Ann Aguirre - Hell Fire

For my children.

If I’ve done anything worthwhile in my life, it’s you.

Each day, you make me so, so proud.

Love you guys.

Laura Bradford is the best of all possible agents. What other agent would clear her schedule when I take the bus in from Tijuana and spend the day chauffeuring me around to sign stock? That was one of the best days I can remember because she is not only my agent, but also wonderful company. She boosts me when I need it, and she always has a master plan.

I also need to cheer for Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego because they make me feel like a hometown author and show such support for my books. Big thanks to Patrick at MG for telling everybody I’m destined to be a star and that he expects to see my work in hardcover one day. Words like that from a bookseller put a writer on cloud nine!

In fact, I celebrate all booksellers who recommend my work—and here’s a shout to Sara of Fresh Fiction, who made my visit to Texas so memorable. I also owe her a margarita for telling readers that if they like Patricia Briggs, they’ll enjoy my books.

I’ve mentioned Ivette before, and I don’t know what I’d do without her. She makes my life easier in countless ways, freeing me up to write, which is what I love.

Others offer motivation and support when I need it. So thanks to Lauren Dane, Jeri Smith-Ready, Larissa Ione, Victoria Dahl, Carrie Lofty, and Lorelie Brown. It all helps. You’re there when I need you, and I’m lucky to have such an amazing group of smart, funny, talented friends.

And hats off to Carolyn Jewel and Meredith Duran for writing books that inspire me and make me say, “Now, that’s how it’s done.”

Thanks to Andres, who understands me after all these years, and to my kids, who are very good about letting me work.

Though Kilmer is set in Georgia, it’s a fictional town, so obviously you won’t find it if you drive south. I hope it feels real to you; as always, I grounded my what-if fantasy in our world, using Darien and Savannah to flavor my creation. Thanks to everyone who answered my questions about living in the South. You made it possible to enrich this book beyond what I could have managed on my own.

Finally, I must thank my readers, who are the cleverest, warmest, wittiest, and best-looking people ever to buy books. Please keep those e-mails coming; they never fail to make me smile. You can get in touch with me at ann.aguirre@ gmail.com.

I’m still a redhead.

Before we left Texas, I touched up the roots, and then I had some tawny apricot highlights put in. I guess that meant I intended to keep this color for a while. Symbolic—I’d made a commitment, at least to my hair.

Too bad I couldn’t do the same with Chance. I didn’t trust him entirely, and what was more, he didn’t trust me, either. He secretly thought I’d leave, which I had done; die, which I’d nearly done; or break his heart. I just hoped I wouldn’t combine the three.

Until we resolved the conflict between us—such as his luck, which might kill me, and the former lover he wouldn’t talk about—I couldn’t be more than a friend to him. He knew it too. I think he’d known as much even when he pressed the point back in Laredo.

The Mustang purred along, emphasizing Chance’s silence. He wasn’t happy about this trip to Kilmer, Georgia, but he’d promised, and I wanted answers. He owed me.

When he’d shown up at my pawnshop in Mexico City, asking for my help after our breakup eighteen months before, I agreed because he swore to turn his luck toward helping me find out what happened the night my mother died. This point was nonnegotiable. I needed to understand why it happened, and who was responsible. I wanted justice for her death. Now that I’d fulfilled my end of the bargain in Laredo, he was keeping his promise.

We passed the woods that encircled the town. Sometimes, when I was a kid, it had seemed to me that someone simply burnt a patch out of the forbidding forest, and there, Kilmer had been built. Over long years, the trees grew back in around it, overhanging the rutted road.

With the windows open, I smelled dank vegetation heavy in the air, and pallid sunlight filtering through the canopy overhead threw a sickly green glow over the car as Chance drove. McIntosh County didn’t get snow or earthquakes, and the median temperature was sixty-six degrees. It was also deeply historical, containing forty-two markers. I knew all about local history: how old Fort King George was built nearby in 1721; how the Highlanders voted against slavery in 1739, not that it did them any good in the long run; and how the War of Jenkins’ Ear motivated early settlers to attack Spanish forts. There were still ruins on Sapelo Island.

Just a piece up the road, there lived the only known band of Shouters, a Gullah music group. I’d seen them perform the ring shout once at Mount Calvary Baptist Church. I couldn’t remember which foster parent had taken me; there had been so many, and most of them had thought I could benefit from religion in some form or another. On paper, this seemed the perfect place to live, steeped in cultural heritage and tradition.

On paper.

In Kilmer, the rules of the Deep South lasted long after laws and social expectations changed in the wider world. White men did as they pleased, and everyone else kept their mouths shut. I couldn’t rightly say I’d missed it.

“This place has a weird feel,” Chance said, breaking the silence at last.

“You’re getting it too?” I’d always thought it was the trees, but we’d passed beyond them. Now only scrubby grass lay between us and the weathered buildings of town. Overhead, the sky glowed blue and white; it was a pretty, partly sunny day that should’ve warmed me a lot more than it did.

“Yeah.” Before he could say more, a dark shape darted in front of the cherry red Mustang. Chance slammed on the brakes, and only the seat belt kept my head from kissing the dash. The car fishtailed to a stop.

Butch whined and popped his head out of my handbag. He was a blond Chihuahua we’d picked up along the way; I’d resigned myself to keeping him, but I hoped we hadn’t scared the shit out of him. I had important stuff in my purse.

I soothed him with an absent touch on his head, my heart still going like a jackhammer.

“What the—”

Chance motioned me to silence as he got out of the car. Hands shaking, I needed two tries to do the same. I checked the back, staring into the dead air beneath the tunnel of trees. Black skid marks smeared the pavement behind us.

He knelt and peered under the Mustang. Despite my better judgment, I joined him. Butch hopped down and backed up three steps, yapping ferociously. A low animal growl answered him.

Near the tires, a big black dog lay dying—a Doberman. We hadn’t hit him, but all the blood oozing out of his ragged wounds told me he wasn’t long for this world. He’d come from the tall grass that lined the road, or maybe from the trees beyond the field. A hard shudder rocked through me, and the air turned as cold as a northern winter night.

“Something got at him,” Chance said finally. “Are there bears here? Wolves?”

I had no idea. I wasn’t a wildlife expert in any location, and I hadn’t been back to Kilmer in nine years. Things changed; habitats evolved. But times must be tough if wild animals had been forced to resort to hunting dogs.

I couldn’t seem to look away from the shadow-dark flesh. The animal gave one final whine, as if he understood we couldn’t help, and then he died. I saw the moment his eyes went liquid still, living tissue reverting to dead meat. There was a blood trail we could follow, but I didn’t think that was a good idea. Sizable claws created those wounds; nothing we need to mess with just before nightfall.