While Dixie schemed, the object of her fantasies pulled his black Stetson low on his forehead and stepped off the warped porch of the sheriff’s office. Heat rose in waves from the black asphalt and the hoods of vehicles parked up and down Main Street. The smell of it filled his nostrils.

“The hikers were last sighted about halfway up Mount Regan,” Dylan informed his second-in-command, Deputy Lewis Plummer, as they moved to the sheriff’s brown-and-white Blazer. “Doc Leslie is already on her way up there, and I’ve radioed Parker to meet us at the base camp with the horses.”

“A trek into the wilderness just isn’t how I wanted to spend my day,” Lewis complained. “It’s too damn hot.”

Usually, Dylan didn’t mind helping in the search for missing backpackers. It got him out of the office and away from the paperwork he hated. But he’d been kept awake most of the night by Adam’s puppy, and he wasn’t looking forward to a nine-thousand-foot climb. He walked to the driver’s side of the Blazer and shoved a hand inside the pocket of his tan pants. He pulled out the “cool” rock Adam had given him that morning and stuck it in his breast pocket. It wasn’t even noon yet, and his cotton uniform was already stuck to his back. Shit.

“What in the hell is that?”

Dylan glanced across the top of the Chevy at Lewis, then turned his attention to the silver sports car driving toward him.

“He must have taken a wrong turn before he hit Sun Valley,” Lewis guessed. “Must be lost.”

In Gospel, where the color of a man’s neck favored the color red and where pickup trucks and power rigs ruled the roads, a Porsche was about as inconspicuous as a gay rights parade marching toward the pearly gates.