Set the Dark on Fire

by Jill Sorenson

  Annoyed, Luke dismissed him and called in Dylan. Yesterday the kid had been energetic and open, rattling off the most obscure basketball stats from memory and showing surprising insight into the sport. Today he radiated defiance from the top of his faux-hawk haircut to the frayed cuffs of his baggy jeans.

  “Snell,” he said, greeting Garrett with a sneer. He didn’t acknowledge Luke at all.

  For some reason, Luke was amused by his surly attitude. “Travis told us you kicked him in the balls,” he said, getting right down to business.

  Dylan’s eyes flashed with anger. “Yeah,” he said, obviously lying. “So?”

  “Explain how you managed to blacken Chad’s eye and deliver a below-the-belt hit on Travis at the same time.”

  Dylan cracked his knuckles. “What can I say? I’m dexterous.”

  Luke smothered a smile. “Were you in the front seat or the back?”

  Knowing the feat couldn’t be accomplished from either, he shrugged. Luke studied Dylan carefully, wondering what he was missing. Travis had claimed they didn’t meet anyone else at the Graveyard, but Luke knew finding the opposite sex was priority numero uno for most teenage boys.

  Luke was struck by a mental image of Fernando Martinez’s eldest daughter. Hadn’t Shay mentioned Dylan when she spoke to the girl? And yesterday, Dylan had complained about not being able to have someone in his room. He’d said a name.

  Angel.

  On Saturday morning, Luke had overheard Shay arguing with her brother. She’d gone to his room to check in on him and found …

  “Angel Martinez,” Luke said.

  Dylan jumped a little. “What about her?”

  “Was she sitting in the backseat with Travis?”

  He narrowed his blue eyes. “Who told you that?”

  “Travis,” Luke invented. “He said she was all over him.”

  “That’s a goddamned lie.”

  “So tell us the truth.”

  Dylan clammed up, refusing to be manipulated. Unlike Travis Sanchez, he was nobody’s stooge. “We didn’t see Yesenia Montes,” he said finally, “and we didn’t see any lions. If you want to find out what Angel was doing that night, you’ll have to ask her.”

  “We’ll do that,” he said. “Thanks for your time.”

  Dylan stood up. “I can go?”

  Luke leaned back in his chair. “Sure.”

  “Should I send in Chad?”

  Luke nodded reluctantly, remembering the way the kid had spoken to Shay. Times like this, he wished he could play bad cop. Luke doubted he would get any new information out of Chad, and he’d rather staple the mouthy little bastard’s lips together than hear him talk.

  15

  After school, Dylan borrowed Shay’s car and headed out to the construction site.

  To his surprise, she hadn’t freaked out about his new job. She’d just gotten really quiet and looked kind of sad. “What are you going to do with the money?”

  Buy drugs, he’d wanted to retort. “Save up for my own car,” he said instead. “Yours sucks.”

  Her face took on a pinched look. She had dark smudges under her eyes and he knew she hadn’t slept last night. Well, neither had he. “You’re still planning on going to UCLA?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Of course. You think I’d give up a choice scholarship to dig ditches?”

  She stared at him as if he were a complete stranger, and she couldn’t possibly predict what he would do next. “Dinner’s at seven.”

  He took off, eager to escape her measured glances and long-suffering sighs. She was in another one of her weird moods, and he couldn’t really blame her. Living in Tenaja Falls wasn’t easy for a woman like her, but she was too stubborn to leave.

  Sometimes he thought she cared more about this goddamned town than she cared about him.

  People here liked to gossip, and there was always speculation about her love life. She was criticized for her affair with Jesse Ryan, envied for being young and pretty and unmarried. Her tough attitude and casual style didn’t help matters. Once, he’d heard Chad’s mom say it wasn’t proper for her to go braless when there was a teenage boy in the house.

  As if he were checking her out or something. Gross.

  Scowling, he turned into the dirt lot just inside the front gate. Unlike yesterday, today the site was bustling with human activity. A newly poured flat of cement, probably for an outbuilding or security office, stretched across the lot. It covered a large area, but was nowhere near the size needed as a foundation for the casino.

  They wouldn’t be ready to lay down the main slab for a while.

  Dylan felt a flutter of nerves. After a sleepless night, a shitty day at school, and a miserable run at basketball practice, what he really wanted to do was go home and go to bed. Because he couldn’t call in sick his first day on the job, he straightened his shoulders and tried to look tough as he approached a group of men standing near Bull Ryan.

  Bull gave Dylan a brief glance, nodded toward a short, dark-skinned man beside him, and continued shooting the breeze with his work crew.

  The short man greeted Dylan with a warm handshake. “My name is Pedro. You are my new slave, no?”

  He mumbled an affirmative.

  Pedro laughed and led him toward a series of shallow black washtubs full of dingy water and jagged tools. “You clean these,” he said, picking up a triangle-shaped piece of metal with a wooden handle. To demonstrate, he gave the tool a few quick swipes with a sponge and dropped it back into the water. “Don’t bang them together or scratch the surfaces. If you damage them, I will fire you.” He smiled, but it didn’t take the edge off his words.

  Dylan gulped.

  “Ah … one more thing. Mira las manos.”

  Dylan looked at Pedro’s hands. They were cracked and dry, riddled with dozens of thin white scars. “Tools like these are used to smooth the surface of the concrete, and they are kept very sharp. Be careful.”

  “Do I need gloves?”

  Pedro laughed again. “They would only fill with water and slow you down.”

  It took him an hour to get through the first tub. He didn’t cut himself, but it was a near thing. The sun was blazing down on the back of his neck, he was dying of thirst, and he felt like crap. This job was already totally fucked.

  Pedro returned and inspected his work. “You are very thorough,” he said, nodding his approval. “But much too slow. Do the rest.”

  Dylan stared at the other tubs in disbelief. It would take him forever to finish. Resigning himself to an afternoon of agony, he went on to the next set of tools, trying to work fast and keep all of his fingers attached. It wasn’t wise to let his mind wander, but he’d always had difficulty concentrating on mundane tasks. He liked to do math problems in his head when he was running for PE, and he often worked on rote memorization in the weight room.

  After an arduous night and exhausting day, his brain was mush. It traveled the path of least resistance, to an oft-visited, infinitely pleasurable place.

  Angel Martinez, naked.

  He squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to dispel the image, sunspots swimming behind his lids. Damn her. She’d wanted him to kiss her last night. He knew by the way she’d kissed him back. Maybe he’d gone for it with a little too much gusto, but what the hell? All she had to do was say no.

  Her schizo sexuality was driving him crazy.

  It occurred to him that he should call and give her a heads-up about his interview with Luke Meza. The idea of talking to her again excited him more than it should have. He tried to stay focused on the work he was doing, but pictures from the past and sensations from last night melded together, swirling in his head. He wondered what it would be like to join her in the shower, to cup the soft weight of her breasts in his palms and feel them against his bare chest. To lift her up against the shower wall …

  The tool he was cleaning slipped from his hands, gliding along the base of his thumb. Flaying his flesh.

  “Motherfucker,” he swore, star
tled by the intense flash of pain. Blood dripped from the cut, splashing into the grimy pan of water below him. He looked around for help, and for something to staunch the flow of blood, but there was nothing, no one.

  The site was deserted.

  Cursing, he yanked his shirt over his head and wrapped it around his hand. When he didn’t see any red stains blossoming through the fabric, he figured the wound was minor. Still, there was no way he was putting his hand back into that grainy, disgusting water.

  He wandered out to the parking lot and found Pedro with three other guys, hunkered down in the shade next to a heavy-duty work truck, drinking ice cold Coronas. Dylan’s mouth watered for the taste of beer, but nobody offered him one.

  He cleared his dry throat. “Uh … I think I need a Band-Aid. I’m bleeding.”

  They all laughed. One of the men said something in rapid-fire Spanish, too fast for Dylan to catch a single word, and they kept laughing.

  “He said his wife keeps some tampons in his truck,” Pedro translated with a smile. “If you’re on your period.”

  Dylan felt his face flame. “I cut myself,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Ay, muchacho,” Pedro said, rising. “Let’s go take a look.”

  Pedro didn’t bother with a first aid kit. He glanced at the cut, which had already stopped bleeding, and wrapped Dylan’s hand with a piece of clean cloth and duct tape. “Have your mom put a real bandage on it when you get home,” he recommended.

  Dylan felt the humiliating press of tears behind his eyes, and could only nod.

  Pedro examined his face, missing nothing. “Vamanos,” he said, returning to the black tubs of tools Dylan already loathed. “No scratches,” he said, inspecting the clean, shiny surfaces. “You can come back tomorrow.”

  He didn’t know whether to feel relieved or depressed. “Will I be doing this every day?”

  Pedro laughed. “No, chacho. Some days you will have to work hard.”

  Dylan hoped he was joking. Getting blood on his hands hadn’t made him feel tough, and the other guys had practically called him a pussy. But he nodded, because he wasn’t a quitter, and no one ever said it was easy to be a man.

  On his way out, Dylan decided to stop by Bull’s office. It couldn’t hurt to thank him for the job. When he got close to the office door, he heard two men arguing. Not wanting to interrupt, he leaned against the side of the trailer and waited for them to finish.

  “Come on, Dad,” one of the voices said. “Are you really going to sit there and lecture me about women? Clay’s mama would find that highly ironic.”

  Dylan knew immediately that the man speaking was Jesse Ryan. His ears strained for Bull’s response.

  “We aren’t talking about Clay’s mama, we’re talking about your wife. I heard Clay was paying her court. While you’ve been out tomcatting, pissing away my money, the mother of your child has been entertaining other men.”

  Jesse made a snort of disbelief. “Tammy Lee wouldn’t know how to entertain a man if she took lessons.”

  “Maybe he’s giving her lessons.”

  “Over my dead body,” Jesse said in a growl.

  “You do this one more time and I’ll kill you myself,” Bull warned. “I’m tired of paying for your mistakes. You don’t take care of your business. You can’t even take care of your wife. When are you going to grow up?”

  Jesse wisely remained silent.

  “This is the last time I bail you out. And you better come in and work for me tomorrow. Fixing cars is obviously not keeping you occupied.”

  “Yessir,” he said in a sulky voice.

  Aware that the conversation was winding down, Dylan backed up and moved away from the door, leaving as quietly as possible.

  After Luke sent Garrett home, he sat behind a strange desk in an office that didn’t feel like his, thinking about the case while the last rays of the sun eked away.

  Darkness closed in on him, but he didn’t bother to get up or turn on any lights. He still had more than an hour before he had to meet Shay, and he wasn’t looking forward to facing her again. She would surely make him pay for the callous way he’d treated her.

  He knew he’d screwed up. He just didn’t know how to fix it.

  If only he hadn’t gotten so close to her last night. He’d been freezing his ass off in damp pants and no shirt, the embers of the dying fire barely penetrating the chill in the air. He never should have taken her up on her offer to get warm.

  He’d known what it would lead to.

  “Damn it,” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face. Now more than ever, he wished he had a place to call home. There was nothing remotely comfortable, or comforting, about his cot in the barracks at the firehouse.

  Sure, there was a couch, a giant TV, and a stocked fridge, the staples of every bachelor pad, but there was no privacy.

  There was no … peace.

  Tenaja Falls was supposed to be a kind of retreat for him, a few months of rest and relaxation. He was burned-out and he needed to regroup. That was all. While he was here, he planned on charting his future course.

  Going back to Vegas was out, but it wasn’t as if he had no other options. He had an excellent record, an extensive education in criminal justice, and plenty of experience with investigating organized crime. He could get a job anywhere there was gang activity.

  For some reason, working in a big city didn’t hold the appeal it once had. Ten years ago, he’d wanted to make a difference. Now he was jaded enough to question whether hitting the mean streets and shaking down gun-toting teenagers was the best way to do it.

  On impulse, he picked up the phone and dialed a number he knew by heart. “Mom,” he said as soon as she answered, feeling an odd tightening in his throat at the sound of her voice.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He laughed, feeling some of his tension ease away. “Don’t I ever call you just to say hello?”

  “Of course, but you sounded funny.”

  He felt funny, too, but he didn’t tell her that. “How’s Lauren?”

  After they left Pala, his mother had met the love of her life, and she’d been happily remarried for thirty years. Now his stepsister, Lauren, was happily married, too, with a three-year-old daughter and another baby on the way.

  His mom chatted about her favorite subject for a few moments, offering him a welcome distraction. And after she was finished catching him up on the latest news, she didn’t even ask him when he was going to settle down and have children of his own.

  Maybe she’d given up.

  She didn’t mention the mountain lion mauling, and neither did he. He didn’t want her to worry.

  “Do you like it there?” she asked, sounding hopeful.

  “Yes,” he lied.

  “Are the people nice?”

  He knew where this was going. Straight to finding a small-town girl and hanging up his hat, Andy Griffith-style. “I miss you,” he said to change the subject, and because it was true.

  She sucked in a little breath of pleasure. “Well, I miss you, too, Luke. We all do.”

  “I know. I just wanted to tell you. I sort of promised someone I’d tell you”—he swallowed back another laugh at his expense, because he was getting ridiculously sentimental—”that you have a great smile.”

  She was silent for a moment. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, and suddenly he was.

  Since everything had fallen apart in Vegas, he’d been searching for something worthwhile to hold on to. A deeper understanding of himself, and a more meaningful connection to others. Tenaja Falls didn’t have much flash, but it had substance. He didn’t know if this town was the right place for him, but he did know he could make a difference here. Unlike Vegas, where his efforts had seemed like a drop in the bucket.

  He wasn’t ready to start house-shopping yet, but the idea of staying here brightened his outlook rather than dampening it.

  After Luke hung up with his mother,
he called Clay Trujillo. The short conversation had revived him, and reminded him of another mother he’d yet to talk to. “Do you know Tamara Ryan?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  Luke was reluctant to tell Clay about the blood evidence found at the scene. Sometime before the body was dumped, an unknown female had bled on her. Perhaps Yesenia had been confronted by a jealous wife. Maybe Tamara fit the bill.

  “I wanted to ask her a few questions about Jesse. He was the last person to see Yesenia Montes alive.”

  There was a short pause. “I’ll go with you.”

  It was the response Luke had been fishing for, so he agreed without a qualm. He wanted to find out what was going on between Shay, Jesse, Tamara, and whoever else had been dipping into Tenaja Falls’ shallow dating pool.

  Clay met him at the station and Luke drove from there, heading toward the outskirts of town. Tamara Ryan lived on the southwestern edge of Tenaja, in a lonely cluster of trailer homes situated near a convenience store just off the main drag.

  The place made the quaint little houses in Shay’s neighborhood seem prosperous. An older model red Ford Escort sat in the driveway, covered in a fine coat of dust, its cooling system still ticking. Inside, there was the sound of a baby crying.

  Luke glanced at Clay, who was striding toward the front door, concern etched on his handsome face.

  A young woman opened the door before he got the chance to knock. She was just over five feet tall and slightly built, a pretty brunette with big brown eyes.

  Luke thought Shay Phillips looked young, but this girl appeared no older than a teenager. His opinion of Jesse Ryan slipped down another notch. The guy had been robbing the hell out of the cradle.

  Her eyes slid from Clay to him and back again. The baby in her arms wailed.

  “Can I help?” Clay asked.

  “Yeah. I need to change Grace and Mama’s …” she trailed off, wincing as the baby let out another loud cry, and gesturing toward the couch behind her. “I just got home,” she added, obviously exasperated.

  She disappeared inside and Clay followed. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, Luke saw a slender woman reclined on the sofa, arms akimbo, her bleached blond hair in disarray. There was an empty liquor bottle on the coffee table.