Burn (33 page)

“I would have done anything for you, ” he said. “Anything. You really don't have any idea, do you?
Do
you, you self-obsessed little …”

He stopped, oddly, as though checking himself before he said something he might regret.

Heather coughed and spat. Thick mucus streamed from her nose. Andrew used the tail of his shirt to wipe the flow away from her mouth. Her eyelids had already swollen shut.

“You even screwed the
limo
driver, ” Todd said quietly. “The limo driver, Heather. And a drug-running hood to boot.”

His voice began to rise again.

“And now this?
This?
In all these years. All the times I've been there for you. The only time I've ever asked you for anything, and you show up with
this
asshole?”

Heather coughed so hard she gagged. Andrew held her steady with his good arm.

“Well, ” Todd said. “Be blind then, Heather. You've worked hard at it. As far as I'm concerned, you two can have each other.”

Andrew stood up slowly. “Buddy, I'm going to show you how to hit that iron.”

“Oh, yeah?” Todd ducked through the open passenger-side door of the Mercury.

Heather began screaming profanity at Andrew's feet,
clawing at her eyes without touching them. She coughed in long, rattling jags.

Andrew looked up just in time to see an object coming at his head. He moved out of reflex, caught the thing in the air with his good hand.

A water bottle.

“Tell you what,
buddy.”
Todd stood on one leg, Heather's pepper spray in one hand, golf club raised in the other. “You can come try your luck, or you can help your little … or you can help
her.
You choose.
Buddy.
You go ahead and choose.”

Andrew didn't need to choose. He quickly uncapped the water bottle and knelt down again.

“Here, ” he said to Heather. “Sit up. Let me see your face.”

“That's what I thought, ” the guy said.

Without looking up, Andrew said, “You'd better hope the cops catch up with you before I do.”

But he didn't think the guy heard. A car door slammed, then another. An engine roared behind them. While Andrew dumped a splash of water over Heather's face and wiped it away with his hand, he heard tires screech.

Heather's BMW zipped past. In a few seconds, a squeal of rubber echoed back to them as the car took the nearest turn hard and fast.

Andrew splashed her face again. He tried not to waste too much of the water. She sputtered and wiped it away herself this time.

He looked around, didn't see anybody. The sound of the revving Beemer faded.

Descending.

Gone.

Andrew took stock of the situation. They had no car,
no phone, no help nearby. Heather was a mess. He wasn't exactly sure what to do.

While he thought about it, he worked his legs out from under him, sat flat on his rear, leaned her back across his lap, and did his best to rinse the fire out of her eyes.

UNTIL
the time he was fifteen years old, Todd Todman had grown up believing that real families were for other people.

He still often wondered what might have become of him if he hadn't found the Lomaxes. Or if the Lomaxes hadn't found him.

According to his own case file at the Department of Children and Family Services, he'd narrowly missed permanent adoption four different times before the age of two. The first couple on the list believed they couldn't have children of their own, then discovered that they could after all. The second couple had suffered an unexpected change in financial circumstances. The third couple opted for a little Cambodian girl instead.

The fourth couple actually completed the process. According to the file—which Todd had obtained by submitting a Declaration in Support of Access once
he'd turned eighteen—-James and Crystal Todman of Glendale had given him a name and a home before the state of California made them give him back.

He'd been twenty-two months old when the elder two-thirds of Team Todman was indicted in federal court on 1, 227 counts of interstate mail fraud related to a multilevel marketing scheme.

It seemed almost comically tragic on paper, but Todd could admit the truth. It wasn't a particular source of humor
or
angst. He honestly didn't really remember either of them.

He remembered most of the foster families who had traded him through the ensuing years. One of the last had been an especially avid churchgoing clan. Before he'd finally given up on that bunch and run away gladly, Todd remembered being dragged to Sunday School—on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Friday evenings—week after God-fearing week.

He'd been the only kid in his class who refused to memorize the 23rd Psalm. Todd simply hadn't been able to commit to the text. He'd never felt like the Lord was his shepherd, and he didn't see the point in lying about it.

When the teacher had tried to embarrass him into line, forcing him to get up in front of the class and say the words like everybody else, he'd quoted her Section 271.5 from the California Penal Code instead.

Any parent, or other person who has lawful custody of a minor child, 72 hours old or younger, may voluntarily surrender physical custody of the child to any hospital emergency room, without fear of prosecution.

That verse he'd had memorized for years.

Todd had been fourteen when he first met Barbara Lomax at the Morrison Home for Boys on Slauson Avenue. She came in to teach art classes there every other
Saturday. The first afternoon Todd ever attended, she'd smiled at him, and patted his shoulder, and told him he had a gift for imagery.

He hadn't missed a single one of her classes from that day on. Some weeks, he'd been the only guy in the house who showed up. He'd never had a crush on a teacher before.

He'd never met anybody he could honestly say he would have liked for a mother, either. In a way, it was almost like being born all over again. This time, without the abandonment.

The spring he'd turned fifteen, Mrs. Lomax— Barbara—helped him enter a national contest sponsored by
Advertising Age
magazine. When his submission took first runner-up in the age group, Barbara invited him to her family's house in Beverly Hills for a celebration pool party with her own kids.

That had been the first time he'd met Heather. Todd had been lost from the first Marco Polo. She was so much like her mom that it made him ache.

Meanwhile, Barbara instructed her husband to help Todd invest his prize money in an educational IRA. That June, Doren gave him an actual job working the towel counter at the main club on Wilshire—full-time during summers, part-time during the school year—on the condition that Todd continue to invest half his earnings in the college fund. Once he'd proved himself, Lomax Enterprises began to match his contributions under the corporate junior sponsorship program.

He'd worked his way up to assistant manager at the club by the time he started his Communication Studies program at UCLA.

Todd spent his third- and fourth-year internships as a copywriter in Doren's public relations department.

Precious David had still been swapping hickeys in the swim gym at Beverly Hills High when Todd finished his degree and came on the company payroll full-time.

He'd been the one who helped Heather get an A on her mass-media term project her senior year at BHHS. He'd been the one who had driven her to the emergency room with broken bones in her hand that summer.

He'd been the one who had helped build MHTV and Gregor Tavlin from the ground up.

He'd even helped Doren find Mountain View for Barbara when that time came. Precious David certainly hadn't been required to shoulder the responsibilities of a son. While he and his little dope-dealing pal Benjy passed the water bong at the frat house and cut class to go off and surf Todd had been the one who had been there to help do what needed to be done.

He'd spent holidays and weekends at the Lomax table along the way. Times were good and times were bad. Together and apart, the Lomaxes had their share of both. But no matter what, Todd had never been anywhere that felt so much like the way he imagined a home ought to feel.

He made reporters leap out of his way as he sped through the open gates. Thumb still on the button of Heather's remote, he closed the gates behind him and stayed on the gas.

At the house, Todd slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop in a cloud of white oyster shell dust. He saw Rosa already waiting for him at the door.

The sight of her did Todd's soul good. It took him back. It brought him around. He got out of the car and limped through the dust cloud.

“Rosa, thank God you were home.”

“You stay away” Rosa said.

Todd had made his way close enough now to see the look on her face. The look on her face and the kitchen knife in her hand.

“Rosa?” Todd stopped and held up a palm. “For heaven's sake, put that thing down. It's me.”

“You stay away, ” she said again, brandishing the knife between them.

“Rosa! There's no time for this. Heather's been injured. She's in danger, we need to hurry. Did you call Doren like I asked you?”

“I called Mister Doren. He's coming with the police.”

“Rosa. No.”

“You don't talk about Heather.” Rosa waved the knife. “You sprayed poison in her face and stole her car. I know. Mister Doren knows. Everybody knows. You left her with Mister Andrew.”

Mister Andrew.

Todd couldn't believe what he was hearing. Mister Andrew? This knuckle-dragging caveman Heather had taken up with was Mister Andrew now?

They'd obviously found a phone already. Maybe hero boy had a cellular. Maybe somebody had stopped to help. Todd had been focused so completely on the fine points of the story he'd tell Doren that he hadn't really considered the various possibilities in between.

It didn't really matter. It was a mistake, coming here. Todd saw that now.

He'd thought there might still be time to spin this horrible, crumbling catastrophe of a day back his way. He refused to believe that after all these years, the life he'd built here could go up in flames this easily. Heather
had actually done him a favor when she'd turned on him in that parking garage. Todd could think again.

If only he could talk to Doren, he saw a couple different ways to package this thing. It was going to be a hell of a challenge, but Todd thought he could make it sell. If he could move 30, 000 copies of the authorized Rod Marvalis biography, by God, he could do anything. He had ideas.

But now, in this moment, Todd realized he'd been fooling himself. Standing here—held at knifepoint by the same woman who made him tuna fish sandwiches whenever he and Doren came back to the house after company golf league on Wednesday nights—Todd realized that he'd been fooling himself for a very long time.

There really was no place like home. Not for him. Because there was no such thing.

Todd became aware of the desert heat on his skin. It was a desiccating thing. It seemed to pull all the moisture from his tissues to evaporate into shimmering air.

It was making a husk of him.

“Mister Andrew, ” he said flatly, “is a liar. He's a liar and a dangerous man.”

“You're the liar, ” Rosa said. “You're the dangerous one. You don't talk to me. Stay away.”

Todd could now hear the sound of cars arriving somewhere beyond the gates: the whine of revving engines, the screech of locking wheels. Doors slamming. He closed his eyes. He felt like weeping, but he didn't seem to have enough moisture left in him to produce any tears. He finally gave up trying.

Todd turned, intending to get back to Heather's car and get out of Dodge like he should have done in the first place.

But it was too late for that now. He saw Doren's Lincoln already rounding the bend of the driveway, followed by an unmarked sedan.

He turned back to Rosa. She showed him the knife again.

Todd raised the golf club and said, “I'm sorry, Rosa. I really am.”

He doubted she believed him, but it was true.

THROUGH
the haze, Denny saw the roadblock coming in time to think about what to say.

Cars crammed both lanes on the other side of the highway all heading the other direction in a pair of long bumper-to-bumper lines. Denny could see the flares along the shoulder up ahead, a few CHiPs wearing orange vests for visibility.

When the nearest trooper waved him over, Denny rolled to an easy stop and ran his window down.

“We're going to get you turned around, sir, ” the trooper said. “This area is under mandatory evac. Need to have you pull over to the shoulder behind that green minivan.”

“My granny's up in Sunset Mesa, ” Denny said quickly. He tried to sound stressed. “She called me a half hour ago, scared silly, can't get her car started. She says all her neighbors already lit out.”

The CHP trooper leaned down and looked him over. He looked into the backseat of the car. Then he stood up and motioned with his arm to the guys up ahead. He leaned down again and said, “Go on and get her out of there, son. Smoke's starting to get thick up top, so drive careful.”