I turned to him. “Are you fucking kidding me? Are you saying if I had a dick they wouldn’t let me up there with my press pass? A fire is never controlled. It’s never safe. You don’t know what it’s going to do. We all just hope it goes our way up there. Now I’m going to be shooting the horizon and the ground pounders mopping up when it’s over.”

“I told you not to come,” Tyler said, impatient with my tantrum. “We have to go. I’ll see you when I get back.”

“Get me out there,” I called after him. “Maddox!”

The crowd in the lobby quieted and watched Tyler walk away from me toward the elevators. I turned to face Stavros, trying to hold back angry tears.

“You said ‘dick,’” Stavros said. “I like you already.”

“Pour me a vodka tonic.”

Stavros smiled. “Really?”

“Really.”

Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

My fingers were spread out in my lap, all ten ink-stained and covered in dirt. I intertwined them, touching the knuckles of my thumbs to my forehead and closing my eyes but praying to no one. Echoes of movement traveled down the hall to my cell, and my knee began to bob again. This was the first time I’d been arrested without knowing my father would have me freed within the hour.

Tears stung the gash on my cheek, just one of several wounds the forest had left on my body while I’d tried to trudge through the thick trees and dry, razor-sharp branches. My head was still swirling from the countless vodka tonics that had helped me decide to sneak into the black.

The bars rolled to the right, and the sheriff’s deputy caught the gate just before it crashed into the wall.

“You got some friends in high places, Edson,” he said.

I stood, holding my hand in front of my face to block out the bright light. “Who?” I asked.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” he said.

I stepped out, hoping to God the person on the other side of the wall wasn’t my father.

The deputy guided me by the arm to a small room where Trex sat in a folded chair. He stood, reaching out to take me from the deputy’s grasp.

“Don’t speak,” Trex whispered.

“We’re releasing Miss Edson into your custody, Agent Trexler. We assume you’ll make sure she’s not in a restricted area again?”

“She’ll be up north. Nowhere near the fire,” Trex said.

We walked down a long hallway into the front of the county jail. Tyler was sitting in one of the dozen or so chairs lining the white wall, his head in his hands. When the door closed behind us, he looked up.