Page 21 of Fire Fight

“Okay,” I whispered.

The sheriff withdrew a phone from his pocket. “Do you mind if I record this?”

“No.”

After tapping on the screen a few times, he held the device to his mouth and said, “Sheriff Lane Lawless interviewing Aspen McKay on April twenty-third at approximately nineteen hundred hours.” He moved around to my right side and pulled up a chair, setting the phone on the table between us. “Start from the beginning.”

“Like the day I was born, or…”

One corner of his mouth hitched up, but he didn’t admonish me. Like he understood I needed to mask my pain and fear with sarcasm. The knowledge had me relaxing slightly.

“How about when you arrived in town?” he prompted.

Okay, that I could do.

“Have you done any background on me?”

Lane shook his head. “Not yet. I prefer to get a feel for a person before I go rifling through their history.”

Another point in the sheriff’s favor.

“I’m a licensed private investigator, based primarily out of Denver,” I started. “About three weeks ago, I got an email about this place, and the Prom Night Arsonist—” I stopped, shivering at the name. Knowing this sick, twisted human had put his hands on me. Had tried to kill me.

The beeping of the heart rate monitor increased speed, and the sheriff laid a hand over mine.

“It’s okay, Miss McKay. Take your time.”

“I’m staying at that little motel on the edge of town. You know the one?”

The sheriff nodded. “Out by the highway. Yeah, I’m familiar with it.”

The way he said it told me the place had a reputation about as good as its accommodations, which was to say…not very.

“I got to town about a week ago and set up shop there. I have a list of people I wanted to interview, but those first few days, I wandered. I got a lay of the land, took the temperature of the townsfolk, got a feel for how easy or difficult they’d make this on me.”

“And?”

I shrugged, then winced as the movement tugged on my bandages.

“I was genuinely surprised by their friendliness.”

“Dusk Valley is a friendly place.”

I snorted. “Maybe to you. But I haven’t always been welcomed with open arms. And of course, once word about who I was and what I was doing in town started to get around, they became…chilly.”

My throat caught on the final word, and I coughed, pausing a moment to sip some more water. Damn, where was Sonya when I needed her? I could’ve really used that soup.

“Chilly, how?”

“There was a bartender at the Swallow. Pretty rude guy.”

The sheriff chuckled. “Benny. He’s always been a bit of an asshat to women who don’t want to sleep with him.”

That made a lot of sense actually, and I nodded.

“What happened on Friday?”

“Well, first, we need to back up to Wednesday, when I went to the fire station. I spoke with the chief about taking a look at their old incident reports from those fires, and he was more than happy to help me out. Even set me up with the captain to go over them. I believe you know him?”