Light It Up

by Nick Petrie

  Although tomorrow was actually today. He yawned. What he really needed was a good night’s sleep.

  “And Sykes?”

  She kept her eyes on the road. “Paul is more complicated. He doesn’t mind bending the rules.”

  “And you have some history.”

  She gave a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah,” she said. “You could say that.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s not relevant.”

  “Okay,” said Peter. “But maybe you’d look a little deeper into him, too. Past your personal knowledge. See what you can find out.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  Peter had a bad experience with a detective, once upon a time.

  “I want to know if I can trust them.”

  —

  Cap Hill was an old city neighborhood working its way toward hipster respectability after decades of abuse and neglect. Its narrow streets lined with parked cars had a mix of ratty apartments, single-family row houses, and formerly grand homes near Cheesman Park now becoming grand again. The central location made it an easy bike or bus ride to LoDo, RiNo, Five Points, and other trendy neighborhoods.

  Henry told Peter he’d bought the house because it was on a double lot with a driveway, rare in a city of alleys. Twenty years ago, he’d said, the neighborhood was still rough and cheap. He’d complained that Cap Hill was now only rough enough to get your car broken into, or your bicycle stolen off your porch. When Whole Foods moved in a few blocks away, Henry had considered total gentrification to be inevitable.

  Peter and Miranda arrived at Henry’s block.

  Peter thought about asking her to circle while he looked for watchers, but didn’t think the bad guys knew enough about him to know where he was staying, or what he was driving. Traffic had thinned out, and he hadn’t seen anyone on their trail. If someone was following them now, it could only be by satellite or some kind of fucking drone, and he wasn’t prepared to take steps to evade those.

  Besides, he was too fucking tired. Between the city noise and the armed protection job with Heavy Metal, he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since getting to Denver. He just wanted to shower off his bloody day and crawl into the sack.

  Although maybe he’d see if June was still awake first.

  He pointed at his truck, parked on the street. “That’s me.”

  She pulled up and peered out at the green 1968 Chevy pickup with the custom mahogany cargo box on the back. It hadn’t been washed for a few months. “Jesus, really? You can pay my rates but you can’t afford a new truck?”

  He wasn’t going to explain it to her. Finding it in a barn in central California, restoring it between deployments. The deep rumble of the engine followed the gearshift into the palm of his hand. The funky dog smell he couldn’t quite get out of the heating system. It was the closest thing he had to a home.

  He opened the door of the BMW and swung a leg out. “I’ll call you in the morning,” he said. “Dig into Steinburger and Sykes first thing. Or tonight, if you can’t sleep.”

  She gave him a look with something else in it.

  “Thanks again,” he said, then got out of there.

  He was way too tired to resist that futuristic sex-ray smile twice in one night.

  16

  Henry’s house was tall and square and more than a century old. It had an elaborate stone façade with a broad bow-front window and a small, ornate entry porch. Brick on the sides and back, parapet walls hiding the low tar-and-gravel roof, and a wide wood porch facing the deep rear yard.

  After Henry had shown Peter the kitchen and bathroom and the beer fridge and the liquor cabinet, he’d said the only house rule was not to park in the narrow driveway because he hated to shuffle cars. Then amended the rule, and said when he was dead, Peter was welcome to park wherever he wanted.

  It was funny at the time, when Peter had thought Henry would probably outlive the world.

  Peter staying there was Henry’s idea. He said he could use the company, and Peter believed him. Even if he hadn’t, the big man wouldn’t hear of Peter staying anywhere else, had given Peter a key, told him if he wasn’t going to sleep indoors the least he could do was put the damn key on his ring like a civilized human being.

  Peter had slung the hammock on the back porch.

  He wasn’t exactly sleeping well, though. Even when Henry was alive.

  At first he told himself it was the noise of the city, the new environment. He’d spent so much time in the mountains that he’d become almost allergic to civilization. That was true, as far as it went. But he knew it was also the work, too much like the war. Spending his days wearing a ballistic vest and a pistol strapped to his hip, the AR-15 so familiar in his hand. The rough jangle of sleep deprivation just added another layer of muscle memory from his years of deployment.

  He hadn’t slept more than five hours a night since he’d come to Denver.

  With the kind of day he’d had, he wasn’t sure how well he’d sleep tonight, either.

  He parked in the driveway, took an old waxed canvas duffel with his spare clothes from the mahogany cargo box, and let himself through the gate to the backyard. His plan was to take a long, hot shower to get the blood off, then send a text to June. Maybe she was still awake. She was on Pacific time, after all, and also a night owl.

  But at the back porch, Henry’s door stood open.

  All the lights were off.

  Peter sighed.

  It was after midnight now. Too goddamn late for this shit, whatever the time.

  And whoever was inside already knew Peter was there, from the rumble of his truck. It wasn’t exactly a stealth vehicle.

  —

  In Fallujah they’d cleared buildings one by one, in platoons and squads and fire teams, the whole fucking city, the point man first through the door with the rest of the team filling in behind to check cover and adjoining rooms for gunmen and booby traps. The point man was the most likely to get shot or blown up. Peter had taken his turn at point with the rest of them, Lieutenant Ash leading from the front. High as a kite on adrenaline and fear for himself and the men at his back.

  Don, the therapist he’d been talking to in Eugene, thought Peter’s claustrophobia came from those long days and weeks, his body and mind highly tuned to that hazardous indoor environment.

  Now the white static sparked its electric agreement.

  The pistol Henry had loaned him for work was now in police custody. Peter had wanted to believe he was done with firearms since the war. But somehow he still found himself, time and again, with a gun in his hand.

  He wished he had one now.

  The moon was a sharp sliver. The neighbors’ security lights were dimmed by the big black maple trees in Henry’s backyard.

  Peter set his bag gently on the driveway and walked barefoot through the shadow past Henry’s boxy old travel trailer to the rebuilt garage, where a box of scrap lumber sheltered under the eaves, kindling for the fireplace.

  Henry had originally bought the house as a rental because he moved around so much for work. When he retired, he’d moved in and started renovating. Henry was the first to admit that he always needed a project, something to keep him busy.

  Peter understood perfectly.

  It only took a few seconds to find an old railing baluster, a spindle about thirty inches long, tapered in a smooth elegant curve from three-quarters of an inch at one end to an inch and a quarter at the other. Longer than a baton, but more mobile than a baseball bat. The hard oak gave it a nice weight.

  It wouldn’t be the cops, sitting there in the dark. Steinburger and Sykes would turn on all the lights, sit at the table, move right in. If they had to wait long enough, they’d make a pot of coffee and raid the fridge. Henry was dead, after all.

  Maybe the trooper had found the house, or there was another player Peter didn’t know about, someone less professional. Leaving the back door standing open wasn’t something a pro would do. Either way
, Peter would get to work off some of the extra aggression from his day.

  Peter twirled the baluster as he walked toward the house.

  For the third time that day, he tasted copper in his mouth. The fatigue fell away. The adrenaline rose and propelled him forward, floating frictionless and barefoot through the darkness. Risk and reward. Alive, alive.

  Who wouldn’t love this feeling?

  Up three silent steps, a pause to listen, then through the open back door to the connected kitchen and dining room, the big farmhouse table wiped down and dishes put away, Henry a man of meticulous habits.

  Nobody there. Peter’s heart thumped, blood thrummed through his veins.

  Off the dining area was a dark hall to the living room, the winding stairs to the second floor and basement, and the spare bedroom Henry used as an office, its door ajar. Peter stepped through the open doorway, baluster raised and ready to strike.

  The office was empty. The papers sat neatly squared on the heavy desk, the computer screen unlit. Curtains blocked most of the streetlight. Peter stalked the perimeter of the room where the old floor was less likely to squeak. The closet was empty. The attached bathroom was empty, the glass shower doors concealing nothing.

  He peeked through the next door to the living room. The thin blinds were down but pale from municipal glow.

  Someone was slouched on Henry’s oversized couch, feet up on the coffee table.

  Henry’s daughter, Elle Hansen, staring right at him.

  17

  The adrenaline drained out of Peter like his throat had been cut.

  “The kids are at my sister-in-law’s,” she said. Quietly, as if Henry were asleep upstairs instead of on a slab at the morgue. She wore old jeans with torn knees and a Colorado School of Mines hoodie, her hands tucked into the kangaroo pocket. “They have no idea what’s going on. What’s happened to their father, now their grandfather. And I don’t, either. The police were no help.”

  Peter lowered the baluster, heart slowing in his chest, surprised at how badly he’d wanted some kind of fight. He needed to go for a long run, or find a heavy bag to pound out this fury and aggression.

  Or maybe just get some sleep.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Your dad was a good friend.”

  “That’s not why I’m here.”

  She produced a small chrome pistol from the pocket of her sweatshirt. She didn’t point it at him, not exactly, but she held it comfortably, finger outside the trigger guard, so Peter knew she’d had some training. Her face was calm but set. Her father’s daughter.

  “Who the hell are you, Peter Ash?”

  He didn’t know what conversation he was expecting, but this wasn’t it. He told himself her anger was standing in for grief. She’d lost her husband and her father, he was going to cut her all the slack she needed. But it was late, and he was tired.

  He bent carefully and leaned the baluster against the windowsill. He hadn’t been this tired since Iraq. He didn’t think he had any adrenaline left.

  “You ran a background check,” he said. “You know all about me.”

  “I know your driver’s license is expired and your credit is good and you have no criminal record,” she said. “I also know an Army major who works in personnel at the Pentagon. He pulled your file. There’s nothing there but postings and commendations, the rest redacted or removed. You’re a ghost.”

  He smiled politely. “You remember I brought that money back, right?”

  “I do remember, and I’m grateful, believe me. But I want to know how you ended up here.”

  “You already know. Your dad and I worked together. He told you about me. He asked for my help.”

  “How did you get a lawyer so fast?”

  “On the way down from that mountain, after I called you, I texted a friend. Asked him to find me a lawyer. She showed up, I never met her before.”

  “I need more than that,” she said.

  “That’s all I’ve got,” he said, turning back toward Henry’s office. “Shoot me later, okay?”

  “I’m not going to shoot you,” she said, putting the gun away. “We need to talk.”

  “I’m getting in the shower. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  —

  Peter had been using the office bathroom. He was working to adjust to the small space, training himself to resist his own reflexes, to breathe through the static, but he still didn’t like to close the door.

  Leaving the lights off, he turned the water to full hot and began to strip out of the secondhand clothes Miranda had brought for him.

  “We need to have a conversation.” Elle stood behind him. It was easy to forget the size of her, slouched on the couch. Standing in the doorway, she filled it, almost as tall as Peter, with broad shoulders under that hoodie. A formidable woman.

  Peter was leaning against the counter, trying to peel the weird elastic jeans from his oversized hiker’s calves. He still wore no underwear. If she wanted to shoot him, now was the time. “Do you mind?”

  “Are you kidding?” She looked him full in the face. “I’ve got three boys under the age of six. I see way too many penises in the course of my day already. Believe me, yours is nothing special.”

  Peter was a guy, so he’d always felt his penis was something special. But he didn’t say anything. The room was dark and the shower partition was already steamed up. He awkwardly finished extracting himself from the jeans, opened the opaque glass door, and stepped inside for some privacy.

  Henry had replaced all the plumbing in the house and drilled out the little flow-reducing disks in the showerheads. The water pressure was enough to peel the skin off his body, which was pretty much what Peter was looking for. To be out of his skin.

  “I met Randy at a bar the day after he finished basic training,” she said, her voice carrying over the sound of the shower. “I was an eighteen-year-old good-time girl, and Randy was a very good time. Then he got deployed and I found out I was pregnant. I dropped out of college and we got married over Skype. Every time he came home on leave, I got pregnant again. My friends called me Fertile Myrtle. I had to grow up in a hurry. Before I knew it, I had three little kids and any hope of college was long gone. Randy came and went, redeployed, reassigned. I stayed in Denver. My mom helped out some until she got lung cancer at forty-five. Then it was just me and the kids.”

  Peter soaped up as she talked, then scrubbed his face and neck with a washcloth. Harder than he needed to, maybe. He was glad it was too dark to see the color of the water.

  “When Randy came home for good, he carried a headful of memories he was trying hard to forget. He spent his time out partying with his buddies or alone in the basement playing video games. Doing anything but face the next war, the war called ‘grow up and change some diapers and get a goddamn job.’ And I didn’t blame him,” she said. “I really didn’t. I knew it would take time before he could get his shit together. But while he was trying to outrun his memories, I was walking the floor with a crying baby at two a.m., watching the money run out, trying to figure out how we were going to survive.”

  Peter knew this story. A lot of guys had trouble figuring out how they fit back into their old life, or imagining the new one. Peter was one of them. He was still trying to figure it out. Maybe he’d always be trying. The static didn’t help. It was there now, even in the darkened shower, that dissonant discomfort just past the edge of hearing. It made him more alert, that tension. Part of him liked it.

  “Then a friend of my mom’s, who ran a little medical grow, got held up at gunpoint. He called me to ask if Randy might come along on his next cash run, offered two hundred dollars for an hour’s work with a pistol on his belt. They had just voted to legalize recreational, and I saw how things could be. All those new businesses, all that cash, banks unwilling to touch the money, people getting robbed, it was like seeing the future. I called my dad, and he pitched in pretty well for an old guy who barely knew he had a daughter. He was the one who helped me figure out who to h
ire and how to get the job done. He loaned us the money for day care, so Randy could work protection and I could drive around finding clients.”

  He could see her shadow through the glass, oversized in the small room.

  Now Peter understood what she was doing there.

  “It’s not Randy’s business,” Peter said over the top of the glass. “It’s yours.”

  “You’re goddamn right it’s mine,” she said, her voice echoing off the hard tile. “I built it working eighteen-hour days with my kids at the sitter’s or on my lap or in the backyard. This was our lifeline, the only chance we were going to get. My husband had the operational skills and the résumé, but I made it happen.”

  She was pacing now, back and forth.

  “And it brought Randy back to life, you know? The work felt important and immediate. It gave him a clear mission, a reason to get out of bed. My idea was working. After eighteen months, we had thirty employees. I hired Leonard as our new operations manager, everybody was making money. I could see it laid out, the three-year plan, the five-year plan, the ten-year plan. Diversification, real estate, investment.”

  “Until Randy disappeared,” Peter said. “Then you called your dad, who came to the rescue again. Now he’s dead, too.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  Peter kept talking.

  “He’s only been gone, what, six hours? So why are you here, talking to me, in the middle of the night?”

  But he already knew the answer.

  “My lawyer tells me you’re dangerous,” she said. “I should put you on unpaid leave until things get straightened out. After that, he says I should fire you. But I don’t want to do either of those things. My husband is gone. I’ve lost Leonard, I’ve lost my dad. I need somebody to head up operations, to keep us doing the job we’re hired to do, protecting our clients. And you’ve proven yourself extremely effective at that.”

  Peter turned off the water. He’d soaped and scrubbed three times. His head was still sore from the wreck, and his lungs were tight from the static. He cracked the shower door and reached for a towel. “You don’t have any other guys?”