Page 119 of Burning For You

Hell, the moment the guy sent her the first email.

She realized now, there had never been a chance of her backing off. It wouldn’t have stopped any of this.

Another moment passed on Kyle’s end, his voice rising some, back to almost being excited. “All right. If we do this, we do it smart. No glorifying him.”

“That was never going to happen,” she said. “But I’m done being his audience. I’m done with being his puppet and him dropping just enough little clues or hints while we wait for the next one.”

“We’ll need to loop in legal. Law enforcement already knows what is going on, obviously.”

“But they don’t have what I have.”

“And what’s that?”

She didn’t hesitate. “His voice. His ego. And his need to be seen. It’s like he wants me to know those things. That’s why he’s coming to me. He’s hoping that I’ll give him that. But I’m not going to. That is what he’ll regret.”

“I’m not sure I like the tone in your voice. I don’t know you that well, Skye. What is your plan? I can’t let you go rogue on this.”

Funny, considering he was so excited about this and what she’d been doing so far.

“I won’t be. No one would allow it. For now, I think we just print this story and see what happens. Let’s see if I hear from him again.”

She was willing to bet anything that it happened.

“Let’s roll those dice then,” Kyle said.

The arsonist wanted a story. Fine. She’d give him one.

Just not the one he was expecting.

30

BETTER THIS WAY

“Ican’t believe you wrote that story,” Brenna said. “And that no one told me what was going on.”

They were at Jim and Carrie’s for Thanksgiving. An early dinner because both Tate and Keegan had to go into work later.

That was fine with Ash. He and Skye were having dessert at his parents’ house.

He wanted his family’s take in everything that was going on also.

“You don’t need to know,” Skye said. “It’s better this way.”

“It’s not better for anyone,” Carrie said. “This is getting out of hand. I wasn’t happy that this person was talking to you.”

“Not talking,” she argued. “Being a coward and sending me anonymous emails.”

“Yeah,” Keegan said. “Now you called him out and said he’s not even original. That he’s not smart enough to do something sophisticated.”

Ash bit his tongue.

He’d already lit into Skye when he read that story the next day.

Woke up and drove right to her house and gave her shit in person because doing it over the phone wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of her seeing how upset he was over this.

That she might as well pick up a big can of neon orange paint and dump it over her head for the asshole to find her.

To take another shot right at her dead center.