"Right. But this is where we kept most of our heavy equipment. This was definitely the place to set the costliest fire and make it look like I did it."
Tilting her head, she looked at him curiously. "Why do you automatically assume that the revenge was directed at you?"
He shrugged. "Who else? Mother? She's got more friends than she can count. Sage? She's just a kid."
"Jealous boyfriend?"
He dismissed that possibility with a curt shake of his head. "She hasn't ever been that seriously involved with any one guy. She scares off even the most determined. Chase has probably cultivated a few enemies, but I feel it here," he said, flattening his palm against his stomach, "in my gut, that it was aimed at me."
"Why?"
Setting her hands behind her, she braced herself up on her arms. The pose drew her shirt tight across her breasts. Lucky had to concentrate on the caterpillar creeping along the tree trunk in order to keep himself from staring at them.
"I'm the one who's always getting into trouble." He lifted his eyes to hers. "Seems I have a knack for getting myself into tight places." Spiders spinning webs between branches of the nearby trees were making more racket than Lucky and Devon while they peered deeply into one another's eyes. The breeze lifted their hair and flirted with their clothing, but they remained motionless, unblinking, thoroughly absorbed.
After a long moment, Devon roused herself. "Who have you been in trouble with?"
"Why are you curious?"
"Everyone's a suspect."
"Or are you just nosy?" he teased.
She blushed slightly. "Maybe. It's a habit. See, when I do a story on someone, I talk to everyone close to the subject. I gather bits of information from here and there until I can piece together the entire personality of the individual. Sometimes the least likely interview produces the most valuable tidbit, the single element that makes all the other elements click into place."
"Fascinating."
What he found most fascinating wasn't the topic, but her animated way of explaining how she worked. Her eyes weren't one pure hue, but myriad shades of green that sparkled when she was angry or excited about the subject under discussion.
They could also look as deep as wells when she became introspective or sad, as they had done that night in the orchard when she had talked about her parents. He doubted she knew how expressive her eyes were. If she did, she would train them not to give away so much. Drawing himself back into the discussion, he asked, "But what has your work method got to do with me?"
"To get to the culprit, I have to go through you. So I'll approach it the same investigative way as if I were writing a story on you. I want to talk to a variety of people with whom Lucky Tyler has had contact. Tell me about everybody you've had trouble with in say, hmm, the last six months."
He laughed. "That'll take all afternoon."
"We've got all afternoon."
"Oh yeah. Right. Chase did say he had that drilling in Louisiana under way, didn't he? Well, let's see." Absently he scratched his neck. "Of course, most recently there was Little Alvin and Jack Ed."
"For the time being, let's set them aside. We'll come back to them. They're almost too obvious to be suspects."
"Okay, for starters, there was this guy in Longview. Owned a club over there."
"A club? Health club? Country club?"
"No, a, uh, you know."
"A nightclub?"
"Yeah. It's a … the kind of place where guys hang out. It's got girls. They hustle drinks and, you know, dance a little."
"A topless bar?"
"Sorta like that. Sure. I guess you could call it that."
Rolling her eyes, she said, "Don't spare my sensibilities, Lucky. We'll save time. What about this guy?"
"He accused me of coming on to one of his girls."