Page 3 of Rekindle My Heart

Chapter 2

Tuesday morning, Ryan brushed the remainder of his drive-thru breakfast from his tie as he walked into the first official meeting for the corruption task force. After they arrested the dirty cop less than two months ago, the department’s focus had shifted to the person spearheading the corruption. The one who facilitated the jobs.

He, too, had a vested interest in this investigation.

Grief, anger, and betrayal intertwined in his chest at the memory. Ryan rubbed the pain away with the palm of his hand. He couldn’t even bring himself to utter his old partner’s name. He wasn’t the first person to break Ryan’s trust. He’d learned a long time ago not to take people at face value.

He yanked open the conference room door. Ryan flashed a smile he didn’t feel to the meeting participants before dropping into one of the last open chairs in the room.

“Detective Larson.” He nodded at Amy across the table.

His friend beamed, and his bad mood slid away. Those detective bars looked good on her. She’d earned them and the right to be on this task force. Her smile reminded him he wasn’t the only one in this room affected by the corruption. She’d almost lost her life in the apprehension of a dirty cop.

Detectives CJ Whittier, the first to suspect corruption, and Jim Swenson leaned over a laptop with Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions’ agent Trey Fenley—who headed the task force. Ryan reminded himself that all of them had a personal stake in this case.

Ryan caught bits of Chief Martin and Sergeant Johnson’s conversation about the Twins game. “Do you think they’ll make it to the World Series this year?”

Johnson’s answer slipped away when the door opened. All of Ryan’s attention locked on the pretty blonde who entered. Erica. Her clear blue gaze scanned the room.

Shit. She was here. Those beautiful eyes turned icy as she slipped into the last open chair. The one next to him.

She gave him a polite, all-business nod. If he hadn’t known her forever, he would have missed the tic in her jaw—steel cords running under the smooth skin.

Trey cleared his throat, pulling Ryan’s errant thoughts back to the meeting.

“Now that we’re all here, let’s begin. Each of you have been personally chosen for this joint task force. While this is the first face-to-face meeting, several of us have been working on this for months. Everything regarding this case is locked down. Only the people in this room will have authorization.” Trey made eye contact with each person around the table before he continued, driving home his point. “I want to thank Firefighter Erica Randall for joining us. I brought her in because she found some discrepancies in some of the fire reports that point to tampering.”

A few murmurs skirted around the room before the members of the task force settled back in and all introduced themselves to Erica.

“Daniels, you’re our best IT guy. I’m going to have you working with Randall.” Trey said.

He nodded, but his gaze cut to Erica. This should be interesting.

She stiffened next to him.

“Are there any new leads?” Chief Martin’s deep voice echoed in the room.

Ryan tore his gaze from Erica, before shifting it to the chief. “Going off the information we previously had, the connections could have been made on an off-duty police officer site. I have been monitoring several smaller sites that work with our local area officers. I put out a chat, making it clear I was open to all side work, not just the legal jobs.”

“Any takers?” CJ asked.

“No, but another anonymous user private messaged me. We were supposed to meet up Sunday night, but nobody showed.”

“Do you have the guy’s name?” Jim asked.

“I wish. I can’t even tell you if it was a man or a woman. I tried to track the username, but so far, it’s like running in circles with the VPNs they’ve run it through. It sounded like they had info for me.”

Erica looked at him for the first time since she entered the room. “The charred body.”

“Maybe. I sent them a message after the fire, and I haven’t heard back.”

“That was two days ago.” Erica frowned at the thought.

“What body?” Larson’s brows pulled in.

“Erica found a body in the fire the other night. I’m still waiting for the medical examiner’s report.” He turned to Erica. “Has the fire investigator filed his report yet?”

“No, but he did mention an accelerant was used. Evans should have it completed in the next day or so.” Erica scribbled a note on her notepad.