by Nick Petrie
Peter had started to shiver again, which was good. She laid another blanket over him and fed the fire a few more logs. Soon she’d make some kind of broth and spoon it into him like a regular Florence fucking Nightingale.
He closed his eyes, then gave a sort of jerk, his arm tugging reflexively, and his eyes popped open again. Seeing something inside his head. Remembering it. Reliving it.
Every time he closed his eyes?
June wasn’t sure she could ever come to terms with the things Peter had seen, the things he’d done.
The things he’d done for her. For all of them.
She knew her uncertainty didn’t matter. She would hear everything he was willing to tell her, as many times as he needed to tell it. Whether she could come to terms with it or not.
But she was sure as hell about one thing.
She sat on the couch and gently raised his head onto her lap. He blinked up at her.
She put her hand on the top of his head. Twined her fingers into his hair.
“I’d like to register a complaint,” she said. “You listening, Marine?”
His lips moved slightly, but nothing came out. They were a little less blue. She put her other hand on his bare chest.
“When a woman tells you she loves you? She’s expecting a certain fucking response, you read me?”
He blinked again.
“Are you tracking, Popsicle boy? When I say I love you, you don’t get to kiss me and leave. Are we clear?”
She grabbed his shaggy dark hair in her fist.
Tears running now down her cheeks. Raging at him.
“You don’t fucking get to choose who I love,” she said. “I choose, you fucking jarhead. I choose. And I choose you. I love you. Got me?”
His lips moved again. His voice soft and ragged, like something broken loose from the ice.
“Got you,” he whispered.
She combed his damp hair with her fingers. Looked down at him, warming his face with her tears.
“And I’ve got you,” she said. “I’ve got you.”
He closed his eyes again, and this time he didn’t jerk awake. His arm didn’t tug reflexively.
His breathing slowed and deepened.
He was asleep.
She sat on the couch, felt his chest rise and fall under her hand, and stared into the fire.
Watched the logs, consumed by flame, settle into deep burning coals, warming the small rough cabin on the steep side of a mountain while the snow deepened outside.
EPILOGUE
Elle Hansen pulled into her driveway after a long and frustrating day, her three howling children strapped into their car seats, wild with hunger. They needed more than carrot sticks and apple slices.
She knew how they felt.
Her husband was still missing, along with her head of operations. The person she’d hoped to replace them with, Peter Ash, who’d stopped the hijacking in the mountains, wasn’t returning her calls.
The insurance company was still dragging their feet. She was trying to arrange for a second mortgage on the house. Maybe that would see her through this, maybe it wouldn’t. She had no idea if her dad had left her any money. Her lawyer had told her getting the will out of probate could take years.
Without Peter Ash, she was afraid her business would fail.
Although an interesting plan B opportunity had fallen in her lap the day before.
Maybe she could make them both work.
She was definitely grateful for the pair of Denver police officers who’d moved into her office during the big lightning storm two days ago, and for the other officers who followed her home from work and parked outside her house the last two nights. She’d baked them cookies, brought them coffee. Nobody had threatened to harm her or her children.
But on her way home today, the patrol car following her had peeled off on Alameda, and there was no new patrol car outside her house.
She had no idea what that might mean.
As she unpacked her ravenous children from the minivan, a big black American sedan pulled up in front of her house, followed by a little red BMW.
Three men got out of the black car. One of them was on crutches. A curvy blonde in a tight skirt climbed out of the red BMW and marched up the driveway.
“Elle Hansen?” She extended a hand with a business card. “My name’s Miranda Howe. I’ve been hired to represent you as your attorney.”
Elle took the card. “I already have an attorney,” she said as she shooed the children toward the house. They milled around the front porch like badly trained dogs, waiting to be let inside. “What’s this about?”
“I’m sure you have a corporate attorney for your business affairs,” the blond woman said. “I’m here as a criminal defense attorney.” She pulled a piece of paper from a leather folio and handed it to Elle. “This letter states that I have been retained by a third party to represent your interests for today and today only. Do you understand me?”
The three men had followed up the driveway more slowly, as if they might be afraid of her children. Sometimes Elle felt like that, too.
She already knew Detective Steinburger, who had talked to her about her missing husband, and Investigator Sykes, who was looking into the failed hijacking. The third man on crutches trailed farther behind, glancing up and down the street. She’d never met him before. Somehow he didn’t look like a policeman.
“Sure,” she said. “Whatever.” She stuffed the letter into her purse, thinking her bad day had just gotten substantially worse. “Can we do this inside? I need to deal with my kids. If I don’t get them fed, they’re going to start chewing on the lawn furniture.”
“Actually, we need to do this next piece out here.” She skewered Elle with a glance. Her next sentence was crisp and clear. “Please listen carefully, and remember, Ms. Hansen, I am on your side here. The police believe that when you picked up your father’s personal effects from the coroner’s office, you accidentally took possession of an important piece of evidence.”
Elle felt herself grow cold. “And what would that be?”
“A small plastic-wrapped package. It contains a leather cigar case. Inside the case is a plastic packet of cannabis seeds.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The blond lawyer, Miranda Howe, nodded at Steinburger. He stepped forward, pulling folded papers from the breast pocket of his horrible brown suit. “Ma’am, this is a search warrant for your home. Your attorney has verified that the paperwork is in order.”
Elle looked at Miranda, who nodded.
“Then I guess you’re coming in.” Elle gathered her unruly pack of children around her, unlocked the door, and stepped inside, with Miranda, Steinburger, and Sykes following close behind. The house was a mess of kids’ toys all over the floor and her work papers all over the table. Her stomach was a knot pulled tight.
“Sorry about the mess,” she said. “It’s been a really bad week.”
Sykes looked at her with unnerving steadiness. “Where are your father’s effects?”
“Oh,” she said. “They’re in an envelope on the shelf in my bedroom closet. I haven’t really looked at it. Between the disappearance of my husband and the death of my father, I’m still a little stunned.”
“Which bedroom, ma’am?”
She pointed, and Sykes stepped past her.
He returned a moment later with a large manila envelope. He undid the little brass clasp and set the items on the kitchen counter, one by one.
A leather wallet, a leather belt, a heavy wristwatch with a cracked bezel. A gold pen. A gold pocketknife.
No plastic packet. No cigar case.
Elle’s two older children looked at her, quiet now, confused by the unusual activity. Her youngest child wailed.
Miranda said, “Elle, this is important. Please remember that I am your attorney. I am representing your interests today at no cost to you. But today and today only. You should know that the police have the coroner’s inve
ntory of your father’s effects. Did you take anything out of that envelope?”
While Miranda was speaking, the third man had made his way into the house. His skin was brown, his hair was cropped short, and he wore a black tracksuit that fit him like a tuxedo, except for one leg, where it bulged around a big bandage or cast. Even on crutches he was somehow graceful, like a prowling cat. He looked Elle in the eye and she shivered.
She turned away and picked up her youngest. “Listen, I really need to feed my kids. Can’t this wait until later?”
The man in the tracksuit said, “I thought your kids might be hungry this time of night, so I ordered some pizza. Plain cheese. The delivery man just got here, I hope that’s all right.” He leaned one crutch against the wall, pulled a sheaf of bills from the jacket of his elegant tracksuit, turned to the door, and limped back with a pair of large pizza boxes balanced on one hand.
As he made his way toward Elle, she could see that, even injured, he held himself in a certain way. Like Leonard had, like her father. Like Peter Ash.
As though he was always ready, no matter what might come.
She realized that he hadn’t introduced himself.
He stared directly at her now. His face was calm and open. But his eyes somehow seemed to look right through her. As if he could see every action she’d ever taken, with every motivation, good and bad. And he was weighing them up at that moment on an old-fashioned set of scales, to see which way the balance might tip.
“Here’s what I think,” he said, his voice deep and liquid. “I think you took something from that envelope. Something you thought might have a certain, ah, sentimental value. But you forgot. Until just now.”
She could feel those old-fashioned scales somehow, with the measured weights piling up on each side. Just in the way he looked at her.
She thought about the search warrant.
And the attorney, paid to represent her for this single day. Maybe paid by this man.
“Oh,” she said. “A cigar case? Leather? Maybe I do have it. Let me think, where did I put it?”
“Probably the freezer,” the man said. “It’s almost always the freezer.”
Elle felt an acute disappointment mixed with an equal amount of relief.
Sykes stepped past her and opened the top compartment of her fridge, surveyed the contents, and reached inside.
The cigar case, her accidental opportunity, her possible plan B, lay snug beneath two bags of frozen peas, just where she had left it.
It was made of two sections sleeved together, one slightly larger than the other, to accommodate cigars of varying lengths. Sykes tugged the sections apart, revealing an oblong clear plastic packet of small round green seeds. He examined the packet and found the vacuum seal intact.
Sykes nodded to Steinburger and returned the plastic bag to the cigar case, reassembled it, tucked the case into an evidence bag taken from his coat pocket.
The three men thanked her, shook her hand, and left. Miranda was the last to leave. “Good choice,” she said. “I’m sorry about your husband. But something tells me you’ll be just fine.”
Elle scrambled for plates and paper towels as her children tore into the pizza.
—
Standing in the street by the cars, Miranda said, “That could have been much worse.”
Steinburger nodded. “When you gotta call Social Services? Worse for everybody.”
“You’re still her attorney until midnight,” Sykes said. “What about the insurance payment?”
“I already talked with the state’s attorney,” Miranda said. “He’s agreed to expedite her case with the insurance commissioner. And he’s not filing any charges. Against anybody.”
Lewis snorted. “There’s nobody left to prosecute. The feds want Russell Palmer more than ever, but right now they can’t even find him, let alone charge him with anything. He’s probably in Moscow or Rio or any of a dozen developing kleptocracies without extradition to the U.S.”
Steinburger said, “I thought there were supposed to be rules against taking off in a lightning storm.”
“Not everybody plays by the rules.” Lewis smiled, his teeth gleaming under the streetlight. “Miranda, you’ll send me a bill for Peter and for tonight with Elle, right?” She nodded. “Then I got a flight to catch. Any chance I can get a ride to the airport?”
“My place isn’t far from there,” Sykes said. “But we’ll have to swing through downtown so Steve can get his car.”
“I can drive Steinburger.” Miranda looked at the tall, shambling detective with a gleam in her eye. “He’ll have to buy me a drink for my trouble, but he looks like a man can handle his liquor.”
Steinburger turned to Sykes. Looking for help, or maybe permission. “Paul?”
Sykes shook his head. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This Peter Ash book, my third, was meant to be set in Detroit. I spent the better part of a week there, driving around and talking to people, and found city and citizens both welcoming and utterly captivating. I spent four months trying to get the Detroit book going, but for some reason, it never caught fire.
Margret Petrie, Sweet Patootie and font of all wisdom, suggested that I try writing about something else.
As it happened, something else was lurking in the back of my brain all along.
On tour for The Drifter in January 2016, I was in the Phoenix airport, unreasonably early for my flight. Killing time in the corner of a coffee shop, I found myself talking to a man who, in the course of our conversation, told me he was on his way to Portland, Oregon, to begin a legal cannabis growing operation.
The Oregon recreational cannabis law had been passed only recently, and the man—I’ll call him Alex—hoped to be ready for cultivation by the first of June, when the law went into effect.
I asked him where he’d gotten the experience for this project. Alex paused a moment, then smiled and said, “This will be my first legal grow.”
I’m a curious guy, so I asked Alex several thousand follow-up questions. He proceeded to tell me the story of how he got started growing cannabis twenty years before in California. His story is much wilder than McSweeney’s invented backstory—you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Alex helped immeasurably with the details in this book.
The other catalyst for Light It Up was an article in the New York Times about several Iraq War veterans who ran a thriving company, protecting those in the business of growing and selling legal cannabis in Colorado, and the challenge of the cash cannabis economy.
Drugs, money, and guns. What could go wrong?
One of the best things about being a writer is that you have an excuse to call up smart people and ask them dumb questions, and Hunter Garth of the Iron Protection Group was kind enough to share some insights into how various security companies work with the cannabis industry.
Hunter was understandably extremely tight-lipped with specifics—he obviously cares deeply about protecting his clients, and the details I’ve invented for this book do not come from Hunter—but “Grandma’s Attic” was Hunter’s term of art for a client’s unknown stash place, and one piece of jargon too good for this writer not to steal.
The cannabis economy is evolving quickly, and at least one company is using Bitcoin to help allow growers and retailers to access the banking system. I hope this book isn’t obsolete before it makes it into paperback.
One last note: In Light It Up, Peter is still grappling with the aftermath of his war, but he’s making progress. For any readers out there still coping with your own experiences, I hope you’re making progress, too.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks as always to the many veterans who have shared their stories either in person or online. As I’ve noted before, I’m not a veteran myself, and the Peter Ash books are much better for those conversations. If you have a comment or a complaint or a story to tell, you can most easily find me on Facebook—see my website, NickPetrie.com, for a link.
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The New York Times has done a great deal of reporting on the consequences of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including much on post-traumatic stress and veterans’ lives. These stories continue to provide information and inspiration, and I’m grateful for the work of these wonderful reporters and this great newspaper. I’ve posted some links on my Facebook feed. For news on medical and social progress with post-traumatic stress, the NYT is a great place to start.
Thanks to Andrew Jones for his friendship and insight into attorneys and law firms. Andy is only slightly less steely-eyed in real life than his fictionalized doppelgänger.
Thanks to the cheerful folks at the Denver Crime Lab and Denver Police District 2 for answering my numerous questions. Anything I got wrong is my fault, not theirs.
Thanks to Hickok45, whose YouTube channel got me started on Peter and Lewis’s historic weaponry. Again, any errors are mine, not his.
Thanks to John Dixon for the bulletin board and index cards. Thanks to Graham Brown for telling me the third book is the hardest—I sure as hell hope you’re right. Thanks to Jon and Ruth Jordan with Crimespree Magazine and to the Murder and Mayhem in Milwaukee crew for welcoming me with open arms and open beers. Thanks to the Mystery Writers of America and the International Thriller Writers—they write about terrible things, but crime writers truly are the nicest people you’ll ever meet.
Thanks to the excellent Sean Berard, Steve Fisher, and Christine Cuddy in Los Angeles for their efforts on my (and Peter’s) behalf.
Thanks again and again and again to the astounding Barbara Poelle at IGLA for getting Peter in print; to Sara Minnich, Putnam Editor Extraordinaire, for her sharp eye and her sharper red pencil; and to Stephanie Hargadon and the rest of the Putnam publicity team for getting me out into the world and talking to readers.
Thanks to the designer, Pete Garceau, who made this book so beautiful, and to Allison Hargraves, the talented copy editor who keeps my commas Oxford and otherwise prevents me from looking like an ungrammatical eejit.
I remain grateful every day for the heroes at Putnam sales who put the books in the hands of the booksellers, for the wonderful independent booksellers who put the books in the hands of the readers, and especially for you readers—you’re the ones who truly fuel the fire and keep my butt in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard. Thanks for reading!