Set the Dark on Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

provincial. And of course, he did.
    Setting her fork aside, she picked up her coffee mug and drank from it, daring him to comment on her appetite. He wisely refrained. Nor could he think of any way to smooth things over, or understand why he wanted to.
    His attention was drawn away from her a moment later when a cocky-looking young man came through the front door. Luke evaluated him the way he did everyone, with an instinctive assessment of height, weight, age, and attitude. His dark hair was slicked back, his Levi’s were rolled up at the cuffs, and his plain white T-shirt fit him more snugly than current fashion dictated. He moved like a man who could handle himself in a fight but wasn’t expecting one, and as he looked in their direction, his surly mouth went slack.
    One glance at Shay, who had grown tense in the seat across from Luke, revealed the young man’s identity. Well, well. It was the infamous Jesse Ryan.
    Jesse must have come to the same conclusion as Betty, which Luke found even more ridiculous the second time around. On-duty police officers weren’t supposed to parade around with female conquests. But maybe any man with Shay Phillips was considered guilty by association.
    “Excuse me,” she said, sliding out of the booth and retreating to the ladies’ room.
    Jesse’s eyes followed Shay until she disappeared. When they returned to him, narrowing with animosity, Luke amended his impression of the local Lothario. Maybe Jesse was spoiling for a fight.
    Shay had told him that Jesse lived above the auto shop down the street. What she’d left unsaid was the relationship between them. Jesse stared after her like she was his unclaimed possession.
    “You want a booth, Jesse?” Betty asked, because he was just standing there.
    Jesse mumbled something about not being hungry anymore and went outside. Leaning his back against the building, he took a pack of smokes out of his pocket, struck a match on the heel of his black motorcycle boot, and lit one up.
    He looked just like James Dean.
    Luke threw a couple of bills on the table and rose to his feet, walking outside to grant the younger man’s unspoken invitation.
    Against the brick wall, Jesse continued to smoke, feigning indifference.
    “Jesse Ryan?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I’m Sheriff Meza.”
    His expressive eyebrows rose. “So?”
    “Can you answer a few questions about Yesenia Montes?”
    Those words seemed to penetrate his cool façade. “What about her?” he asked, meeting Luke’s gaze for the first time.
    “Did you leave the Round-Up with her last night?”
    Jesse opened his mouth to say no, but at that moment, Shay came through the double glass doors. Luke couldn’t have timed it better. Standing in front of them, she moistened her lips in a nervous, provocative gesture both of them were intensely aware of.
    “Go wait in the truck,” he said. Although she didn’t appear pleased by his tone, she complied, so the gamble had paid off.
    Jesse threw his cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it under his boot heel. He didn’t like the way Luke talked to Shay either, and Luke enjoyed needling him a bit more than he should have. He’d been a young, jealous fool himself, once upon a time, and knew from experience that it was always better to be the cause of envy than the source.
    “I left with her,” Jesse muttered.
    “Where did you go?”
    “We walked to my place.” He indicated Tenaja Auto, a few doors down.
    “What time?”
    He shrugged, leaning his back against the brick siding. “A little after midnight, I guess. She bummed a cigarette. I went on up.” He paused for emphasis. “Alone.”
    “Why didn’t she stay?”
    “I didn’t invite her to.”
    “Why not?”
    He looked past Luke’s shoulder, to where Shay was sitting in the truck. “She wasn’t the one I wanted.”

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    Dark Canyon State Preserve, where Shay did her field research, was a mixed chaparral and live oak woodland a few miles west of Tenaja. Its northern border