“Miami,” Darke said. He'd reached the same conclusion. Sometimes, it's more trouble than it's worth to exercise your right to remain silent.

  The big man stood wide-legged, the better to continue to block the door. “You come a long way from Miami. What's the purpose of your visit to Blunnville?”

  “Is that where we are?” Darke glanced out the plate glass window running along the front of the diner. From that angle, it mostly showed parking lot and pickup trucks. “We're doing a road-trip, my buddy and me. We've seen a lot of beach, now we want to see a lot of mountains.”

  “Is there a problem, Sheriff?” I was about done humoring a possibly homophobic county sheriff. “Because if we're not under arrest, we'd like to be on our way.”

  His weight shifted on the balls of his feet as he squared his body to face me.“You a lawyer, son? Because you talk like a lawyer.”

  I decided not to respond to this. The word “son” was chosen to irritate, and I refused to take the bait.

  After a beat, he went on. “You boys don't seem to understand the magnitude of your actions. That roadblock wasn't put up there for my health. You've inserted yourself into a secure area. We've got a manhunt underway. The last thing I need is a bunch of looky-loos getting underfoot trying to make a name on Twitter.”

  “The way we came wasn't blocked.” Darke kept his voice in neutral. “We had no idea about any manhunt. We came for some landscape shots, some pie, and some souvenirs. And now we're happy to leave.”

  “Happy to see you go. But, first, I'm gonna need to search that car.”

  Oh, brother. I'd been here before. The last thing I needed was somebody taking apart my car, then leaving me to figure out how to put it back together again. “You need a warrant to search my car.”

  “Nah, son. All I need's a dog.”

  As if on cue, the door tinkled open again. Another uniform walked in with a leashed and lugubrious bloodhound at his side. Not a uniform, I realized, but a half uniform. The shirt and belt were regulation, but the trousers were well-faded jeans.

  The dog handler didn't have to follow every rule to a tee. I felt a stir of unease. Considering dogs respond to human cues as much as to the things they smell, a corrupt handler could be a very bad thing.

  The sheriff and the handler hustled Darke and me out to the parking lot. The other two uniforms brought up the rear to put us inside a walking box. The sheriff took our licenses, directed us to stand well away from the car.

  Darke and I watched in silence as the handler walked his dog slowly around the BMW.

  The handler's body language said one thing. The dog's said another. He bent low to whisper something into long, drooping ears. Nostrils flaring, the hound sauntered around the car again. A dog wants to please but she can't find a scent that doesn't exist.

  The various cops put their heads together. Walkies crackled. I caught the sheriff's eye. He came over with the licenses.

  “Can we go now, Sheriff?” I asked.

  He blew out a heavy breath. What he said was different from what he wanted to say. “Sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Greene. You can go along if you must, but I strongly recommend you stay the night in one of these cabins. I'd feel a lot better if I knew where everybody was.”

  “This missing person you're searching for,” Darke said. “He the driver of that car we saw down the side of the mountain?”

  The sheriff looked at him. “It's getting on toward sunset, Mr. Davis. You've got a nice vehicle. Carjacking wouldn't be out of the question. Better to hunker down for a day or two.”

  Darke faked a chuckle. “Your concern is touching, Sheriff, but carjackers rarely take an interest in going toe to toe with a guy my size. We'll be fine.” His direct eyes boldly met the sheriff's glare, and the sheriff stared back even harder to the point where it was becoming rude.

  Somebody on the other end of that walkie told the sheriff Darke had done time. I could smell it in the air—the foul scent of calculation and suspicion.

  The sheriff was tense, his men were tense, even the dog was tense. The parking lot went quiet.

  The walkies had fallen quiet too. Above us, empty sky.

  This was all wrong. Where were the helicopters?

  “The perp has a history of violence,” the sheriff finally said. “My men would appreciate it, and I would appreciate it, if you stayed up here safe where I know where you are.”

  I nodded as carefully as if I really believed he was making sense. “We had to drive right past the scene. You've got what? A guy who watched too many movies, thinks he can fake his death by pushing a burning car off the mountain?”

  “Something like that. I'm not at liberty to answer a lot of questions about an investigation in progress. I'm sure you understand.”

  “We could assist in the search. We're both former law enforcement...” As you damn well already know.

  He shook his head. “No can do, Mr. Greene. Department policy. Regardless of their background, members of the public are not invited to volunteer. Sit tight, enjoy the mountain air, get back to your regularly scheduled vacation. The road will be open sometime tomorrow.”

  Darke and I went back into the gift shop. The arrowhead pendant was ready.

  “You boys need a chain? I got sterling chain.”

  Darke picked one long enough to let the pendant fall to his heart. Then he slipped it on under his shirt instead of over it.

  “Ain't nobody can see it that way,” said the old man.

  “It isn't for anybody else to see.” Darke glanced at the old-fashioned pigeonholes behind the counter. One of the holes had a piece of pink paper in it. “You the man we talk to about renting one of these cabins for the night?”

  “The very one. Two cabins?”

  “We don't mind sharing,” I said. “Just the one will be more convenient for getting started in the morning.”

  “You got it, buddy.”

  “Is cash a problem?” Darke already had his wallet out.

  “Cash is never a problem. Card reader hasn't been going through today anyway. Something's wrong with the inner-tubes.” His jokey term for the internet. He was playing the role of old-time country boy to the hilt.

  In the cabin, door locked behind us, Darke took off his shirt, then took off the pendant. Took off my shirt. Put the pendant on me. It felt warm from where it had rested against his heart and now rested against mine.

  “For good luck,” he said.

  “I already have good luck. Got you, don't I?”

  He laughed. “I thought maybe I was the one who got lucky there.”

  Chapter Three

  After we'd pleasantly exercised ourselves, Darke padded barefoot and naked to the front window. He pinched a corner of the curtain to make a peephole.

  “What did we stumble into?” he asked.

  In hopes of finding an answer, I played with my phone again. Same story as every other time I'd tried. No signal.

  “Somebody's watching the Beamer,” he said. “Come see.”

  I did. It was after midnight in October. Chilly this close to the window. Dark too. There was a post for a light in the parking lot, but the bulb hadn't turned on. The diner, the rock shop, the other cabins were black rectangles of deeper darkness within the dark.

  “Spooky,” I said.

  Three vehicles in the lot. The Beamer, a white windowless van, a white pick-up truck.

  “See him?” he asked.

  “No.” Then: “Yes. Got him.”

  The man stood in a clump of trees to the left of the entrance to a cabin across the parking lot. What gave him away was the flash of rectangular light. Once I knew he was there, I could see him well enough. A heavy man in uniform, shoulders hunched, fingers jabbing at his phone.

  Surveillance is a thankless task.

  “What did people do on stake-outs before Candy Crush and Angry Birds?” I asked.

  “According to the movies,” Darke said, “they smoked cigarettes.”

  “Well.” Pushing away from the window, I let the curtain drop. “Guess the sheriff doesn't want us slipping away sight unseen in the middle of the night.”

  He shrugged. “The FBI might've done things different from NOPD. Back in the day, if I wanted some guys to know they better not make a move, I'd put the cop where they could see him.”

  “We do see him.” Although I took Darke's point. “So maybe the sheriff really believes his perp will go for the Beamer. He's using our car as bait.”

  “Maybe. Trouble is, nothing smells right.” The cabin wasn't that big. Two strides, and we were both back at the bed. “If it is bait,” he said, “it's because they're thinking the guy didn't have a second vehicle lined up after he dumped the first one. Otherwise, he's already halfway across the country by now, no point looking around here.”

  I sat, and then he sat, his bigger body making the mattress dip to roll me close against him. The post-sex scent of his warm body tickled my nose. Naked together was a nice place to be.

  “I can't quite work it out either,” I said slowly. “Part of it, sure. What I said to the sheriff isn't too far wrong. We've got some guy who watched too many movies. He wires the car to blow up, jams something under the accelerator, jumps out before it goes over.”

  “Good way to break your leg.”

  “Even criminals sometimes get lucky.”

  A dent appeared between his sapphire eyes. “This was planned. The car didn't burn that extensively without fuel. Only it looks like a stupid plan. Why get rid of your vehicle before you've got another one lined up?”

  “Maybe he planned to hike out.”

  “The dogs would find him.”

  “Maybe he had a place to hide.”

  “The dogs would still find him.”

  “He thought the car being blown up would explain everything away. They wouldn't look for a body, they wouldn't call out the dogs, because they'd think there was nothing left to find.”

  Darke thought about that. “Yeah, all right. There's always something left to find in real life, but if we go along with your movie-guy theory, he might believe he could make it work that way. Only... he'd still line up another vehicle, wouldn't he? The faster he gets away, the better.”

  “If he was working alone, maybe he couldn't.” It was a wrench to pull away from the hard muscle of Darke's delectable body, but I picked up the phone again. “You know, this is odd, the signal being down so long. Mountaintops usually get good signal. That's why you see all the radio towers.”

  “This mountaintop usually gets good signal. That credit card reader in the shop wasn't there for decoration.”

  “You think somebody's using a jammer.”

  He lifted a shoulder in a one-sided shrug. “Don't you?”

  “Interfering with public communications is a federal offense.”

  “More to the point, it's an expensive offense.”

  I knew what he was saying. An effective jammer across all frequencies costs thousands. “Somebody really doesn't want anybody on this mountain getting a look at the news,” I said. “Something about what we're being told isn't right.”

  This is bad.

  “Yeah, well, not that we're being told much.” Darke hugged me a little tighter. “All communications are going through those walkies. Nobody on this side knows anything the sheriff doesn't want them to know.”

  A more explicit way of saying, this is bad.

  Because whoever was doing this couldn't be working alone. There were multiple parties involved to set up the accident, to block off the road, to conduct the search. And where there are multiple parties involved, where locals are backing up other locals, well...

  People from cities make good scapegoats. Especially notorious cities like Miami or New Orleans. Especially if one of those city people is an ex-con.

  Aloud I said, “Sheriff must know by now I'm former FBI. That I still have contacts there.”

  “Oh, he knows. He knows about both of us.” Darke started to rock me. “You fell in with a bad crowd.”

  “I couldn't wish for a better bad crowd.”

  His arms around me were a reassurance. So many times we'd almost lost each other. But we'd always come through, and we'd come through now.

  “No helicopter search. A limited number of men and dogs. The clean-up crew sent home.” Darke was talking it out in a thoughtful voice. “They're trying to keep a lid on things.”

  “Sure. But what things?” I brushed the dent between his beautiful eyes. “Murder? The guy in that car got dead, maybe even before the car got shot off a mountain?”

  “Could be. Only... murder's usually a motive for one guy to cover stuff up. When it's this many guys, it's almost always about money.”

  Nobody knew that better than me. I'd worked financial crimes for three years. “What money, though? Where's the money in a place like this?”

  “Who knows? We don't have enough information. Might as well go to bed.”

  AS ALWAYS, DARKE FELL asleep as soon as he closed his eyes. It takes longer for me. I curled big-spoon-style against his strong back. Breathed the warm scent at the nape of his neck. When I did fall asleep, I dreamed not of ghost pumpkins but of white moths the same color. They flew up and up in a reverse tornado until they vanished miles above into the black of outer space.

  When I woke, he was gone. Bright sunlight peeked in the corners of the mountain-facing windows. I opened the curtains. Appreciated the view. Closed them again. Showered, dressed, headed over to the diner. Same vehicles in the lot as the night before. No people around. The Office/Rock Shop had the CLOSED sign up.

  I'd never seen a diner this quiet at breakfast. The booths and tables were empty. Darke sat alone at the counter. The only employee was the same girl from last night with the pink and yellow micro-braids. Giggling, her cheeks as pink as her hair, she was leaning forward to pour coffee into his mug.

  “I'd love to visit New Orleans sometime,” she was saying. “But I never had a place to stay. I couldn't stay in a hotel.” She gestured vaguely around the diner. “It would remind me too much of work.”

  Subtle.

  I sat at the counter next to him. Resisted the urge to drape a possessive arm around his waist. “Where's everybody?”

  “Road's still blocked, I guess.” She poured me a mug of coffee. “You guys are lucky you made it through on the spur. They've probably got that blocked too by now.”

  “Sherilee was telling me about the manhunt,” Darke said.

  I doubted Sherilee knew anything substantive about the manhunt, but I nodded. “Dangerous criminals on the loose aren't good for the tourist business, but I thought some of the cops would be around.”

  “Guess they got a hot tip.” Her gaze lingered on Darke. “I'll start those blueberry pancakes now. Since your friend's here.”

  “That sounds wonderful.” He turned his smile toward me. “Sherilee was telling me how her blueberry pancakes are the specialty of the house.”

  She disappeared into the kitchen. I slipped a hand to his thigh. Squeezed. Let go. “The old Darke Davis charm strikes again,” I said. “It's the eyes. You hypnotize your victim before you strike.”

  He chuckled, but it was forced. “So the story is an escaped wife-and-child killer from Ozark Correctional. His car went off the road, but he somehow got away before it went up in flames, so the area is in lockdown until they find him.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  The story might play with the locals, but we both knew it couldn't be true. The accident scene said the car blew first, then went off the cliff. Nobody rode down that firestorm and walked away. If there was no body, it was because the guy was already out of the car before it bounced down the mountain in flames.

  That kind of inconsistency could be explained away as a game of telephone. The counter girl was repeating a story she didn't hear right in the first place.

  But there was something else that couldn't be explained away—the size of the search. The number of people involved was too small, too scattershot, to represent a manhunt for an escaped convict. A county sheriff, a few other men, a dog handler, a few dogs. No helicopter support. No state police. The so-called forces of law and order were spread so thin they missed the old country lane Darke used to drive into the area.

  A few dogs. Even that wasn't right. We'd seen only one dog.

  You couldn't botch a manhunt any harder if you wanted the guy to get away.

  “A pay-off.” Darke spoke carefully to test a theory he wasn't much sure about.

  I shook my head. “You couldn't pay off everybody. Too many people on the state level, starting with the warden of the prison in question.”

  He nodded.

  The girl came back with plates piled high with blueberry pancakes. She put a choice of three tiny tin pitchers of syrup next to Darke. I got a plastic bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's. The corners of Darke's mouth twitched up as he thanked her. “And maybe if there's any orange juice back there...”

  “Of course.” She retreated again.

  He inspected the pitchers. “Maple, blueberry, or strawberry?”

  “My feelings aren't even hurt. I think you're cuter too.”

  He laughed. “Well, I think you're cuter.”

  “Maple,” I said. “Is our stake-out guy gone?”

  “Nah,” Darke said. “When I walked over, there was somebody sitting low enough in the front seat of that white van to play periscope. I imagine he's still there.”

  “Sitting or sleeping?”

  “Guess we'll find out in a few.”

  Chapter Four

  My turn to drive. We got a quarter mile down the road before the white van came roaring up behind us. If it came down to a high-speed—hell, even a low-speed—chase, the van was hopelessly outclassed, but I wasn't letting myself be hurried around these hairpin curves. No use following the other car off the side of the mountain.

  The van came within an inch of kissing my bumper before it slowed. As I pulled away again, its driver's side window rolled down, and an arm came out. Son of a bitch was sticking a bubble-gum machine on his roof.

 

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