Fear

THIRTY-SEVEN

‘It can’t be her,’ Celeste said. ‘It can’t be.’

Miles traced his finger over the photo. A woman, smiling shyly into the camera’s lens, a casual photo taken during a run or hike outside. She wore an athletic top and shorts, stood atop a mountain, full of vitality. The kind of informal engagement photo favored by active couples. The photo credit printed sideways next to the picture read ‘Edward Wallace.’ It listed their degrees – Edward a Ph. D. in neurobiology and Renee an M.D. in psychiatry. She’d previously worked at both a university and a military clinic in San Diego to help veterans recover from posttraumatic stress disorder. She and her husband had moved to Fresno to establish a similar clinic.

‘Maybe it’s not her.’ Nathan sounded distant, dream addled. ‘You can’t see her face quite clearly.’

Miles swallowed the bile creeping into his throat. You were supposed to help me in becoming a new person; I had no idea you were already an expert. ‘It’s her,’ she said.

‘She lied to us,’ Nathan said. ‘That bitch.’

‘Don’t talk about her that way,’ Celeste said.

‘She lied!’ Nathan gritted his teeth and Miles saw tears of fury rising in the young man’s eyes. Nathan staggered to the office door.

‘Let’s go.’ Miles closed the browser, shut off the computer, and, at the door, reset the alarm. They followed Nathan out the gallery door and Miles locked up. The lot remained empty. He hurried them into the car and drove out of the parking lot.

‘She lied,’ Nathan said, ‘and it caught up with her.’

‘There has to be a reasonable explanation,’ Celeste said.

‘People always say that,’ Miles said, ‘when they’re about to get totally screwed.’

Nathan frowned. ‘Names aside, she stuck the research on a server. Could we access it?’

‘Not without the password,’ Miles said. ‘So we talk to her husband.’

‘You’re all idiots,’ Andy said from the backseat. ‘Why don’t you all deal with your real problems? Celeste killed a man, Nathan’s a walking meltdown, and you, Miles, you’re a friend killer. Charming group. Truly.’

‘You can’t stand it,’ Miles whispered, ‘when you think I might win.’

‘Excuse me?’ Celeste said, and Nathan said, ‘What?’

‘I’m talking to myself. Not you all. Sorry.’

‘Your friend?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Jesus, you talk to him?’ Nathan said.

Andy laughed. Awkward silence and Miles thought, I’m the one who didn’t get Frost, they think I’m crazier than they are. He steered into Blaine’s driveway.

‘So that’s why you used two names,’ Nathan said. ‘Multiple personalities. Hey, how many voices you got inside your head?’

Miles ignored him as he helped Celeste hurry back inside Blaine’s house. ‘Shut up and let me think.’

‘Were you speaking to me?’ Nathan said. ‘I can’t listen to this crazy bastard carry on a conversation with an imaginary friend.’

Miles closed the door behind them. ‘Shut up and realize what we’re facing. Allison went to enormous trouble to set up her life in Santa Fe. That wedding announcement said she went to Oregon for her degrees. The degrees on Allison’s wall were from Rice and Stanford and UCLA. She had to create a new history for herself, and you can’t easily fake a medical-school transcript, a medical license, a new Social Security number, a past spun of nothing. It takes resources and time, trust me. She didn’t do it on her own.’

‘So who helped her?’

‘Someone with money and serious motivation. Why fake an identity? Why couldn’t she be in Santa Fe as Renee Wallace? She didn’t do this alone. She had to be working for someone.’

Nathan shook his head. ‘Man, this just got to be a bigger can of worms than I want to deal with. You all should just hide. Or go to the cops. We’re done.’

‘We need to drive to California,’ Miles said. ‘Find her husband.’

‘Drive to California.’ Celeste’s voice cracked. ‘You want me to ride in a car for… Several. Hours.’ She turned and ran to the back of the house and Miles heard Blaine’s studio door slam.

Miles – slowing down for considered thought – realized a car drive of hundreds of miles would be horribly frightening to her. He went to her purse, cracked open the bottle of antidepressants. Four were left. All the meds they had, and God only knew what kind of megadose Nathan needed to keep him calm. Not enough pills for all three of them. He slid the pills back into the bottle.

‘I know how to get her moving.’ Nathan flicked his fingers, made a whooshing noise.

‘Let me talk with her.’ Miles went through the house, to the studio door. Closed. He knocked. No answer. He opened the door.

Groote sat on a paint-splattered stool, one gun aimed at Celeste’s head, another aimed at Miles. Celeste stood, lip trembling, not looking at the gun aimed at her.

‘Tag,’ Groote said. ‘You’re it.’ His face was battered, his nose was taped, and his smile was cold and thin.

Miles shut the door behind him. How the hell? he thought. It didn’t matter. He had to get Celeste away from this man.

‘No. Call Nathan back here. Calmly. I want to talk with him too.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Frost.’

‘We don’t have it.’

‘Where is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t lie to me. You were in league with Allison, both you and Mrs. Brent here.’

‘No.’

‘I just asked you not to lie to me. What part of that don’t you understand?’

‘Let her go, and I’ll give it to you,’ Miles said. Celeste looked up at him.

Nathan opened the door and boogied into the room. ‘Problem solved. I lit a fire under you, Celeste, to get you going. Actually, under the curtains and-’ He stopped and, frozen with fear, stared with shocked horror at Groote.

‘Hey, Tin Soldier, how you doing?’ Groote started, but then he saw what Celeste did, framed in the open door.

‘Fire,’ Celeste said in a whisper, pointing down the hall. ‘Fire… he set a fire.’

Then the smell of smoke, sweet and awful and rising.

‘You crazy bastard!’ Groote yelled, standing up.

‘You want Frost? It’s upstairs,’ Miles lied.

Groote put the gun’s barrel on Miles’s forehead. ‘Show me.’

‘Let them go.’

Groote hesitated. ‘Out. Both of you. Just go outside. You run, he’s dead.’

Nathan grabbed Celeste, steered her toward the back door. She started to scream as he pushed her into the yard.

Groote turned Miles, dug the gun hard into the back of Miles’s head. ‘Give me Frost. Now.’ He strong-armed Miles past the hallway and up the stairs. In the kitchen, the curtains above the sink blazed. In the den, heavy draperies, a large cotton rug, the entire couch, burned brightly.

He’ll kill me when he figures I don’t have Frost, Miles thought. He fell as Groote pushed him on the stairs.

‘Faster, crazy.’

‘Don’t hurt me,’ Miles pleaded, and at the same time braced himself against the stair and dealt a savage backward kick. His foot caught Groote in the groin. Miles kicked again, aiming for the broken nose but catching the chin. Groote staggered, lost his footing, and tumbled down the stairs, landing in a heap on the tiles.

Miles grabbed the gun away from his hand, finding its fellow in Groote’s jacket pocket.

Leave him. Run.

But the fire was spreading fast. He couldn’t abandon anyone, not even a bastard like Groote, to die. He dragged Groote into the backyard, dumped him into the cold water of a stone fountain. Groote gasped.

Miles put one of the guns to Groote’s head. He dumped the clip from the other, put the clip in his pocket, tossed the second gun into the water. ‘We’re leaving now. Don’t follow us. I lied to you. I don’t have Frost. I don’t know where it is. We’re not a threat to you. We’re just going away where no one will bother us and we won’t bother anyone. Tell Quantrill. You understand?’

‘I understand you’re a liar.’ Groote glared at him with hate.

‘Stay in that fountain or I’ll shoot you.’ Miles backed away and ran. He jumped over a low-lying fence, headed for the front yard.

Nathan was coaxing Celeste once again into the car. Miles got into the front. He spun into the street and powered the car away from the burning house.

Groote was at the driver’s window, trying to grab the wheel from him, and Miles floored it, broke free, roared down the street, and wheeled hard onto Old Santa Fe Trail.

‘What – what do we do?’ Nathan said.

‘We don’t stay here. We can’t. We run.’ He looked for Groote in the rearview, saw nothing. ‘We go where Allison hid the files. California.’

Celeste started to moan.

Groote staggered down the street to his car. A couple of neighbors stood in the road and watched the flames popping from the windows, cell phones clutched to their ears. They stared at him and he ran down the road to where he’d left his car. Still with Hurley and Pitts dead in the trunk.

Think. Where would they go? Where would they hide? He had to change tactics, flush them out, figure their next step. But best not to be here when the fire trucks and the other authorities arrived. He had bodies to bury. A plan to make.

These crazy people were ruining everything for him.