by E. A. Barres
She and Chris had been so excited that day. They’d stopped at the end of the hallway, panting and waiting for their mother to catch up. The trip had been lovely—just the three of them, everyone happy—and Cessy and Chris had confided to each other countless times that neither of them wanted to go back home. They loved living in the hotel, loved the lighthearted nature of other guests, the intimacy of the environment, as if they were all on an adventure together. They waited for their mother as Cessy listened to the television coming from the room closest to her, the slow, soothing, low-tension music of some daytime soap opera’s theme song. It was one of her best memories from childhood.
Cessy stepped into the bathroom, closed the door to the halfway house’s restroom behind her. Pushed down her jeans, peed, pulled them up. Washed her hands in the cracked sink. Glanced at herself in the mirror.
It had never occurred to her, until that moment, that part of the reason she liked volunteering here was because it reminded her of that hotel in Phoenix, especially the temporary nature. Their mother had been so happy that trip; they all had, but especially their mother. Cheerful and silly and indulgent, a world away from their lives.
Cessy walked back into the hallway, listened to the television behind the closed bedroom door next to the bathroom. Heard the sound of cartoons.
Paused.
Odd that someone here would be watching cartoons. The residents of this house were occasionally younger, but not that much younger.
And then Cessy realized something else strange. The person staying in this room, a young woman named Holli, had moved out days ago.
Cessy knocked on the door. When no one answered, she walked in. The room was empty of anything but the base furnishings Rose supplied. And the television was on. The coyote from Looney Tunes lighting sticks of dynamite.
Cessy snapped off the television. Rose was a worrier about electricity, both its expense and environmental impact, and leaving the television on was an odd mistake. The kind Rose didn’t often make.
Still, Cessy wasn’t alarmed. Rose was in her late seventies. It wasn’t a surprise something had finally slipped past her.
Cessy headed downstairs and was about to walk into the kitchen when she saw that Rose had fallen asleep. She stopped, afraid of waking her. Rose often fell asleep at the kitchen table and was moody upon waking.
Well, Cessy reflected, Rose is normally moody. But Cessy knew from prior experience not to rouse her.
Still, Cessy stared hard at the box of doughnuts sitting on the table in front of Rose’s sleeping form, wondered if it was worth the effort.
She sighed quietly, headed back upstairs.
Walked back into Dana’s room and stopped at the door.
He was sitting half-collapsed in his chair.
Cessy walked over to him.
“Dana?”
He didn’t move.
Cessy touched his shoulder, grabbed it. Said his name again.
He was breathing, but Cessy couldn’t wake him. She started saying his name louder, nearly shouting.
And that’s when Cessy realized something was terribly wrong.
She ran out of the room, headed back to the stairs. Saw a gray and black cloud of smoke rising up, impossible to see past. Somewhere inside it, the rustling sound of fire.
“Shit!” Cessy raced back to Dana’s room, screaming “Fire! Fire!” She hurried inside, closed the door behind her.
Cessy didn’t see smoke but felt it closing in on her, circling her, pushing its way into her throat.
“Rose!” She remembered her suddenly, thought again of hurrying downstairs.
A rushing sound from downstairs, and Cessy remembered something else, a term that sprung into her memory from years ago. Something Hector had told her about when he was considering becoming a firefighter.
Flashover.
When a fire grows so intense that everything in a room—chairs, tables, curtains—bursts into flames. A room-sized ball of fire that instantly consumes everything inside of it.
Rose.
Cessy had to get downstairs, had to save Rose, had to save Dana and everyone in the house, had to escape—had to do something.
She ran to the window in Dana’s room, opened it with the thought that the smoke would disperse. And the thought that this would be the easiest way to get outside.
And then she remembered the bars.
All the windows in the bedrooms had bars. She opened the bedroom door again, looked out. Smoke was spreading through the hall, turning everything hazy.
She glanced back at Dana.
“Stay here.” Cessy said. It was unnecessary to say but made her feel better about leaving Dana behind. She ran coughing through the knee-high smoke to the shared bathroom, pushed open the door.
Bars on the window.
Cessy ripped off her shirt, ran it under the sink, loosely tied it into a makeshift bandana over her nose and mouth. She had no idea where she’d learned that technique—maybe from Hector? But it helped. She could still taste the smoke, but it wasn’t as strong. She rushed back into the hall, pushing open the four bedroom doors. The other two residents, women whose names Cessy was too scared to remember, were lying on the floor.
That haziness had increased, turned the world gray, clouded her mind.
She ran to the staircase, remembering Ruth, thinking escape. Looked down the stairs.
Smoke was a black wall.
And then, through the panic, Cessy heard something.
Someone screaming.
Dana.
The smoke in Dana’s bedroom was thick on the floor. And it wasn’t just smoke. Fire had spread into the room, burning the walls, burning the bed, burning Dana as he sat slumped in the chair.
“Help me! I can’t, I can’t move!”
Cessy called his name, grabbed his hand, tried to pull him with all her force. She stumbled back and fell, stared at her hands.
Stared at his burnt and melted flesh.
The screaming was all she heard now, his screaming, more screaming, the women in the other rooms. She watched the fire eat Dana’s body like starved ants.
A finger of smoke reached into Cessy’s throat.
She coughed, climbed to her feet. Ran through the fire and smoke to the door.
The room had grown too dark to see a thing. Smoke blinded her, filled her mouth and nose and airways like a thick cluster of hair clogging a drain.
Nothing but darkness from the smoke and pain from the fire.
Cessy tried to stand and couldn’t.
Couldn’t even figure out where the door had gone or which direction it was in.
Smoke had so filled Cessy that she couldn’t cough, couldn’t throw up. She had to find Rose and Dana and the others, and she had to escape. Call someone. Do something before the flames reached her.
Cessy fell to her knees.
She couldn’t do anything.
Like smoke in her lungs, terror and desperation filled Cessy’s soul.
And consumed her.
PART THREE
FOLLOWING DEATH
CHAPTER
22
“IT JUST DOESN’T seem like Grant.” Nicole frowned. “I can’t imagine him cheating on you with some prostitute. And I still can’t believe you actually went to her place.”
“I had to find out for myself.” Deb held herself tighter under her jacket. It was far too cold to be in her backyard, but Nicole wanted to smoke, and Deb refused to let her smoke inside the house.
“Jesus. I’m so sorry, sweetie.” Nicole took a drag from her cigarette. “Are you going to tell Kim?”
“She doesn’t need to know. She doesn’t ever need to know.”
Nicole nodded.
Deb gestured at Nicole’s cigarette. “Are you done yet?”
Nicole took the cigarette out of her mouth, glanced at it. “Does it look done?”
“You’re the only person I know who still smokes.”
“What’s your point?”
“Shou
ldn’t you vape or something else?” Deb adjusted her coat. “And by something else, I mean, something you could do someplace warmer?”
“Vaping’s for quitters.”
“I’m really not looking forward to sitting next to you while you’re going through chemo someday.”
“But you will be there sitting next to me, right?”
“I guess.”
Nicole took another puff, then ground the cigarette out on the brick walkway. “Happy, nerd? I wasn’t even finished.”
“Thank you. Can we go inside now?”
They walked into the kitchen, sat at the kitchen table. Nicole smelled her hair and frowned. “Do you still love Grant?”
Deb took a moment to answer. “I’m not sure,” she said uncertainly. “If this had happened when he was alive, I couldn’t have stayed with him. I would have left.”
Nicole nodded. “I think you would have too.” She paused. “And I don’t think it was just a couple of times … or that she was the only one.”
Nicole said that last part cautiously, but it still stung Deb.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, just … isn’t cheating usually a sign of something else wrong? Like something else was bothering him?”
“I don’t know,” Deb said defensively. “Maybe he just wanted to get laid.”
“I’m sorry,” Nicole said. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” She rubbed her arm. “I just, I knew him too.”
Deb stared down at her thumb, the chipped polish at the edge of her nail. “Did anyone ever cheat on you? Marcus never did, right?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think so. But some of the guys I dated afterward did. But maybe you’re right. Maybe they just wanted to get laid.”
“Well, shit,” Deb said, “so did we. What’s wrong with them?”
Nicole smiled.
“I don’t even know if the sex was the worst thing,” Deb went on. “Honestly. I mean, that’s the thing that just kills me, that hits me hard when I think about it. But it’s more the money.”
“What do you mean?”
“Grant gave her—or the people she worked for, I don’t know—everything we had. His savings, his retirement. He didn’t have as much as I thought he did, but still.” Deb paused, continued moodily, “Nothing about him seems like what I thought it was.”
“Yeah?”
“Who would leave their family like this? I need to find work, Nicole. Or I’m going to have to put this house on the market a lot sooner than I thought. And how am I supposed to pay for Kim’s college? Thank God she’s not going back next semester.”
“Have you looked into loans?”
“I’m going to have to. For her school, for our lives, for everything.”
“I don’t think,” Nicole said uncertainly, “that Grant expected to leave you like this.”
“But he did, and now we’re here.” Deb cupped her hands over her mouth and nose, breathed into them slowly.
“I knew Grant. He’d hate to see you like this.”
“Can’t you just call him an asshole?”
“What an asshole!”
“Thank you.”
Deb’s phone buzzed. She took it out of her pocket, checked the number.
“What’s wrong?” Nicole asked.
“I don’t know who this is.” Deb accepted the call. “Hello?”
“Deb? This is Levi. Agent Price.”
“One second.” She signaled to Nicole that she needed a minute, and walked to the living room. The room was tidier than it had been the first weeks following Grant’s death; still disheveled, but in a lived-in fashion. Almost as if it echoed the slow repair of their emotional recovery.
“I was hoping to stop by,” Levi said. “Do you have a few minutes?”
“Sure.” Deb picked up a square white pillow, placed it in the corner of the couch. “When were you thinking?”
“I’m parked outside.”
“What?”
“Sorry. This is important.”
“Um, okay. I need a minute or two.”
Deb hung up, walked back into the kitchen.
Nicole had been playing with her phone; she was the only adult Deb knew who still played Candy Crush. Nicole set the phone down and looked up. “Who was it?”
Deb had told Nicole everything about Levi. “The FBI guy. He’s outside.”
“He is?” Nicole asked, surprised. It took her a moment to recover. “And I get to talk to him about FBI stuff?”
“I was hoping you’d leave through the back.”
Nicole placed her hands behind her head, leaned back in the chair. “No. I’m going to stay here and make things awkward.”
“Awesome. Thank you.”
The doorbell rang.
Deb left Nicole in the kitchen, absent-mindedly ran a hand through her hair. Kim was getting lunch with a friend, and Deb was glad she didn’t have to try to explain why Levi was here.
And lie to her daughter again.
She opened the door.
Levi Price was standing on the porch, wearing jeans and a black Gorillaz T-shirt under a worn leather jacket.
Deb blinked.
“You look different,” she said.
“It’s the jeans. People always say that the first time they see me in jeans.”
“Also the shirt. But I guess I’ve never seen you in anything but a suit.”
He didn’t smile. Just maintained a serious, almost mournful expression.
Nicole’s head appeared over Deb’s right shoulder. “Hi! Have you ever shot anyone?”
“Nicole!” Deb said, and she told Levi apologetically, “I told her who you are.”
“Are aliens real?” Nicole asked. “Who killed JFK?”
Levi looked confused. “Um …”
“She has no self-awareness or understanding of boundaries,” Deb explained.
“Can I hold your gun?” Nicole asked. “That’s not a euphemism.”
Levi had been looking at Nicole in confusion, then his gaze turned toward Deb. “Can we talk alone?”
Deb took Levi to the living room. Nicole flounced back to the kitchen.
“Nicole can be a bit much,” Deb said. “She’ll say anything and has no self-awareness. I don’t know why I love her. Anyway, I hope you’re not upset that I told her.”
“Maria Vasquez was killed.”
“What?”
Deb hadn’t realized she was sitting on the couch. Hadn’t realized Levi was next to her.
He nodded tersely. “One of her roommates discovered her body in their apartment. She’d been bludgeoned to death.”
Deb’s mind felt like a feather in a hurricane.
“Bludgeoned?”
“We don’t know why.”
“Is it because she talked to me?”
“I’m sorry. We truly don’t know.”
Deb’s jaw, neck, body ached from tension.
“Are we in danger? Me and Kim?”
“I don’t think so,” Levi said. “I hope not.”
CHAPTER
23
CHRIS WATCHED HIS sister sleep.
An IV was in her arm, sensors adhered to her chest. A breathing tube stretched down her throat. Cessy’s expression was contorted, even as she slept. She woke occasionally, looked around, and then her eyes fluttered and closed. She’d glance at Chris, but without recognition.
A nurse told Chris that Cessy was in shock.
“The smoke inhalation was extreme, but she’s going to be okay. We’re going to keep her here for forty-eight hours to make sure. She didn’t receive any direct burns, which is fortunate. They got to her just in time.” The nurse, an older woman with tired eyes, wearily rubbed the back of her neck. “I heard about the fire. Who would do that to all those people?”
“Whoever did it should be fired!”
The nurse looked at Chris with a puzzled expression—an expression he was used to receiving—and left.
Chris didn’t know where to go, was
n’t sure what to do. He’d missed Cessy more than he’d realized. Seeing her lying unconscious was like someone ripping open a scar.
And his memories bled.
* * *
Three years ago, Chris had been watching television in his room and he’d heard a gunshot. He’d rushed out of the double wide into a sudden blast of Arizona heat.
A car raced around the far corner. A hot breeze raked the world. A slim jackrabbit darted across the street. Hard yellow weeds snapped under his feet. Chris noticed all of this; in that moment, he noticed everything. He’d remember all of it forever.
He saw Cessy kneeling by their mother.
Cessy turned toward him, blood on her hands, her shirt, her face, her leg.
Their mother was dead when he knelt next to her.
Chris peered into the hole where her face had been.
No one came outside. The housing park just outside of Phoenix might as well have been deserted. But Chris knew people were staring from behind curtains.
Eventually the police showed. Walked and stared hard at the ground, at the street, talked to neighbors. Tried and failed to identify the car. A social worker arrived by mistake, under the assumption Chris and Cessy were under eighteen. She left after giving the trailer a pitying glance.
* * *
“Rohypnol,” a doctor was telling a nurse, in conversation outside Cessy’s room. “Incredibly high dose. She must have not ingested any to make it out into the hall.”
“Those poor people,” the nurse said.
“And who would drug doughnuts?” the doctor said, his voice lighter. “What a waste of jelly doughnuts.”
The nurse smiled, but it was a forced smile.
Chris mulled over the joke from his chair, down the hall from Cessy’s room.
Not bad, he decided.
* * *
Zack came by later that night, knocked on their door.
Chris let him in. The day had been long, exhausting. Their mother’s body had been taken away. Cessy had gone somewhere—Chris had no idea where. He was lost in an old episode of The A-Team.