Set The Dark On Fire

He shoved his hands into his front pockets, a scowl darkening his face. “What if I said I would stay?”

The center dropped out of her stomach. It took her a moment to compose herself, to push aside her emotions and reassemble her defenses. “Don’t bother to make empty promises,” she said, a thousand past disappointments making her voice gritty. “This is Tenaja Falls. No one with a lick of sense ever stays.”

19

Luke was back at Dark Canyon with Shay, lost in sensation once again, gritting his teeth in pleasure at the feel of her slick heat around him, her cushiony hips in his hands, and her soft, wet mouth under his.

When he lifted his gaze to her face, he saw Leticia instead of Shay, her head listing to one side, eyes hollow, skin gray. He pulled away from her in dismay.

That disturbing scene dissolved into another.

He was walking down a long, dark hallway, his footsteps echoing loudly. Urged forward against his will, he opened the door to the morgue and approached a shrouded form on a stainless steel exam table. Reaching out with a shaking hand, he uncovered her face. The dead woman on the table wasn’t Leticia, or even Yesenia Montes. It was Shay. Bloody and broken, her slender neck gouged by monster teeth.

He jerked awake with a start.

Wilson Dawes, one of the rookie firemen Luke had been sharing quarters with, was hovering over him, cordless phone in hand. “It’s for you.”

He sat up and took the receiver, remembering that his cell phone was still out of order. Wilson had caught him in an awkward moment, sweating, panting… and fully aroused.

Jesus Christ. This was great fodder for his next psych eval. His cock didn’t know the difference between a sex dream and a nightmare.

“Thanks,” he said in a hoarse voice, adjusting the blanket around his waist. Either Dawes didn’t notice or wasn’t fazed, because he lumbered away with a sleepy yawn, unself-conscious in his own underwear.

Luke lifted the phone to his ear. “Meza.”

“We have another body.” It was Clay Trujillo.

He straightened, shaking off the remnants of the dream. “Attacked by a lion?”

Pause. “No.”

His heart jumped into his throat. “Who is it?”

“Bull Ryan.”

Holy hell. Luke hadn’t been in town long, but he knew Bull was the owner of Tenaja Building Company. He was also Jesse Ryan’s father. And Clay’s.

The deputy wouldn’t have woken him up unless the circumstances were suspicious. This was a wrongful death investigation.

“You shouldn’t be there,” Luke said cautiously.

“I know.”

“Where is it?”

“On the new construction site.”

That was reservation land, out of his jurisdiction. “You call in the FBI?”

“Yeah, but they won’t get here for a while and… we thought you should see this.”

He was already on his feet. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

It took him more like fifteen, but he drove as fast as he dared along the deserted dirt road. By the time he arrived at the site, the morning sun was peeking over the edge of the horizon. A small group of construction workers was gathered around a collection of beat-up trucks in the gravel parking lot.

Two tribal police SUVs blocked the exit. Samson Mortero stood guard next to them, his rifle turned up toward the pink-blue sky.

Luke parked alongside the other vehicles and nodded at Samson, who allowed him to walk past without a word. There was a definite advantage to working with other Indians on a sensitive case. They weren’t likely to run their mouths about the details.

A group of construction workers waited on the sidelines, shifting their feet restlessly and talking amongst themselves in Spanish. Luke continued on to the office trailers, where Clay and Chief Mortero were waiting for him.

The chief greeted him somberly, as expressionless as ever. Clay looked as though he was trying to remain calm, but he was a young man in a grueling situation. He wasn’t able to keep the anger, or the suspicion, off his face.

“Go take a look,” he bit out, jerking his chin toward the open trailer door.

Luke did, stepping into the small office lightly, careful not to touch or disturb any of the evidence. There was a lot of it. Papers strewn across the room. Files ransacked. Chairs overturned.

Bull Ryan lay facedown in the middle of the floor. He couldn’t have been there long, probably since quitting time the day before, but the smell of death was overwhelming and would only get worse as the day grew warmer.

There was no blood, no gunshot wound, no knife sticking out of his back.

The only injury, as far as Luke could tell, was at the top of his head. His scalp had been lacerated and was hanging at an odd angle, like a misplaced flap.

Now Luke understood Clay’s fury It flowed through him as well, cold and deliberate, hardening his heart and icing his veins.

Bull Ryan had been scalped.

Luke knew immediately that his people were not responsible for this. The Luiseno had never practiced scalping. None of the California Indians had.

Nor did Bull appear to have died from the injury. There was almost no blood, indicating that the wound had been inflicted postmortem. Whoever did this scalped Bull Ryan after they killed him.

The idea that someone would defile a corpse this way chilled and disgusted him. The fact that they had done so with the clear intention to cast suspicion upon, and aspersions toward, his own culture, enraged him.

It was difficult to stay in the room without flying off the handle, to continue his silent examination when he wanted to shout in anger, but Luke kept a quiet front. The evidence would have to be gone over with a fine-tooth comb, and he was sure the FBI would be meticulous. They might be condescending and culturally insensitive, but they were always meticulous.

For now, Luke limited himself to studying the piece of paper clasped in Bull’s dead hand. It appeared to be an employment application. Crouching down, he nudged the top of the page with his penlight, revealing a young man’s slanted scrawl:

Dylan Phillips.

“Fuck,” he muttered, standing abruptly. Shit piled on top of shit.

Outside the trailer, Chief Mortero studied him dispassionately and Clay looked as though he was ready to throw down.

Luke had a flash of intuition. Clay Trujillo didn’t think one of his own people was responsible for this… cultural mutilation. He thought Luke had done it.

“You got something to say to me?” he asked Clay.

Chief Mortero raised his dark brows. “This is a conversation…” he trailed off, nodding toward the group of workers in the near distance, “… not meant to carry on the wind.”

Luke agreed one hundred percent. He pointed at Clay. “Let’s take a walk.”

Clay followed him readily but Chief Mortero stayed behind, which was even better. Luke didn’t want anyone to come between his fists and Clay’s face.

“You can’t think I had anything to do with that,” he said as soon as they were out of earshot, standing on a clearing of sandy, hard-packed dirt.

“You’re an outsider. And an Indian.” He squinted at Luke’s neatly pressed clothes and close-cropped hair. “Sort of.”