The Heat is On_Christian romantic suspense

by Susan May Warren

  “I learned it at church camp, Living Translation,” she said. “‘Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me.’”

  “‘Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’”

  Skye wanted to nod. To add an amen and agree with him. Instead, she watched the sun burn through the sky and wished it would char away the feeling of doom that churned in her gut.

  Please, God, keep me from killing anyone.

  It wasn’t Tuesday. Because if it was Tuesday, then Rio Parker wouldn’t be sitting in the Copper County Correctional Facility cafeteria, dressed in the prison orange shirt and gray pants, stirring the gray swill that might be beans.

  He wouldn’t feel and smell like a criminal. No, he’d be dressed in a suit, in court seeing justice prevail.

  Hopefully. Please.

  Most of all, he wouldn’t have to sit on the sidelines watching Jaden Maguire trying to dodge the lockup bullies.

  “Step back!”

  Rio caught the voice—a tough veneer over a quivering shell, shaky and a little too high to be menacing—from the eighteen-year-old wanna-be thug who’d somehow landed on the wrong side of trouble. Baby-faced and skinny, his head recently shaved to reveal the bumps and scars of a too-white head, Jaden backed up against a pillar, holding his tray like it might be a shield as Boneyard Wells slapped a hand on the cement behind his head.

  Rio set his spoon down, his gut knotting.

  Around him, the other prisoners seemed unmoved. He glanced at Archer Mills—an older guy he’d pinpointed as former law enforcement the way he knew how to handle himself. No one really messed with Archer. But Archer didn’t mess with anyone, either.

  The story was he’d killed a man with his bare hands, but everybody had a story.

  Jaden’s story probably included some petty theft, drug running, maybe even a domestic abuse charge. He wore a few scars on his face, and now lifted his chin, a tough guy even as he drew his shoulders up.

  Boneyard—bald, beefy, tattooed with a swastika on the back of his neck—leaned into Maguire, said something in his ear. Two of his cohorts—a long-haired drug dealer named Ike, and a skinhead with tribal tattoos on his face—stood a few feet away, grinning.

  Maguire jerked away from him, but Boneyard grabbed his jaw.

  And then he did something that had Rio bouncing to his feet, the adrenaline hot and churning through him.

  Boneyard licked the kid. Starting at his jaw, all the way up to his temple. A slimy, spit-filled trail that turned Rio’s gut and left an expression of raw terror on Maguire’s face.

  Rio had seen that expression far too often to let the assault happen in front of his eyes. Male or female—it didn’t matter.

  Which was why he found his feet moving, the chair scratching along the floor as it slid back. The hum in the room dimmed as Rio came around the table and walked right up to Boneyard.

  And somewhere in the back of his head, he heard the voice, the one that had sent him here. Stay cool, lay low. Stay out of trouble and do your job.

  Yeah, well, trouble seemed to find him, and frankly, this was his job.

  Protecting the helpless. Justice for the victims.

  Even if the guy he was supposed to be protecting was sitting in the corner finishing up his fish sticks.

  But maybe this was why Rio was here, too. Because sometimes justice needed a little nudge.

  “Let him alone, Boneyard.”

  The man kept hold of the kid’s face, his fingers white as they gripped his jaw, and turned to face Rio. “Stay out of this.”

  Rio lifted a shoulder. “Can’t.”

  “What did this kid ever do for you?” Boneyard raised an eyebrow.

  And oh, Rio wanted to hit him. Just slam his fist into Boneyard’s face, maybe chip another tooth off. But he kept his hands open, easy. Nothing for Boneyard’s radar.

  “He’s the cellie with my buddy Darryl over there. And he doesn’t snore.”

  Which was, actually, all true. Rio didn’t glance at Darryl, however, because the last thing Darryl needed was another target on his back. But he knew Darryl was watching.

  Maybe if Rio could get Jaden out of this mess, Darryl might start trusting Rio. Believe him when he said he could keep him safe. Alive.

  So Rio didn’t move when Boneyard let go of Jaden and turned toward him. The man possessed the breath of a dumpster, a few missing teeth evidence of a life lived outside regular dental checkups. Burled arms from hours in some institutional weight room, a scar that dissected his blond eyebrow, a piercing—now empty—in his ear.

  His voice was meant to intimidate, low, like a razor under the skin. “Sit down. You haven’t been here long enough to realize how it works in here.”

  “Yes, actually I have.” Two long weeks—and he was counting—but it had taken him all of two hours to figure out who ran the lockup. Less than one hundred short-term inmates, mostly pretrial or transfer holds, but a few nickel sentences in a minimum security setting. Despite Boneyard’s menace and his attempt at a decent rap sheet, he was in for petty theft and carjacking.

  The guy wouldn’t last a day in a maximum security joint like Spring Creek.

  Fact was, Rio had barely survived. Had the scars to prove it.

  No, a guy like Boneyard didn’t scare him. But Rio didn’t want a fight.

  It would be hard to protect Darryl from solitary confinement.

  So Rio took a breath, met Boneyard’s gaze. “This doesn’t have to be anything. Just walk away from the kid, leave him alone. We’ll all finish our lunch.”

  A smile lifted one corner of Boneyard’s face. “I don’t think so, tough guy.”

  Aw, shoot. Because now Jaden was looking at the floor, and—was the kid crying? Rio didn’t dare take his gaze off Boneyard, but in his periphery, he saw the kid tremble, heard washboard breaths.

  Still… “You’re the tough guy here, B-yard, and we all know it. I think you’ve scared the kid enough.” Rio gave the guy a little nod. “No one is going to mess with you.” Let his ego be assuaged, let him walk away.

  Boneyard stared at him, as if not sure what to do with Rio’s words.

  Rio listened for movement behind him—any of Boneyard’s thugs creeping up to punch him in the kidneys, turn this into an unfair fight. Boneyard’s chest rose and fell.

  Just walk away, man. And probably the words rising inside were for him, but he put them into his expression.

  Because as much as Rio wanted justice, he also wanted, with everything inside him, to listen to that voice.

  To walk away. Be done. Free.

  To know he’d done his part, protected the innocent and stopped a little evil along the way.

  Clearly, however, that wasn’t today.

  Boneyard’s intentions flashed in his eyes a second before his fist came up, before his punch could explode across Rio’s face, maybe break a cheekbone, or a nose. Instinct more than thought made Rio deflect his punch, move sideways, duck, move down and into Boneyard’s body, the punch flying over him.

  Rio took him down with a smack to his nasal septum, stepping behind him and flipping him over so fast Boneyard was on the ground before any of his henchmen could move.

  He shoved a knee into Boneyard’s shoulder, wrenched the man’s arm back in a submission hold, and bent close to his ear. “Just walk away.”

  And it could have simply ended there. With Boneyard nodding, conceding defeat. With Rio getting up, stepping back, and letting Boneyard gather his pride and walk away.

  Except.

  Except Boneyard wasn’t the kind of guy to give up, and frankly, Rio should have known that. Should have known that whatever brains Boneyard possessed died when Rio put him on the floor, leaving only an ignited fury.

  Boneyard let fly a few choice prison words, probably fuel
ed by the near dislocation of his shoulder.

  Unfortunately, Rio hadn’t been inside long enough to make any real friends, the kind to have his back against Boneyard’s crew.

  Worse, seeing their boss on the cement floor did nothing for morale. Or better sense.

  Just walk away, man. And now his boss was in his head, a final warning, perhaps, before chaos erupted.

  But Rio had simply never been good at walking away either.

  Which was why he almost relished it when Ike jumped him. When he could, for a brief, dark moment, surrender to the craving inside to lash out against the frustration, the darkness, the despair that had seeped into his pores, made him believe he belonged in this place.

  Maybe he did.

  He let Ike take him down, rolled, and came up on top of the man, an easy punch into his solar plexus that sucked out Ike’s breath.

  He turned to catch Tattoo Face’s kick to his head, deflecting it before it shattered his teeth. He launched into Tattoo—now off balance—lifted him and slammed him into the ground.

  Tattoo lay gasping.

  Two down.

  Rio turned for Boneyard.

  The man’s fist caught him in the jaw. Rio spun, the pain a burst of fire and heat. But he caught himself on a table and reared back, knowing Boneyard would be closing in.

  He’d smacked Boneyard in the mouth, given the cry, and by the time he turned, blood spurted from the gusher of broken lips.

  The man looked battered. But he wasn’t fazed, and Rio had the very real sense of a bullfighter facing an enraged Brahma.

  Doors burst open as Boneyard came at Rio.

  Rio sidestepped him, pushing one hand away, then the other, and delivered a punch to the man’s ear.

  “Step back!”

  Boneyard fell like a sack onto the floor and Rio put his hands up.

  Guns, his face against the wall, hands zip-tying his, and the guards dragged him away.

  They shoved him into a cell.

  “C’mon!” Rio said as they stripped off the zip ties. “I didn’t start it!”

  “But you finished it.”

  He didn’t know which guard said it—hadn’t gotten to know any of them, really. Hadn’t planned on being here long enough to need an inside man.

  Maybe that had been a mistake. He slid down the gray cinder block wall, breathing hard, his head against the cool wall. “You’d better put Boneyard away too!”

  No answer, his voice pinging through the tiny six-by-nine cell.

  He’d caught a glimpse of Jaden’s wide-eyed, horrified, pitiful relief as they dragged Rio away. Now, the expression dug in, found soil. He’d worn that same expression once upon a time. Probably should tell the guards to grab the kid, put him in solitary, too, for his own protection.

  But that might end up with a good kid losing his mind.

  Shoot. Shoot! Rio moved his jaw, testing. Not broken, this time.

  At least solitary here had a window, the midnight sun casting a glow through the tiny grated opening nine feet in the air. A simple bed, a stainless toilet and sink. Cement table.

  Hopefully he’d only be here overnight.

  He hadn’t even seen Darryl as the guard led him away.

  Just walk away.

  Rio closed his eyes, his knees drawn up, the adrenaline still hot in his veins. Wow, he knew better.

  But maybe he should just concede that once a criminal, always a criminal. Even if you worked for the good guys.

  Still. Rio wanted to hit something.

  He closed his eyes, listened to the beating of his heart. And prayed for Tuesday.

  Two

  Jaden Maguire had been beaten in his cell overnight.

  Rio took the news without flinching, just a tiny swallow of fire down his throat, seeping through his chest. But inside, he heard a scream.

  Jaden Maguire, Aggie Parker—and countless other kids whose lives meant nothing to the people who saw them as expendable.

  Not Rio. Which was why, of course, he was here, standing in the tiny shaft of sunlight that painted the gray, restricted confinement cell, his hands now cuffed behind him, painfully aware of his own smell. The cell offered nothing in comfort. A chill emanated from the walls, finding his bones, the mattress nothing more than a wafer-thin foam pad, and with the sun high, last night he’d had to bury his face in his arms to get any shut-eye.

  But when he did, the memories came, and he’d sweated out the nightmare, shaking as he woke.

  He couldn’t do this much longer and stay sane.

  But he let nothing of that show on his face as he faced Superintendent Perkins. Don’t talk unless asked a question. He’d learned that the hard way at the age of seventeen. He glanced at the two guards, aware they were sizing him up, too. Not to worry. The last thing he would do is try anything rash. He didn’t have to—he planned on walking out the front door. Of course, they didn’t know that.

  Perkins, however, did.

  “You might as well have a target painted on your back, Mr. Parker.” No-nonsense, strict in a black pantsuit, the woman wore not a hint of makeup, her brown hair pulled back in a tight bun.

  She nodded at the guards to leave them and stayed in his cell as they shut the door.

  “I can’t let you out in gen pop. We’re still interviewing inmates, and yes, I know you think it was Boneyard, but no one has come forward—”

  “Is the kid going to live?” Rio loosened his shoulders, trying to ease the knot in his neck.

  Perkins noticed the gesture. “I don’t know. He’s been transferred to Copper Mountain Regional Health Center. I’m sorry, I can’t undo your cuffs.”

  He noted the softening of her voice, the flash of compassion in her eyes. “If I’d been here last night, you wouldn’t have spent the night in restricted confinement.”

  His mouth tightened, and he nodded. “It makes it a little hard to keep my eye on Darryl Salmon when I’m stuck in here.”

  “I know that. As soon as I got in this morning, I sent a guard to check on him. He seemed fine, if not a little shook up.”

  Rio let out a breath.

  “I don’t understand why you decided to follow him in here, Agent Parker. You could have put him into protective custody or into the Wit-Sec program.”

  “He declined our numerous offers.” And don’t think Rio hadn’t wanted to get some alone time with plump, pimple-faced Darryl and outline a few of the alternatives. Starting with torture and death at the hands of his boss, Wayne Buttles, the guy most likely to hunt Darryl down inside these walls. But he’d been told to hang back and watch. Protect. Let the guys on the other side of the bars do the negotiating. “He seems to think that if he talks, Buttles will go after his wife.”

  “She’s pregnant, right?”

  “Due any day. We moved him up here so she could visit him more often. Lives in the area. But Darryl—he’d rather keep his mouth shut, take his chances, and let women and children be shipped out of the US and into the eastern slavery trade.” Okay, so he hadn’t a hope of hiding how he felt about Darryl and his ilk. Even if Darryl acted like he had no idea what Buttles was up to. I’m just a truck driver.

  Right. The kind that transported human cargo.

  Maybe Rio should have politely declined this assignment. But very few agents could blend into prison population like he could. It wasn’t a resumé he loved, but it could prove useful.

  If his team could get Darryl to agree to help them find—and testify against—Buttles. And, if Rio could keep Darryl alive long enough to do it.

  Perkins picked up the worn copy of a book he’d spent half the night reading. “A Jack Reacher novel.”

  “Misunderstood guy,” Rio said.

  The edge of her mouth lifted. “I have a short-term solution. There’s a blow-up north of here, and the BLM called and asked if I had any guys who could work on a handcrew. Minimum security, trustworthy types.” She met his eyes. “I thought of you.”

  “A blow-up? As in a forest fire?”

&
nbsp; “Mmmhmm. I’ve already picked out three young guys who are finishing up a thirty-six-hour hold for brawling, a man named Archer Mills, who is a former cop, by the way—”

  “I’ve seen him. Seems like a good guy.”

  “He is. Local. Got entangled in an involuntary manslaughter charge. There’s some talk around here that he didn’t deserve what he got, but he’s kept his chin clean. He’s done in a month. And then there’s Clancy Smythe. He’s in for thirty days for possession of cannabis.”

  “They should just make that legal,” Rio said.

  “I don’t make the rules. He’s a week into his stay, and I’m not opposed to a work release for him.” She folded her arms. “There’s another man brought in under a vehicle theft charge. Fake ID, but he says his name is Thorne. We’re still trying to track his real name down, but he’s quiet and stays to himself. And then there’s you.”

  “And Darryl, I’m assuming. Because I’m not going anywhere without him.”

  “And Darryl. You think you can keep him out of trouble?”

  “As in alive? Yes.”

  “As in, keep him from running.”

  He hadn’t given that much thought, but, “Darryl isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. But he does what he’s told…including keeping his mouth shut, apparently. I’ll be on him like glue. Except…a fire? I don’t know anything about fighting fires.”

  “You’ll be working with a smokejumper team. And there’s no security, Rio, so I’m counting on you to keep these guys in line. You’re my guy out there. Just follow instructions, do the job, put out the fire, and let me work on nailing Boneyard for the attack. Hopefully I can get him moved before you come back.”

  “If we come back.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “I just don’t want to burn to death on some hillside.” He let a half smile tweak his face.

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine, Agent Parker.” She gestured for the guards to return. Met his eyes. Smiled. “I know it’s hard to forget sometimes, handcuffed and dressed in prison garb, but you’re one of the good guys.”

  The guards opened the door, and she left him behind, standing in the cold cell.