Set the Dark on Fire Read Online Free PDF Page A

Vegas, he’d have had a team of investigators to collect evidence, but Tenaja Falls didn’t have the resources, or the corresponding crime rate, to justify such expenditures.
    When he checked in on Shay, she was wiping tears from her face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. He rested his forearms on the open window jamb, trying to avoid the forced intimacy wrought by the close confines of the vehicle. He didn’t want to get caught up in her drama, or to repeat the mistake of looking too deeply into her sultry blue eyes.
    “So what’s it going to be?” he asked.
    Her lips twisted a little at his brusque treatment. “I need to get some stuff at headquarters before we go. My GPS tracker. The long-range rifle.”
    He felt his jaw tighten with annoyance. Deputy Snell wasn’t his favorite person, but Luke would rather go shoot a lion with him than an emotionally unstable female. Not that he knew anything about hunting. “What about Garrett?”
    She looked over his shoulder, assessing Deputy Snell’s less-than-svelte physique. “He’d slow us down.”
    “How far is it?”
    “Five miles, uphill.”
    She was right. Garrett got short-winded traversing the parking lot. Mike Shepherd better not have been lying when he claimed Shay Phillips could “track like an Indian and shoot like a white man .” “Give me a minute,” he said. Walking away from her, he instructed Garrett to take the trace evidence down to the sheriff’s office and catalog it.
    Not that Luke really expected him to comply.
    In the three days Luke had been acting as interim sheriff, Garrett Snell had called in sick, dozed at his desk, driven around aimlessly in his cruiser, and camped out in a booth at the local café. Luke suspected he took kickbacks from the casino for looking the other way when its patrons violated the speed limit. He may have been involved in some even darker dealings.
    Luke didn’t really care one way or another. Garrett was a problem for his successor; Luke had more than enough on his plate right now.
    Removing all thoughts of the troublesome deputy from his mind, he went back to the truck and got behind the wheel. Shay Phillips didn’t smell like cigarettes, he couldn’t help but notice. More like sun-warmed skin and sleepy woman and something faintly herbal, like wildflowers or handmade soap. In the short time she’d occupied the cab of his pickup she seemed to have transformed it into her own cozy personal space.
    Determined to steel himself against her allure, and ignore her tantalizing scent, he drove on in silence, doing a good job of blocking her out. Until her stomach growled.
    “Are you hungry?” he asked.
    Shrugging, she hugged her sweatshirt to her chest in a forlorn, childlike gesture.
    Luke didn’t have much of an appetite, but if they were going to hike, they needed to eat. She’d probably been too sick to hold anything down earlier, and he’d been working almost eight hours without a meal himself.
    “I’ll stop by the café on the way out of town,” he decided. He didn’t need her getting weak or dehydrated on top of everything else.
    Bighorn Café was one of two restaurants along Tenaja’s main drag. The other was Esparza’s Mexican Food. Luke had patronized both and suffered no ill effects.
    In addition to these establishments and a couple of fast food joints, the sleepy little burg boasted an auto repair shop, a hardware store, and a grocer’s market. On the way out to the interstate, there was also a Super 8 motel, dueling gas stations, and a funeral parlor.
    From what he could gather, Tenaja Falls was a convenient place to stop if your car broke down or ran out of gas. While visiting here, you could eat, sleep, or die.
    After the frenetic pace of Las Vegas, Luke should have found Tenaja Falls restful and quaint. He didn’t.
    He parked outside the café and held the door for Shay on the way in. She arched a brow at him when he chose a booth, but he figured only truckers sat at the counter. When