Burn (27 page)

The flames had just begun to die when white light flooded the sand all around.

Andrew looked over his shoulder, squinting against the glare. Twenty feet behind him, he saw a blue-and-white 4x4 parked on the sand. The truck had a winch mounted on the front and a light bar on the roof. The breezes blew down the beach, behind him, toward the distant lights and sounds rising up from the amusement park on Santa Monica Pier. He hadn't even heard the approaching engine.

Andrew got to his feet and held up a hand, shielding his eyes from the spotlight mounted on the driver's side of the truck. A door slammed. In a moment, he made out a young guy in a Harbor Patrol vest plodding toward him through the sand.

“Sir.”

“Evening, ” Andrew said.

“This is a public beach. Campfires aren't allowed.” Officer Harbor Patrol pointed toward the silhouette of the lifeguard station, a hulking body on skeletal legs. “The regulations are posted.”

“Oh, ” Andrew said. “Sorry about that. I'm not from around here.”

“Been doing a little drinking, sir?”

The kid couldn't have been much older than drinking age himself. Andrew said, “Not a drop.”

“Right.” The kid nodded slowly. “Well. Future, let's pay a little more attention. Okay?”

“Absolutely.”

“Wait right there. I'm going to get the extinguisher out of the truck, we'll get this cleaned up.”

Andrew didn't mean to smile. He wasn't laughing at the kid, he really wasn't. He was just thinking:
All these years, I get pinched for a bonfire.
He was just thinking that it was probably a good thing he'd decided to retire.

“Something funny, sir?”

“No. No, not at all.”

But apparently he'd gone and done it.

Without smiling, and without another word, the kid from Harbor Patrol pulled out his ticket pad after all.

Andrew was still grinning to himself as he climbed the stairs to the deck, citation in hand.

He'd rinsed off in the ocean, but he still had charcoal smudges on his arms and clothes. He'd had to scoop up his charred, warm mess and haul it to a nearby trash can while the kid from Harbor Patrol stood by, extinguisher in hand.

It had been one hell of a long day.

Andrew looked forward to a shower and a beer. He stepped over the broken tread at the top of the stairs and headed through the shadows around the corner of the house. He grabbed the handle of the sliding door and pulled it open.

Just then, an anvil dropped out of the sky and landed between his shoulder blades, driving him down.

ONE
more thing to fix, Andrew thought, as he felt himself being hauled up from the deck. First the broken step, and now Caroline's sliding screen. The aluminum frame bent all to hell when he flew through it.

His weight tore the door out of its track. Andrew rode the screen across the tile on his stomach. He still didn't know what had hit him.

But it hadn't hurt as bad as the next blow, which landed on his outstretched forearm. Andrew felt the bone shudder. The arm went numb to the elbow.

He heard a whistle of air, and then a bomb went off in his hip. The force of it helped turn him over, and he got a look at his attacker for the first time.

Another stranger. Surprise. This time: a lean, muscular black man in a loose white tank top and baggy drawstring pants. The man had a chain wrapped around his fist, a flat round weight dangling a few inches below
his grip. He wiped his bald head with his other hand.

“Yo. Goddamn hot out here, I'm workin’ me up a sweat.”

Andrew pulled his arm in tight to his body. When he looked down, he saw a gigantic purple goose egg just above his wrist. The numbness had begun to fade. He was already wishing it would come back.

He clenched his teeth and sucked in a breath and said, “Can I help you with something?”

“Best worry about helpin’ yourself. You don't want me comin’ back here.”

Andrew probed his arm and wished he hadn't. On the bright side, the pain in his wrist did an excellent job of blotting out the deep aches in his hip and back.

“Here's the news, ” the guy said. “Heather Lomax ain't interested in your scarred-up, pasty white ass. And even if she was, she's off limits. Dig?”

Andrew worked his way up to a more comfortable position and leaned against the wall behind him. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Lomax.

He couldn't believe how gullible he'd been. He'd actually fallen for that honorable old warhorse routine. A night's rest and a full stomach. Oh, sure.

“I guess this means Daddy's hospitality only extends to within earshot of daughter dearest, huh?” Andrew adjusted his arm. He breathed in through the nose, out through the mouth. “So you must be the guy who does the heavy work. I had somebody else pegged for that job. Shows what I know, huh?”

“You know all you need to, ” the guy said. “Stay away from the girl. Or next time, you and me ain't gonna be talkin’ all nice and friendly, way we are now.”

“Gee, ” Andrew said. “And I was just starting to like
her. But don't worry. I'll be sure and tell her we're busted.”

The guy grinned and shook his head.

Then he came forward fast, chain hand swinging around and across. Andrew barely had time to slip his head to the side.

The heavy plate knocked a divot in the drywall beside his ear. Andrew grabbed the chain with his good hand before the guy could draw back for another swing. He pulled down hard and used the leverage to swivel around on his hip. He raised his foot and pistoned it forward hard into the side of the guy's knee.

The leg buckled, but the guy was stubborn. Or maybe he was just as bad as he looked. Either way, he didn't go down. He grunted and cursed and pivoted around backward, stomping Andrew's injured arm with his other foot.

Andrew didn't know if he screamed out loud or only in his head. It sounded like a woman. He hoped he'd kept it to himself.

All in all, it was probably best that he passed out when he did. This was getting embarrassing.

He didn't go down very far, or for very long. He knew because he could smell the bright scorch of powder in the air. He could still hear the bang, echoing.

Andrew opened his eyes, and his vision swam back.

Caroline still stood where she'd stopped, just inside the screenless opening to the deck. She stood in a textbook shooter's stance: sneakers planted shoulder-width apart, shoulders square, head straight, Glock extended, palm cupped around her trigger hand.

The hired muscle lay on the floor beyond Andrew's feet, looking up at the ceiling, cursing as he struggled to
breathe. He had a wide red stain growing wider on the right side of his white tank top.

Andrew scooted back against the wall and pushed himself to his feet. He said, “Care.”

Slowly, Caroline lowered the gun to a 45-degree angle, muzzle toward the hardwood. Andrew noticed her purse upended at her feet, its contents spilled. She kept staring at the guy on the floor.

“I was coming from yoga, ” she said. “I wanted to see how you were doing. I was going to make you take your gun back. I shot that man.”

Holding his arm across his waist, Andrew crossed the distance between them as fast as he could hobble. He put his good hand to the side of her face. “Hey. Sweetie. Look at me.”

She looked at him.

“You with me?”

“I think I'm going to be sick.”

“Just breathe, ” he told her. “Breathe with me.”

She closed her eyes, drew in a breath, let it out slow. She opened her eyes again. “I shot that man.”

Andrew looked at her. He looked at the guy on the floor. He looked all around.

“No, you didn't, ” he said, and took the gun.

He found a towel in the kitchen, tucked the gun under his broken arm, and did his best to wipe down the frame. He was thinking about Caroline's prints. She would have powder residue on her hands, but he didn't see the point in worrying about that. He went to the guy on the floor.

While Caroline stood by, Andrew gritted his teeth and put both arms to work. He pressed the Glock into the guy's limp hand, curled the stranger's fingers around the grip and over the trigger. He slipped his own index
finger through the trigger guard and over the stranger's. He took another look around, then raised the guy's arm and fired two rounds. He put one into the back of the couch, one into the ceiling. Then he took the gun with him to the telephone.

He dialed 911 and told the dispatcher he'd just shot an intruder. He gave the lady the address of the beach house.

Then he went back to Caroline.

“The neighbors have probably already seen your car in the driveway, ” he told her. “So you'd better stay until the cops get here. Here's the story. Care? You with me?”

She nodded, still staring at her handiwork on the floor.

“You came over after your yoga class. We were sitting here in the kitchen talking. This guy busted in. He never said anything, just waded in here and came after me with that chain. We struggled. He pulled a gun. The gun went off twice before I got it away from him. I put him down. Okay?” He looked into her eyes. “What's the story?”

“I came over after yoga class, ” she said, and repeated the rest in a distant tone.

He gave her the best squeeze around the shoulders he could manage.

Then he made his aching way to the nearest stool and sat down to wait.

THE
emergency room at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center was bright and bustling. They gave Andrew Tylenol with codeine and left him in a private examination room. A robbery detective from the Santa Monica Police Department took turns between Andrew, the guy with the bullet in his chest being prepped for surgery and Caroline, who stayed in the waiting area with Lane.

After an hour or so, X-rays.

An hour after that, a resident in scrubs and a long white coat came in to set Andrew's arm. It was almost as bad as answering questions.

Finally, at half past midnight, an E.R. nurse came in with a cart full of gear. She chatted Andrew up while she worked on casting his arm from elbow to knuckles. He wasn't much in the mood for conversation. But she was a nice kid with quick gentle hands, so he tried not to be an asshole. Jill, according to the name tag pinned
to her smock. She said she was from the Midwest. He told her he'd driven through there recently but didn't see much; she told him you had to look hard. She was participating in an E.R. exchange program for the summer. She was pretty sure she'd spotted Billy Bob Thornton shopping at the grocery store near the apartment where they'd put her up. He told her that must have been exciting. She laughed.

Before he knew it, his arm had been cased in pale blue fiberglass.

The nurse packed up her cart and told him to avoid contact sports. As she left the room, Andrew glimpsed two men talking outside the slow-closing door. One, the SMPD detective, shook the hand of the other. The other clapped the SMPD man on the shoulder. The door closed on them.

Half a minute later, it opened again. Andrew nodded at the man who walked in.

“Detective Timms, ” he said. “Long time no see. What brings you to the beach?”