She filled out the application.
They went to the pet store.
And finally he took her back to the lighthouse, burying the look Cady gave him when he refused to allow her to carry the huge bag of dog food into the house (like he’d refused to allow her to load it into the cart in the store or in the truck and the same looks she’d given him those times as well).
The dog did not explore her new home.
She jumped right up on Cady’s couch and lay down with a groan like she’d lived there since she was a pup, they’d just been on a tiring outing and she needed some shuteye.
When Cady witnessed that, she shot him a beam.
A goddamned beam.
Okay, yeah.
He missed holding hands with her, definitely, and all the rest, for certain.
He’d also missed her smile.
He responded to that emotion by clipping out, “I’ll be back later to put in your peephole.”
The beam died and she said, “I can get Walt to do that.”
He didn’t know who Walt was, and right then he didn’t have the mental capacity to think on that without maybe roaring his demand to know precisely who the fuck this Walt guy was and maybe freaking her out more than being the possible target of vengeance already was.