Jill Sorenson - Set The Dark On Fire

Being on his own turf, he also had a hell of an advantage.

When Luke pulled up to the driveway, he saw that Garrett wasn’t holed up inside his house, pointing a rifle through the mini-blinds. He was sitting in his police car in the front drive, holding his service revolver to his right temple.

Staving off a rush of panic, Luke picked up his radio and called in the details. Talking down a suicidal officer was way out of his area of expertise, but he might not have time to wait for backup.

Had Garrett done something to Lori? Men who committed suicide often did so after harming someone else.

Another feeling came over him, one of almost uncontrollable fury. Garrett had a connection to Yesenia Montes and a well-known gambling problem. According to Dylan, he’d also been on the reservation the day of the fire. It wouldn’t surprise Luke if he’d borrowed money from Bull Ryan to pay off Moses Rivers.

Garrett had been quick to point his finger at the rez, after all. He’d probably planted the arrowhead with the snake at Dark Canyon. In addition to his other crimes, if he was indeed guilty, Garrett had tried to kill Shay.

At that moment, Luke didn’t give a damn about duty, and he wasn’t the least bit concerned about his deputy’s future.

Garrett only had to live long enough to suffer.

Luke got out of his truck, surveying the scene. Lori Snell was pacing the front lawn, tears streaming down her face, a cordless phone in her hand. Although she appeared unhurt, she was about a hundred feet from the driveway, well within Garrett’s range.

Keeping a visual on Garrett, his hand on his holster, he approached Lori. Her eyes were dark with misery and her cheeks ashen. He’d never seen her before, but despite her frantic state she was pretty, and his disdain for Garrett deepened.

“Where’s the baby?” he asked, remembering she had a young child.

She hugged her arms around herself. “With my m-m-mother.”

“Good. Why’s he doing this?”

Shaking her head, she said, “W-we had a fight, but-I don’t think that’s it. Something else is bothering him.”

Keeping his hand on his gun, he surveyed the neighborhood. Two doors down, there was an older woman looking through the window. “You know the lady in the blue house?”

Her head bobbed up and down. “Yes.”

“Go over there and let her make you a cup of tea.” He knew it sounded condescending, but he needed to know she was safe. “I can’t do my job if I’m worried about you running out here and getting in the way.”

She moistened her lips. “Okay. But just-don’t shoot him. Please?”

Luke snuck another glance at Garrett. Even from this distance, he could see that the deputy’s entire body was trembling, and his gun hand was none too steady.

Damn .

“I won’t,” he promised, and hoped he could keep it. Garrett would have to pay for what he’d done, and although shooting him sounded tempting, he wouldn’t do it unless he had to. He’d never killed a man before. He’d never wanted to.

After one last pleading look, Lori hurried across the lawns and into her neighbor’s house. As soon as she was out of sight, Luke turned and walked back toward the driveway, making a wide circle around Garrett’s cruiser. The black-and-white squad car looked shiny and sleek in the twilight, a lurking shark in troubled waters.

Flexing his fingers, Luke approached slowly, his heart in his throat, sweat stinging his eyes. Forty feet. Thirty.

“Don’t come any closer,” Garrett warned.

Luke stopped twenty feet away from the driver’s side, staying in Garrett’s line of sight but keeping his body at an angle. If Garrett decided to turn his gun on Luke, it would be awkward for him to shoot over his left shoulder. “I just want to talk.”

“Stay away!”

Luke came closer. Ten feet. Close enough to see the sheen of perspiration on Garrett’s brow. “Tell me what happened.”

Garrett let out a strangled sound, somewhere between a sob and a laugh.

“I just want to talk,” Luke repeated, hearing the strain in his own voice.

Garrett’s gun hand wobbled precariously. “Get away from me!”

“I’ll take off my gun belt. Watch.” With steady movements, he unfastened his belt and laid it down on the concrete, straightening and holding his arms high.

“Stay back!”

Luke took a deep breath and stepped forward. “I’m unarmed, Garrett. I couldn’t grab your gun from here even if I wanted to. If you’re going to pull the trigger, I can’t stop you. But first tell me why. Tell me what happened.”

Garrett’s eyes darted back toward the front of the house, looking for Lori.

“You owe it to your wife,” he said, struck by a flash of inspiration. “You want her to think you’ve done this because of her?”

Garrett’s face crumpled. “N-no.”

Luke wasn’t sure he understood the belated concern for Lori. Garrett certainly hadn’t been thinking about his wife while he was fooling around with Yesenia Montes.

“There is one thing I’d like you to tell her.”

“Name it.”

“I lied about having sex with Yesenia. I used that as an excuse because I knew people had seen us together.”

Luke hadn’t expected this particular confession. “What were you doing with her?”

Garrett made a sniffling noise. “I set her up on dates sometimes. Introduced her to people. Drove her around.”

Luke was baffled. “Why?”

“She gave me a cut.”

Realization dawned. His sheriff’s deputy was a pimp . And here Luke thought Tenaja Falls would be less tawdry than Las Vegas.

“I have a gambling problem, in case you didn’t know,” Garrett continued in a self-deprecating tone. “I needed the extra income.”

“You’ve overextended yourself?”

“And then some. We’re going to lose the house. Lori will be better off without me.”

“She won’t get a dime of insurance money if you pull the trigger,” Luke said, relaxing his stance a little. He was pretty sure Garrett wasn’t going to shoot him, or anyone else. “You know, I’ve never really liked guns,” he added, offhand.

Garrett blinked a few times. “You-you haven’t?”

“Nah. That was one of the reasons I accepted this position in Tenaja Falls. I didn’t think I’d have to wear my gun all the time.”

“That’s… stupid,” Garrett decided. “You can’t make a routine traffic stop these days without worrying you’ll catch some psycho behind the wheel.”

Luke found that statement pretty ironic, considering the current situation. “Yeah, I guess. I think I’ll quit wearing it anyway. I don’t like shooting them. I certainly didn’t like getting shot. And the mess they make!” Grimacing, he surveyed the Vic’s interior. “You ever seen a man take a hit to the head at close range?”

Garrett swallowed a few times, looking queasy.

“What am I saying? Of course you have. Must’ve been brains all over in Iraq.”

Garrett’s lips curled back in distaste, but he couldn’t deny it.

“You don’t want your wife to see that, man. Lori will be upset about the house. But she’d be more upset about losing her house and the father of her baby.” Luke put his hand near the open window. “Give me the gun.”

“No.”

“Give me the gun, Garrett. Don’t wait until the whole neighborhood comes out. This place will be swarming with squad cars from the Palomar substation in a few minutes.”

After another moment of indecision, Garrett capitulated, placing his revolver in the palm of Luke’s hand.

As Luke wrapped his fingers around the sweaty, skin-warmed steel, he experienced a powerful surge of rage. The temptation to shove the barrel against Garrett’s skull and demand some answers was overwhelming. Now he knew why cops sometimes lost control with suspects. “Get out,” he said, engaging the safety and tucking the gun into the back of his pants.