Page 17 of Light My Fire

Perkins frowned. “Are you…wait. Aren’t you Archer Mills’s daughter?”

Of course Superintendent Perkins would know her father. He’d probably been here dozens of times back when he ran the county sheriff’s department, either for drop off or pick up, or, well, even via the grumbles of inmates he’d arrested.

And because of that memory, Stevie nodded. Smiled. “He’s my dad.”

Brandy gave her a tight-lipped nod, and something inside Stevie tightened. Oh. Maybe…

“I’m sorry. I suppose you want to see him while you’re here?”

Such a quiet, easy question, but the words shut down Stevie’s lungs, caused her heart to turn to a fist in her chest. She stared at Perkins, got out a small, pained, “What? My father is doing his time here?”

And this is why she didn’t come home. Because the pitying looks could take her out at her knees. Especially from people in the system who knew her father or at least his reputation. Before. His reputationbefore.

“Yes,” Perkins said. “He got transferred here about six months ago. Minimum security—we actually let him supervise some of the prisoners on work detail. I think he’s only got about three months left on his sentence, right?”

Stevie nodded. Eighty-seven days to be exact. Still, no one had told her that he’d been transferred from the Fairbanks Correctional Center.

The door buzzed. Stevie turned, expecting to see Eugene shackled head to foot, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, hopefully hooded, or at least gagged.

Instead, the returning guard wore something of a pained expression. Overweight, balding, the kind of guy who could easily be overpowered by a big man like March. Her instincts lit, even as he came over.

“Sorry, boss. He’s not here.”

Perkins frowned, glanced at Stevie, back to the guard.

“I don’t know how it happened, but he went out on that firefighting detail.”

“What firefighting detail?” Stevie snapped.

“We got a call this morning from the BLM,” Perkins said. “They needed firefighters in the park, so we sent a crew— How did March get on that list?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. But he and seven others are headed into the back country right now.” The guard turned to Stevie. “They’re choppering in from Sky King ranch, but I think it’s too late.”

“Where are they deployed?”

“I don’t know. You could call the BLM. They’re going in to support some smokejumpers. Apparently they’re in over their heads.”

Tucker.

But they’d all be in over their heads if they let a man like March loose. Of all the inept—

“They’re in the middle of nowhere,” Perkins said. “Your man isn’t going anywhere.”

Stevie grabbed the folder from Perkins’s grip. “Yeah, but I am.” She pushed past them, out to the parking lot, and climbed back into her truck.

Sat for a moment, schooling her voice before she put her truck in reverse and pulled out of the lot.

It only took a call to the Copper Mountain sheriff’s department to hook into the BLM channel. To find a guy named Don who seemed to be behind this stupidity. To inform him of the mistake and get the destination of the prisoners.

To discover that she wasn’t going to track anyone down behind the wheel of her pickup.

She pulled up the long driveway of her parents’ house, this time pulling all the way into the yard.

Her mother looked up from where she was finishing the fuel line repair. She stood up, wiping her hands on a grimy towel as Stevie walked toward her.

“Hey, Ma. Can I borrow your wheels?”

Three

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