Fear

EIGHT

Thunder boomed and Miles opened his eyes, sweaty, sour mouthed, jerking away from the fading dream of Andy pulling a gun from the back of his pants as Miles tried to say, Don’t don’t don’t, of Andy collapsing on the grease-spattered concrete, Miles collapsing across from him, the floor dusty against his cheek. He blinked again.

Night had slid into the room.

He read the soft gleam of his clock. Six fifty-eight. He’d be late to meet Allison. He grabbed his coat and ran out into the cold drizzle.

He ran down two streets, then across the Plaza, then up Palace Avenue. The rain faded to a mist and he could see the lights aglow inside her office. Allison, still waiting for him.

Miles ran into the parking lot and he spotted Allison’s BMW parked at the back of the lot. Then as he turned his face toward the building the blast cracked the world and slapped him backward through the mist, hitting the pavement shoulders-first, the afterimage of the explosion a fiery blot against his eyes.

He threw his arm up over his face and heat hooked into his pants, his stomach. He rolled over once, wriggling, knocking the burning debris away from his clothes. He staggered to his feet. The building’s front collapsed but he heard nothing but an awful ringing in his ears. Flames burst from Allison’s building, a fiery fist raised toward the sky.

He ran into the wall of broiling air surrounding her building; he retreated with a low moan humming in his throat. Where her office had been – right-side front – a heart of hell burned. Miles stood, numb in shock.

Sirens wailed as two fire engines pulled close in the street. Pain began to creep along his arms, his hands. He probed at the blood on his skin and his hair, felt it drying in the heat.

He stumbled backward, dug out his cell phone, punched in her pager number, frantically keyed his number for a reply, thinking, She’s not here, maybe she walked to dinner because I was late. He tried her cell phone; just voice mail.

Another fire truck roared to a stop, the fighters moving into position with practiced speed and grace, water jetting quickly from their hoses, a perfume of destruction drifting through the rain-cleaned air.

Miles dodged the firefighters, went back across the street, sat down on the curb among the crowd that had poured out of the Posada and along the street. He heard a firefighter ask a kid in a Posada valet uniform what had happened. The kid said, ‘Gas explosion, man, big huge boom.’

Not a gas explosion, Miles thought with horror as the shock cleared his head. No. Sorenson. He carried a case into her office. A case I didn’t find. The action’s loaded, he had said. A bomb, Jesus, he planted a freaking bomb in her office and I didn’t find it when I could have, this is my fault my fault my fault…

‘Sir?’

Miles raised his head. Another firefighter stood over him.

‘You okay? You’re injured.’

‘No. I’m okay. I was walking’ – he almost said to but he caught himself – ‘past the building. Suddenly it just blew.’

‘You’re cut. Come with me.’

Miles followed the paramedic, shuffling. The office building shuddered again, fire tearing upward through the remnants of roof now, spouting fresh flame into the sky. A tremendous crash sounded as the broken innards of the building collapsed. He thought of the refurbishment going on inside, the solvents, the paint, the lumber, all fueling the inferno.

A crowd – from the residential streets nearby, from the church, from the hotels – formed and he walked through the mass of people, searching for her face, listening for her voice.

I need your help. I’m in real trouble. See you at seven.

He had failed her.

Sorenson. Sorenson had done this. What else had he said? Tonight. Yes. Her house. No problem.

Her house.

He stopped following the paramedic toward an ambulance; he cut back through the crowd. He walked away, unable to look at the fire.

No one stopped him as he left.

Miles half walked, half ran to Allison’s house, ignoring the pain in his scraped hands, the ringing in his ears, the trickle of blood winding down his neck.

‘You should have died with her,’ Andy said, running alongside him.

‘Shut up,’ Miles said, throwing a punch toward Andy, who sidestepped Miles’s fist, laughing.

Miles kept running.

Her home lay up the long curve of Cerro Gordo on the far east side of the city, up a hill thick with chimisa and pinon. Cerro Gordo cut through the side of the climbing terrain, lined with adobe homes and stretches of scrub. The road went from paved to unpaved. The thunderstorm, now more rumble than rain, wandered to the east. The clouds hung low and gray, darkening the mountains, shrouds for the day.

He shouldn’t know where she lived; she would have understandably considered it an intrusion. He had not followed her or found her in the phone book; she was unlisted. But once, she was leaving after their session and when they walked out of the building a bill tucked in the side of her purse fell. He picked it up and gave it to her but saw the address, and he’d trained himself in his earlier life to memorize addresses, account numbers, phone numbers, with a single glance. He had walked by her house only once, when he knew she was at her office. Just so he would know the route. Because he feared if Andy got too loud, too insistent, that if Andy slipped a gun into Miles’s hand, guided it toward his temple or his mouth, he would need her and not find her by pager or phone before Andy squeezed the trigger.

He needed to know where to run for help.

Off Cerro Gordo, private driveways split from the main road and snaked farther into the hills. He took the driveway for the group of five houses that included hers, ignoring the NO TRESPASSING sign, walking past the open adobe gate. Hers was the second house. The road stood empty, gravel lined with scrub. He hurried past the first house, its windows black.

Her house stood dark. No car in the driveway. He ran to the front door. He gently tested the doorknob. Locked.

The house remained still.

‘She’s gone,’ Andy said from the adobe wall that lined her driveway. ‘Gone, gone, gone.’

Miles hurried to the rear of the house, following a stone path. He squatted down to study the lock. No dead bolt shot. If an alarm system wailed, he would melt back into the night.

Miles tested the knob first. The back door swung open as he pushed.

He eased inside, shut the door behind him. He stood in her bedroom. In the dim glow from a bathroom light he saw the room’s details: wicker furniture painted a soft rose, a turquoise throw rug with twisted geometric patterns, a bookcase filled with worn paperbacks, a queen-size sleigh bed. A bureau, with a mirror crowning it. The mirror was cracked from side to side, in a single fracture, and two of himself stood in the bedroom.

He walked into a kitchen. Dishes were stacked in the sink. A forgotten glass stood on the tile countertop, a swallow of soda puddled at the bottom. Next to it, a container of aluminum wrap lay open, a strip of foil dangling free in a jagged tear. As though she’d just stepped away to run an errand or answer the phone.

He went through the kitchen and into her den. The barrel of a gun eased against the back of his head.

‘Freeze,’ a voice hissed.