SECRETS OF DEVIL'S HOLLOW (Brazos Valley Romantic Suspense (Book 1) 2)
Chapter One
The air inside Devil’s Hollow didn't smell like an ordinary brush fire. It tasted of acrid chemical soot, scorched mountain laurel, and ancient, dry cedar that had burned down to the limestone bedrock.
Luke cut the engine, stepping out into the heat.
The air was stifling, ninety degrees even at nightfall, thick enough to cling to the back of his throat.
He adjusted the brim of his tan Stetson, his dark eyes scanning the hive of emergency vehicles parked near the base of the bluff.
Forestry dozers idling, red strobe lights painting the smoke, and three local deputy cruisers forming a hasty perimeter around a gaping tear in the hillside.
He reached into the cab, unholstered his sig sauer, checked the load out of habit, and clipped his silver Ranger star to the belt loop beside his holster.
"Ranger Grayson!" County Sheriff Pete Mercer hailed him, stepping through the haze with a heavy flashlight tucked under his arm.
Mercer was sweating through his uniform; his face smeared with black soot.
"Glad you made it up from Mineral Wells so fast. The whole damn hollow looks like the surface of the moon. "
"How much of the ridge burned?" Luke asked, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that barely carried over the rumble of a nearby water tender.
"About four hundred acres before the wind shifted," Mercer said, taking off his hat to wipe his forehead. "Forestry hit it with the heavy dozers to cut a firebreak. That’s when the blade on the lead Cat slammed straight into four inches of reinforced steel."
Mercer turned, pointing his flashlight beam toward the base of a collapsed limestone cliff fifty yards up the gulley.
Luke stared into the shadows. The fire had burned away half a century of dense greenbrier and cedar brake, uncovering what nature had hidden since the 1990s: a sunken, heavy iron door framed by hand-poured concrete and rusted rebar, set deep into the natural cavern system beneath the ridge.
"Is the structure stable?" Luke asked, his jaw setting hard.
"Forestry’s fire investigator says it is. She went down first with a thermal scope to make sure we weren't dealing with an active meth lab or volatile accelerants." Mercer paused, looking at Luke sideways. "She’s waiting for you down there now."
She.
The word hung in the hot wind for half a second before Luke’s pulse gave a sharp, unbidden kick against his ribs. "What's her name, Pete?"
"Dr. Lin," Mercer replied, missing the sudden tension in Luke's shoulders. "State Forestry Arson Specialist out of Abilene."
Luke didn't say another word. He turned and strode up the ash-covered slope, his boots sinking into three inches of hot powdered dirt.
Maya.
It had been four years since he’d last seen Maya Lin—four years since a cold-case investigation in Fort Worth had torn their lives apart and left them standing on opposite sides of a courtroom wall.
She had been a brilliant forensic chemist then, fierce, relentless, and possessing a razor-sharp mind that could see straight through a man's defenses.
When he reached the mouth of the bunker, the air coming out of the subterranean gap was cold, smelling of damp earth, rust, and old decay.
A high-powered halogen work light had been rigged to a portable generator near the entrance, casting a harsh white glare down a flight of narrow stone steps.
Standing at the foot of the stairs, her back to him, was a slender figure in a soot-stained yellow wildland turnout coat; her dark hair pulled up under a white helmet.
"The structural integrity of the ceiling is solid, Sheriff," Maya's crisp, melodic voice echoed up the stairwell, cool and analytical despite the chaos outside. "The concrete was reinforced with bridge rebar. Whoever built this had heavy equipment, access to government-grade materials, and—"
She paused, hearing the heavy, deliberate tread of cowboy boots descending the stone steps.
Maya turned around, holding a digital thermal camera in one gloved hand. She pushed her safety goggles up onto her helmet, her dark, striking almond eyes fixing on the man stepping out of the shadows.
The breath caught in her throat.
Luke Grayson filled the narrow concrete doorway. He looked taller than she remembered, his shoulders broader under the dark western shirt; his sharp jaw shadowed with a day's worth of stubble. The silver star on his belt caught the white glare of the halogen light.
For three long seconds, neither of them spoke. The hum of the generator outside was the only sound in the cold, buried room.
"Luke," Maya whispered softly, her analytical composure faltering just enough for her eyes to betray the sudden, intense electric jolt running through her.
"Dr. Lin," Luke said quietly, stopping three feet from her. His voice was steady, but his dark eyes swept over her face, taking in the small smudge of black soot on her cheekbone and the familiar, fierce intelligence burning in her gaze. "You're a long way from the state lab."
"The state lab doesn't get called to four-hundred-acre wildfires with suspicious ignition points," Maya replied, quickly collecting herself and adjusting her turnout coat.
She stepped back, putting professional distance between them, though her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"I was three miles away when the dozer hit the door. "
"Was the fire set to expose this place?" Luke asked, shifting seamlessly into investigator mode, though his gaze lingered on the curve of her throat where a faint bead of sweat trickled down into her collar.
"No," Maya said, pointing her flashlight beam down the concrete corridor behind her. "The fire started two miles upwind near a blown transformer. The burn pattern proves that the wildfire was an accident. Exposing this cellar... was an act of God."
Luke turned his head, following the beam of her light.
The subterranean room was roughly twenty by thirty feet, poured out of thick cement and sealed against moisture.
Racks of rusted metal shelving lined the walls.
Stacked on those shelves were dozens of pristine, unissued Texas license plates dating back to 1991, boxes of heavy-caliber ammunition, and three high-end military-grade radio scramblers.
In the center of the room sat a massive, iron-bound wooden chest. Its heavy padlock had been sheared off by the forestry crew's bolt cutters.
"Did you open it?" Luke asked.
"I opened the lid to verify there were no explosive booby traps or chemical hazards," Maya said, her voice dropping an octave, losing its clinical edge. "Once I saw what was sitting on top of the velvet lining, I stopped. I knew it was Ranger jurisdiction."
Luke stepped around her, his heavy boots echoing on the damp concrete. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a pair of black nitrile gloves, and pulled them over his long fingers.
He leaned over the open iron chest.
Sitting in a precise row on top of a rotted strip of navy-blue velvet were three tarnished, five-point silver stars—official badges belonging to the Texas Department of Public Safety officers.
Each badge was pierced through the center by a jagged, rust-crusted hole.
Luke reached down, gently turning the first badge over with the tip of his gloved finger. Engraved on the back was a badge number he recognized instantly from the DPS memorial wall in Austin.
Officer Thomas Mercer. Missing in Action, 1994.
"That's Sheriff Mercer's older brother," Luke murmured, his jaw hardening into pure, unyielding granite. "He vanished off the county highway thirty-two years ago during a routine traffic stop."
"There are two more," Maya whispered, stepping up right beside his shoulder. The warmth of her body radiated through her thin coat, mixing with the cold air of the cellar. "Luke... those badges weren't kept as evidence. They were kept as trophies."
Luke stood up to his full height, his eyes dark, dangerous, and focused with lethal intent.
"This isn't just an old stash house, Maya," Luke said, looking down at her, the unyielding promise in his voice echoing off the cold concrete walls. "This was a graveyard. And whoever locked this door thirty years ago is still breathing in this county."