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shape was very much like the ones made by Jake’s uniform shoes.
    Unfortunately, Jake’s partner hadn’t been concerned about footprints or marks in the sand. His own steps had trampled over much of what had been there before, but they hadn’t completely obscured everything.
    Jake crouched down. If he wasn’t mistaken, someone had been sitting next to the tree, perhaps even leaning against it. He looked quickly back toward the others. No one was looking his way, so he pulled out his camera and took a couple of quick shots, then examined the markings again.
    What he couldn’t figure out from looking at them was the same thing he couldn’t figure out about the kicked dirt back at the tank— when they had actually been created.
    With a sigh, he started to stand up, but paused, his eye catching sight of a dark blue piece of paper under a tumbleweed near the base of the tree. Leaning forward, he eased the paper out, then saw that it wasn’t just a piece of paper, it was a matchbook. Not necessarily unusual to find discarded in the desert. What was unusual, though, was the fact it didn’t appear weathered at all. Even after a few days in the desert, a colored piece of paper or cardboard would start to fade, and become either brittle from the heat or softened by the wind as it tumbled across the ground. There was absolutely no fading of color on the matchbook, nor was it brittle or soft. As far as Jake was concerned, it looked like it had just come out of a fresh package.
    There was a logo on the front of the flap, a sun rising over the mountains. And on the back was printed LAWRENCE HOTEL. Below this was an address and phone number.
    As he turned it back over, it hit him that he wasn’t wearing gloves. He groaned. If this was a piece of evidence, he’d just contaminated it with his fingerprints.
    Maybe it’s not so bad , he thought. He’d basically only touched the sides and a little bit of the surface. What he really should do was put it in a plastic bag. Of course, he didn’t have one.
    He could ask the ID techs for one, but knew the second they saw what he was holding, he’d be in trouble. Drop it back on the ground and call them over? They’d still find his prints.
    A good cop would turn it in, no matter what , a voice in his head said.
    Yes, but the detective named Pat had said this area had already been checked. Maybe they looked at it, and decided it had nothing to do with the case.
    It was a matchbook at the scene of a fire, though. If one of the matches was missing…
    With trepidation, he gingerly teased the flap open.
    He almost smiled. None of the matches inside had been used. So, at the very least, this hadn’t been what started the fire.
    It was probably nothing, he told himself. Most likely dropped there by some teenager out for a smoke. Jake’s mind took the story a step further. The kid probably grabbed it from a drawer at home. His parents would have put it there after picking it up at a cocktail party at the hotel. All nice and easy.
    The matchbook was already in his pocket before he realized he’d slipped it there.
    It’s nothing , he told himself again.
     
     
     

6
     
    Durrie lay on the top of a small rise, a half mile northwest of the barn. Mounted on a short stand in front of him was a pair of high-powered binoculars through which he had a clear view of the activity around the burnt-out structure. At full magnification, he could read license plate numbers and see blemishes on the faces of the cops who were crawling all over the place.
    The fact that he was still in town was more than a little annoying. Typically, within an hour of finishing an assignment, he was gone, his mind already purging the details of the previous few days and preparing for whatever was next.
    “I need you to make sure we’re not going to have any problems,” Peter had said when Durrie called in after going back for his van so that there was nothing left anywhere near Goodman Ranch Road.
    “No way. I’m