Bad Nights by REBECCA YORK Page B

had a rough day. We should try to get some sleep,” he murmured.
    She answered with an unsteady laugh. “Is that what you call it? A rough day.”
    â€œYeah.”
    Without his conscious thought, his hands skimmed over her back. Maybe he was comforting her. Or comforting himself. He didn’t want to examine his motives too closely. It felt good to hold on to her. Perhaps to hold on to anyone after all the months when he’d denied himself solace.
    Gradually she relaxed against him, her head drifting to his shoulder.
    â€œGet some sleep.”
    â€œI don’t think I can.” She dragged in a breath and let it out. “We haven’t had much time to talk. Tell me something about yourself.”
    He didn’t want to talk about himself, but maybe a conversation would help defuse the situation.
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œWhere were you born? Where did you grow up?”
    He could tell the truth or lie. Lying seemed like too much trouble at the moment, especially since he’d have to remember what he’d said. “My dad was an army sergeant. I was born at Fort Bragg. I grew up on a lot of different bases, including in Germany, but one army base is a lot like the next.”
    â€œBut unsettling to a kid. When you move around all the time, you’re constantly having to make new friends.”
    â€œI got used to it. And the other kids were in the same boat.”
    â€œI would have hated it. I liked staying in the same school and the same neighborhood.”
    Deliberately switching the focus to her, he asked, “Where did you grow up?”
    â€œIn Washington, D.C. My dad worked for the city government. We only moved once. From a little apartment on upper Connecticut Avenue to a house near Chevy Chase Circle. On Kanawha Street. Do you know D.C.?”
    â€œA little.”
    â€œWe lived in the Woodrow Wilson school district.”
    â€œThat red-brick school on Nebraska Avenue?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd then you went away to college?”
    â€œI got a scholarship from American University, so I stayed in town.”
    He liked listening to her talk. He wanted to ask more personal questions, like where she’d met her husband and how long they’d been married, but he kept those to himself.
    ***
    Wade Trainer stood with his back straight and stiff as he watched six of his men tramp through the remains of the house, wet ashes sticking to their boots and the pant legs of their uniforms as they sifted through the charred remains. The only reason it was possible to do it was because the rain had wet down the remains of the fire.
    There were still pieces of wood left. And household objects. The men would unearth a knife or a spoon from the kitchen or the frame of a lamp or a doorknob, then toss it back into the soggy black mess.
    He waited for someone to call out that they’d found a bone or anything else that could be identified as human remains. Or maybe a watch Barnes or the woman had been wearing. So far, they had found no indication that the couple had been in the house.
    How hot did it have to be to turn bone to ash? He pulled out his smartphone and found Google, then typed in the question. Which led him to “cremation.”
    In a crematorium, the temperature was between 1600 and 1800 degrees Fahrenheit. But the fire in the house couldn’t possibly have been that hot. There would be something left, wouldn’t there?
    He was watching the men methodically working the grid he’d laid out for them, when Chambers screamed, the sound fading as he disappeared from sight.
    Everyone went stock-still, looking to Trainer for guidance.
    From out of sight, Chambers had started to call out frantically.
    â€œHelp me. I think my leg is broken. Help.”
    â€œGet him,” Wade ordered.
    The other men began converging on the spot where their comrade had disappeared.
    Hamilton knelt cautiously and looked down below the level of the