Page 27 of Light My Fire

Tucker hadn’t moved, too many images scanning through his head.

“March is…well, I won’t go into the details, but the cop is still in trauma counseling.”

How could he have let this man work on his team? With Skye—

“Skye’s not answering,” Riley said, and Tucker grabbed the radio.

“Skye, come in. Right now. Skye.”

Static on the other end of the line. Tucker turned to hike up the ridge. “She was sitting watch—”

“I’ll go, boss,” Seth said, already out in front of him. The big man could move like a running back when he wanted to.

“I’m headed to that campground,” Stevie said, packing the gun into a pouch on the front of her bike. “I need someone to call the BLM. Tell them to get ahold of the US Marshal’s office in Anchorage and get some backup in here.”

Tucker limped toward her. Already his knee was starting to loosen. “You shouldn’t go alone.”

“Tucker—listen, you have a fire to fight.”

“My guys can do the mop-up—”

“You could get hurt—”

“Tucker!”

Seth’s low voice rumbled down the ridge and Tucker turned. The big man was headed back down the mountain, three figures in front of him.

The youngsters, whom Tucker had pegged as DUIs. He tried to recall their names—

And then he didn’t have to.

“Those are the Cumberland brothers. Evan, Nico, and Bran,” Stevie said. “They probably got into a fight at Vic’s place and she decided to press charges. They’re harmless. Punks who boost a car now and again and smoke weed in their parents’ basement. Maybe they decided they didn’t want to do hard time for jailbreak.” She jogged over to them as Seth practically pushed them into camp.

“What are you three idiots doing? Why did you run?” She even whacked one of them on the head, through his hard hat.

“I dunno! Back off, Stevie—” He held up his hand, as if in protection. Skinny, dark haired, covered in ash—frankly, Tucker couldn’t tell them apart.

“Evan,” Stevie said. “Listen. You came back, so this stays with us if you tell me where March went to.” She gestured to the other two to sit down on a nearby boulder. They obeyed her.

Evan ran his hand along his chin. “It just happened. One minute I was asleep, the next your dad had his hand over my mouth, telling me to stay quiet.”

She went white at his words, and Tucker wanted to reach out, grab her arm, hold her up.

“He said that March was making a run for it, and if I didn’t want to get into more trouble, I’d stay down and keep sleeping.”

Tucker put weight on his knee, testing. Yeah, he’d be okay.

“Clearly you didn’t listen. Again.”

Evan cast his gaze to the ground. “Yeah, well, that was Nico’s brilliant idea. He said that maybe we could grab March, bring him in for the reward money.”

“You’re aprisoner—you don’t get rewards for escaping!”

From behind them, one of the men piped up. “That’s what I said.”

Probably Bran, because the other guy elbowed him.

“So, we waited until March took off—with your father and those three others. Rio and Darryl and the tall guy.”

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