On Fire Read Online Free Page B

predator, with an economy of movement and lightness of stride. And he never let his guard down.
    A man hunter. That’s what he was. Someone had spent a lot of money training him to be dangerous. The military, she guessed.
    She parked on the street in front of the studio and got out. There were already bulldozers on the lot and giant Dumpsters to collect the rubble. Her stomach clenched tight with grief and sadness so thick it was hard for her to swallow past it.
    Sucking in a deep breath, she joined Jared at the curb. He turned slowly, examining the surrounding neighborhood.
    Darcy steeled her resolve and moved forward into the roofless ruins, trying to picture the place as it had once been. She was sorry it had been so long since she’d last visited. Her memories were cobwebbed from childhood. There were only faint echoes of bygone times when she and Danielle had playfully competed against one another and shared ballerina dreams.
    “Adults or children?” Jared asked, breaking into her reverie.
    “Excuse me?” She looked at him.
    His gaze narrowed. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
    “Gee, thanks.”
    “Cut it out. You look”—he frowned—“sad.”
    “Both adults and children,” she answered, skipping over the too-close-to-home comment. She was recovering her composure by the moment. Thanks to him, and the aura of strength and security that surrounded him. “And all styles, from ballet to hip-hop to ballroom.”
    “You were a student.” It wasn’t a question.
    She took a deep breath, knowing it would be useless to deflect him. Nothing slipped by him. “A long time ago.”
    He nodded. His hands went to his hips as he looked over what was left. “Considering the size of the town, how large were the classes?”
    “Five to fifteen students. The owners used to be professional dancers. People came from all over the country to study with them.” She pointed at the quaint motel across the street. “They had arrangements for out-of-towners with the Daniels family.”
    “We’ll have to dig into those former students.”
    “Sheriff Miller has been working on that.”
    Jared nodded. “Morales is on it, then.”
    At her questioning glance, he filled in, “My partner.”
    She watched him walk the perimeter of the crumbling brick walls, his cool cop’s eyes taking in everything. Her chest tightened as her past combined with her present, but she put it aside and answered his questions.
    Nearly an hour later, he glanced at his watch and pointed out, “It’s quarter to six.”
    There was a wealth of promise in those words and the heat in his eyes.
    Darcy nodded. He would dull the pain, at least for a little while. “Let’s go.”
    THEY MADE A quick stop at Darcy’s office, where she grabbed the files Jared had perused earlier and swapped out her work truck for a convertible BMW that was incongruous in a town filled with pickups and modest compacts.
    She glanced at him, showing no doubts or trepidation. “Your place or mine?”
    “Dinner first?” he asked, because he wasn’t a completely one-track-minded Neanderthal. Okay…he was. But he didn’t want this go-round with her to be his last. If he was going to ignore his better sense, he might as well do it all the way.
    “Dinner later.”
    Fuck yeah.
“Your place, then. Mine is a motel with paper-thin walls.”
    “Right.” She backed up with speedy precision, and the sleek sports car purred out of the parking lot.
    “Drugstore.” He met her gaze when she glanced at him. “I didn’t come prepared for this.”
    She got to the store quick but declined to go in with him. “It’ll be all over town in a half hour anyway, but I’d rather not encourage the spread if I can help it.”
    Once he got inside the store, he realized quickly that she hadn’t been kidding. The woman at the register eyed his purchases with an avid gaze and smiled at him with a delight that rankled. If he’d been any less impatient, he would have had Darcy drive him to