“Seven years.”

“That’s a while. Guess you planned on it being longer, though, if what I hear’s correct.”

Don’t take the bait, he thinks. You’ve got a job to do.

“I’d invite you to join us,” Marty says, “but it doesn’t look like you got a lunch. So I guess that means you’re not here for lunch.”

“Not unless one of you’s got extra,” Luke says with a smile.

“We don’t,” one of the men answers, then falls silent when Marty gives him a look.

Just a warning, Luke reminds himself. I’m just supposed to give them a warning. Anything else is not how I planned to start my first week on the job.

“Did Laura Penny reopen her costume store?” Marty asks. “Or maybe Target’s selling sheriff’s uniforms now.”

“It’d be a deputy’s uniform. Until I’m sheriff. And, no, it didn’t come from Target.”

“Expecting a promotion already, huh? Admire your confidence, kid. ’Course, what I hear, even sheriff of this town would be a demotion from what you had planned.”

“Yeah, well, don’t believe everything you hear.”

“Figure I might end up saying the same once I find out what this little visit’s about.”

“Marty, I’m here to remind you that the grounds of the old lodge are still private property, and anything you find there still technically belongs to Silver Shore Investments.”

“Old lodge? You say that like the thing ever opened. Like they ever gave out a single one of the jobs they promised.”

“I’m aware of the issues that stopped the project, Marty, and along those lines, it’s also my responsibility to inform you that it’s dangerous for anyone to access the premises.”

Marty looks over one shoulder.

The unfinished remains of the Altamira Lodge are perched atop a rocky, wooded headland a short distance north. It looks like a crazy cross between a Cold War–era military fort and a billionaire game hunter’s private paradise. Wind-gnarled cypresses conceal most of the buildings from view, but a few pointed rooftops are visible above the tree line. The way the sun hits it now, Luke can make out some of the giant glassless windows of the main lodge, like open mouths waiting for prey to stumble in.

Luke vividly remembers the renderings that held the town in thrall: the oversize log cabin detailing, the soaring walls of uninterrupted plate glass meant to maximize sunset views from its dining room. The wooded nature trail snaking through the row of private guest cabins behind the main lodge. All of it’s an overgrown, wind-battered little ghost town now, and Luke has no trouble imagining the entire place tumbling into the sea in a shower of rock one day.

“You want to know what scares me, kid?”

“My name’s not kid, Marty. It’s Luke. Deputy Prescott if you want to be particular about it.”

Marty looks back at him, his half smile tugging down at the corners. “Excuse me, Deputy Prescott.”

“It’s a warning, Marty. That’s all. Let’s not make this more than it needs to be.”

“All right, then.” Marty wipes his hands with a napkin, wads it up, and gets to his feet.

Luke stiffens, feels an urge to reach for his gun. He’s probably one of the best shots in the area. But carrying a gun on your hip all day comes with its own set of challenges, most of them temptations, and he’s only been contending with those for less than a week.

There’s also the fact that Marty’s got a past. Something must have brought him to AA all those years ago. But whatever it is, it’s two decades ago, and he’s been an upstanding citizen since then, so there’s no reason Luke can’t keep control of this.

“Here’s my warning.” Marty’s paint-splotched boots crunch the gravel underfoot. “And it’s not necessarily for you, Deputy Prescott, so please don’t take it as a threat. And it’s not for the sheriff or the town council or the governor of our great state of California. Maybe it’s just for all those investors who spent their money to get a . . . well, let’s call it a cozy relationship with our governor and our town council.”

“I don’t exactly have their ear, Marty.”

“Still, ambitious young man like you, you might one day. You see, it’s real simple. There’s a couple miles of copper wire out there, along with about six AC condensers, too many sheets of drywall to count, and enough uninstalled insulation to line most of the road back to town. And if they leave it out there, it’s gonna rot before I can install it in the women’s shelter over in King City, or the recovery center down in McKittrick, or a bunch of other places that actually help people who don’t have rich and powerful friends.”

“I see. So you’re a social justice looter.”

“Your words, kid,” Marty says with a smile. “Not mine.”

Luke should walk now. The warning’s been given. He can tell the sheriff he handled his first uncomfortable duty of his first week on the job. But he doesn’t. Instead he looks Marty dead in the eye and says, “You steal any more stuff from up there, you’re gonna get arrested. I don’t care if you install it at the Vatican. And I’ll run all your men, too. See how colorful their pasts were before you taught them the Serenity Prayer.”

When the brittle sarcasm starts to leave Marty’s expression, Luke turns his back on the man.

“This isn’t the way to do this, Luke.”

“Don’t tell me how to do my job, Mr. Cahill.”

“I’m not talking about your job,” he says. “I’m talking about your homecoming. We remember who Luke was, even if Deputy Prescott would like us to forget.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Against his will, Luke turns. His fingers get cold, and he realizes he’s resting his hand limply on the door handle.

“It means you were a bully is what it means. And you were a bully before your mother died, so don’t go blaming it on that, either.” There must be something in Luke’s expression that suggests outrage, because Marty nods and continues with more force. “I remember what you put Luanne’s granddaughter through. Never letting anyone in school forget where she came from, what happened to her. Everyone remembers. So pardon us for being a little on guard now that someone like you’s got a gun and a badge.”

Whatever reaction Marty was expecting, it’s not the one he’s getting. His stance softens, and he cocks his head as if he can’t believe Luke isn’t going to take a swing at him. And maybe Luke should. Maybe it’s weakness not to.

But just the mention of Luanne’s granddaughter, Trina Pierce—Burning Girl, he thinks, the words freezing his gut briefly—and the memory of the baffled, wounded expression on her face that day in class when he’d decided to go after her, has hollowed him out suddenly.

“Just don’t call me kid,” Luke manages. “Call me whatever else you want, Marty. Just don’t call me kid—that’s all.”

Before he says something even more pathetic, Luke gets in his cruiser and spins out onto PCH.

His gun and badge suddenly feel as insubstantial as the napkin Marty used to clean his hands, his decision to return home the worst mistake he’s ever made in his life.

When he reaches the spot on 293 where cell service comes back, he calls his new boss, Sheriff Mona Sanchez.

Any embarrassing incident requiring him to reference locals by their full names should be kept off the radio. She gave him this order first day on the job. Word on the street is Dan Soto, the guy who runs the Gold Mine Tavern, got a scanner from his daughter for Christmas. And because police activity is so rare in Altamira, he just leaves it on in the background whenever he has friends over to play cards.

“I don’t know what he thinks is gonna happen,” Mona had added. “Maybe he’s waiting for some of the McGregors’ horses to get loose again. I guess that’d be fun to listen to.”

Altamira’s recently elected sheriff is an old friend of Luke’s mother. The two women met at Fort Doyle down valley, where his mom was working as a secretary and Mona was an enlisted woman a few short months away from leaving the military for a career in law enforcement.

In the past few days, he’s learned more about his mom’s old friend than he had in all those years of her dropping by for dinner or helping take care of his mom after she got sick.

For starters, she’s not a lesbian, as he’d always assumed. In fact, she’s had the same boyfriend for ten years. Like her, the guy’s half Chumash, and he’s spent the last few years working on the legal team defending their tribe’s casino in Santa Ynez from a never-ending series of legal challenges brought by its neighbors.

“Yep,” she answers the phone.

“It’s done,” Luke says.

“You realize I told you to warn him, not kill him, right?”

“Just trying to take my job seriously is all.”

“Maybe a little too serious.”

“Is it my tone?” he asks.

“That and the wording, yeah.”

“Sorry.”

“No need. So did he cop to it?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Give you any grief?” she asks.

“In a manner of speaking.”