Lucky gnawed on his lower lip. "Y'all don't know her."
"Is she from out of town?"
"Yeah. She was the, uh, the one Little Alvin was hitting on."
"You picked up a stranger at the place and spent the night with her?"
"Well, who are you to get so righteous, Chase?" Lucky shouted, suddenly angry. "Before Tanya came along, you weren't above doing the same damned thing."
"But not on the night one of our buildings was torched!" his brother shouted right back.
Tanya intervened. "Chase, Lucky didn't know what was going to happen last night."
"Thanks, Tanya," Lucky said with an injured air.
"Oh, Lucky, that's such a foolhardy thing to do these days."
"I'm not stupid, Mother. I took the necessary precautions."
Sage grinned, her eyes twinkling wickedly. "Aren't you the good Boy Scout. Do they give merit badges for taking 'the necessary precautions'?"
"Shut up, brat," Lucky growled.
Thanks to Tanya, Chase had reined in his temper. Sparks often flew between the two brothers, but the grudges lasted no longer than the temper flare-ups. "Okay, all you need to do to clear yourself is get the woman to vouch for you."
Lucky scratched his stubble-covered jaw. "That might be tricky."
"Why? When she tells the authorities that you spent all night with her, they can eliminate you as a suspect and start tracking down the real arsonist."
Chase, believing their dilemma had been resolved, started to stand. Lucky pointed him back into his chair. "There's a slight problem with that, Chase."
Slowly Chase lowered himself back into his seat. "What problem? How slight?"
"I, uh, don't know her name."
* * *
"You don't know her name?"
"No, sir."
This day would go down in Lucky's private annals as one of the worst in his life. His head still felt as though it had a flock of industrious woodpeckers living in it. His vision was blurry in the eye that had connected with Little Alvin's fist. Every muscle in his body was screaming at the abuse it had taken. He was suspected of setting a destructive fire to his place of business. Everybody, including members of his own family, was treating him like a leper because he'd spent the night with a woman he couldn't identify.
And he had thought yesterday was bad. According to their expressions, neither the sheriff and his deputies nor the federal investigators believed him any more than his family had that morning.
One of the investigators turned to Pat Bush. "You didn't get her name at the scene of the fight?"
Pat harrumphed. "No. It occurred to me later that I had failed to, but there didn't seem any need for it at the time. She wasn't interested in pressing charges."
A skeptical 'hmm' was the agent's only response. He turned to Lucky again. "Didn't you think to ask her her name?"
"Sure. She told me it was Dovey, but—"
"Would you spell that please?" The request was made by another agent taking notes in a spiral notebook.
"Spell what?"
"Dovey."