Summer of the Burning Sky

by Susan May Warren

  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 fueled 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.

  2

  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?”

  “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.

  Tucker was driving her crazy.

  Skye sat on the ridge just north of the fire, binoculars to her eyes, watching a black wall of smoke plume into the sky from a fresh fire that had called the team out this morning, some ten miles north of Copper Mountain into Denali National Park.

  From the minute she’d shown up with her personal gear—PG—pack, Tucker had decided to start babysitting. He’d checked her pack, her equipment in her leg pouches. “You have your hard hat, leather gloves, signal mirror—”

  Of course she did.

  But she’d kept a smile and nodded, even when he patted her on the shoulder and told her how to jump out of a plane. Like she might be in rookie camp all over again.

  Never mind that he’d assigned her to his stick—like he couldn’t trust her to jump with one of the other rookies.

  And yes, for a moment, as they soared over the fire in Barry Kingston’s yellow twin Otter, as Skye had leaned out and glimpsed the fire some ten acres in breadth, the heat boiling up like a cauldron, her stomach had nearly emptied.

  But it was simply the usual rush of adrenaline. The heat before the fire.

  “Your spot is about three hundred yards southwest of the fire. You should be able to pick your approach quartering in. If you overshoot, head south.” This from their spotter, Larke Kingston. She’d thrown out at least three streamers to gauge the wind, giving them the right directions for their landing.

  No one wanted to end up in the middle of the furnace.

  Tucker had turned to Skye right before the jump, his gaze running over her, checking her rip cord accessibility. And sure, that was part of the final check, but it still made her feel like a second grader.

  Although, indeed, maybe he’d listened to his instincts because things almost went terribly wrong.

  Her jump started with the ecstatic, freeing thrill of flying above the glorious mountainscape of Denali park. She’d deployed her chute, no tangles, and rode the currents easily, following Tucker as he sailed over the southern flank of the fire. The fire roared beneath her, ash and cinders blowing up around her as gusts tried to catch her chute.

  Then, just like that, the winds changed, down drafted, and her chute flattened out.

  She was falling—and she hadn’t yet cleared the fire. Tongues of flames from an inferno of black spruce licked at her, sucking her in. But she kept her head and reefed hard on her toggles, giving them everything she had to inflate the canopy.

  It worked. She lifted her feet as she floated past the hungry flames, the fury of the fire so close it filled her chest, her ears.

  But she hadn’t frozen. She’d reacted, kept calm, and stayed alive. Landed—okay, tripped—over some strewn logs, but still unhurt.

  Alive.

  She was pulling herself out of the tangle when Tucker ran over, grabbed her by her shoulder straps. “You okay?”

  She had to make a joke out of it, so, “You wouldn’t pass me for that.” She added a weak laugh.

  “You’re alive. You pass,” he said and helped her up and out of her gear. Babysitting.

  Thankfully, he’d let her pack up her own gear while the other sticks came down. He ordered Riley to supervise the retrieval of the cargo drop and went to survey the fire.

  From her vantage point in the sky, it had looked bigger than what they alone could handle. The last fire had taken ten days, two jump teams, and a Type 1 crew to put it out, including all the resources of the BLM—bomber planes for chemical and water drops and a couple helicopters with buckets.

  This fire was still in its infant stage, the black smoke evidence of heat, but not deep smoldering in the soil. It had started from a lightning strike, spotted by some bush pilot hours ago. Slow moving, given the humidity in the air and the scant winds, and that worked to their favor. Still, even as she’d helped Riley and the guys unpack the cargo drop, pulling out fuel, chain saws, drip torches, and a cubinator of water, Skye could make out spot fires bulleting out from the main body, moving south and west. If they didn’t get a move on, it would overtake their position.

  Below the fire, past a ridge, a low meadow relatively free of fuels just might make a decent place to cut a line and stage a burnout between the fire and the line. Then they’d just need to stop it on the western flank while the bombers came in and put it down to the east.

  Nothing but boulders and safety zone to the north, so…yeah. They had this. Especially if they got reinforcements.


  Which Tucker had lined up on his call into BLM HQ after running his own assessment of the fire.

  When he marched back to them, his already sooty face bore a grim expression. He spread out a map on the ground. The wind grabbed it, but she and others put their feet on the edges. A gust caught up cinders and sprinkled them onto the map, landing like bites on her skin. She wore her hair in a braid, a bandanna around her neck and pulled it up over her nose.

  He’d traced his finger along the far western edge of the meadow, right where she’d imagined a cut line. “We’re going to box the fire in and drive it east, try and burn out the fuels. I want you to scratch out a line along the western flank of the fire down to this point here.”

  She squinted through the haze and found the rocky outcropping at the southern point of the ridge that would serve as the anchor for both the western and southern lines.

  “I’ll work with the crew coming in, and we’ll cut the southern line and meet you there.”

  So he had gotten a crew from the BLM. Good. Hopefully a Type 1 team—those guys knew how to work.

  “Our goal is to corral the fire enough for Kingston to get some water on it and take it down.”

  The guys hooyahed, and she grabbed her Pulaski, reached for her pack.

  And that’s when the babysitting really kicked in.

  Tucker already had a hand on her gear. “You’re with me.”

  What—?

  “I need you on lookout.” He pointed to the northern edge, where he’d climbed to get a look at the fire. “Watch our backs.”

  Seriously? “I can keep up, Tucker.”

  “I know. Believe me, I wouldn’t have passed you if you couldn’t. But we need someone to make sure we all stay alive.”

  Right. Make it sound important. She half expected him to spout out a rule, so she did it for him. “Firefighting Order five. Post a lookout when there is danger.”

  He grinned at her and nodded, like she was his favorite student.

  Nice. Now she got to watch as her team put down the fire.

  But she’d shouldered her pack and trudged toward the ridge, upwind. Climbed up to her lookout perch.