Lies Like Wildfire

by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez

  “You could leave out the front door,” he drawls. “My dad won’t shoot you.”

  “No, I’m good.” I struggle with his curtains, knock over his empty pencil holder, and fall out of his window onto his yellowing lawn. “I’m okay.”

  I hear him chuckling behind me. “Good night, Romeo, parting is such sweet sorrow.”

  A Shakespeare reference from Drummer? I’m impressed, but why am I Romeo? I answer back anyway. “Arrivederci, Juliet.”

  When I get home, I find Mo leaning against my horses’ paddock and petting Sunny in the dark. Her eyes are swollen and red, and she’s wearing her N95 face mask. I park the Jeep, throw on the emergency brake, and climb out. She faces me in the brand-new clothes her family bought with their insurance money—new earrings, new Nikes, new purse—and I’m reminded again she lost everything. Even her underwear and socks must be new.

  She slips off her mask. “I’m scared, Hannah. I can’t sleep.” With her hair pulled into a high bun, her long neck, and her breathing mask, Mo looks like an apocalyptic ballerina.

  I glance around. “The bears have been coming close to the house. We should talk in the barn.”

  “No, I’m allergic to smoke and dust.” She points at her mask.

  The poor air quality doesn’t affect me like it does Mo. In fact, I think I breathe better without the awful, claustrophobic face mask. “Right,” I say, “but my dad’s inside. Let’s talk in my car.” We climb into the Jeep, and I turn the key, connect my phone, and put the music on low.

  “I’m afraid we’re gonna get caught,” Mo says. “I didn’t want to worry you guys, but I did tell my dad I went to the Gap that day. He just hasn’t remembered yet.”

  My stomach clenches. “Okay, just tell him we changed our minds if he does remember.”

  She shakes her head. “No, I called him from the trailhead to ask him about a warning light that came on in the Corolla. He knows I was there, Han, he’s just distracted by all the insurance paperwork right now.”

  My body stiffens. “Okay, but don’t tell the others. Not yet, because things just got worse.” Reluctantly, I inform her about the Bud Light, the pipe, and the matchbook. “Where did your brother buy the beer?”

  A smile flickers across her face. “He didn’t. He had some stored in the garage refrigerator and gave me that.”

  “You’re sure?” She nods and I release a huge breath. “That’s good. Wow, that’s really good.”

  Mo gazes through the windshield at the smoky night sky beyond. “Nothing about this is good, Hannah.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Mo releases her hair and twirls the long red strands around her fingers. “I don’t think you do know what I mean,” she says as her fists clench in her lap. “My mom can’t stop crying, Han. She lost all of her paintings and the violin her father gave her. The quilts my grandmother made for us are gone, all our photos and videos, the letters my dad wrote to her when he was in the Navy—everything is gone. She didn’t get to save anything.”

  Mo swallows hard. “The fire came at our house so fast, my mom left without her shoes. Dad forgot his medication and had to go to the ER later for insulin.” She turns to me, her hazel eyes as hard and cutting as diamonds. “Our street was crammed with cars, and no one would let them out of the driveway. My dad had to put the truck into four-wheel and drive across lawns. He thought the heat and flames would pop his tires. He thought they were going to die, and they had no idea where I was.”

  Tears roll down her colorless cheeks. “My mom is having nightmares, and my dad hardly speaks, and now they’re drowning in insurance paperwork. They have to list every single item they lost and give it a dollar value. The adjuster already told my mom that her art—her paintings—have no value at all. She hasn’t sold one in ten years, so her art is classified as a hobby. When he wrote a big fat zero next to her lost canvases yesterday, she went into her room and bawled.” Mo takes a shuddering breath. “If she knew that we—that I—did this to her…” She trails off.

  We sit in silence for a long time.

  “I want to go back to that day,” Mo says. “I want to take that pipe from Luke while we’re still at the beach. Stop him from lighting it. Why did we let him smoke, Hannah? One of my neighbors died.” She turns to me, sobbing.

  I try to soothe her. “We didn’t know.”

  “But we knew better,” she argues. “My dad wants the arsonists punished. Everyone in Gap Mountain wants blood.”

  Blood. The word makes me shiver. “Look, Mo, why do you think criminals burn evidence—to destroy it, right? The investigators aren’t going to pull any fingerprints or DNA off the stuff they found, and even if they get something, it’ll most likely be too damaged to match to anyone. As long as we lie low and don’t admit to anything, they have to prove we did it, and they can’t.”

  Mo gapes at me. “Criminals? God, Hannah, none of what you just said makes me feel better. I have to go.” She opens the passenger door, and the interior cabin light pops on.

  “Are you okay to drive home?” I ask.

  She nods and then shakes her head. “I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again.” Mo slips into her gold Corolla and disappears down my winding driveway.

  I sit alone in my Jeep for a long time. I didn’t tell Mo or Drummer the whole truth. I’ve been doing some research online, and approximately 60 percent of DNA can be successfully recovered after exposure to fire, depending on the temperature. The fact that the bottle, pipe, and matchbook survived the flames makes the possibility of successfully lifting DNA and fingerprints rise even higher. But to connect the forensics to an individual or individuals, they’ll need suspects or a match in the ALPS database. The only one of us with fingerprints on file is Luke.

  I never believed the investigation would circle back to us, but now that we’ve been lying, we have to keep lying. Now that we’ve buried the secret, we have to bury it deeper. If there’s one thing the law hates more than crime, it’s liars. There will be no mercy for us in court. No mercy in the public eye. Whether we get caught or confess, we will be hated and prosecuted. My need to protect the monsters shifts to protecting as many of us as possible, because there is a high probability one of us will be arrested.

  Can we trust one another not to sell the others out? I don’t know, but I’m afraid we’re going to find out.

  13

  July 21

  Gap Fire: 30% contained

  Fatalities: 10

  Time: 4:30 p.m.

  “Your movie is due back on Monday,” I tell the customer. I’m at the Reel Deal, and it’s hopping with business since no one wants to go outside. The Air Quality Index is 155—not nearly as bad as Beijing, but crappy by our standards.

  Meanwhile, the Gap Fire continues to burn through Yosemite. Newscasters call the disaster “epic” and “heartbreaking” as thousands of precious acres go up in flames. The forecast calls for the wind to die down tomorrow, and Cal Fire is hopeful they’ll make progress against the blaze. Two more firefighters and a park ranger have been sent to the hospital with burns and smoke-inhalation injuries. The female firefighter hit by the tree passed away from her injuries, bringing the death toll to ten.

  When news of the woman’s death reached my dad last night, he slammed his fist on our table and cracked the wood. “I can’t wait to arrest whoever did this!” he shouted. “The families deserve justice.” While he railed, I shriveled into the sofa.

  A sudden noise draws me from my thoughts as my coworker, a tenth-grader named Amanda, bangs on the register display and starts to cry. “This stupid thing keeps freezing.”

  Hurrying to her side, I help her unfreeze the screen. “It’s fine. Just wait a little longer between scanning DVDs. The Wi-Fi is worse than usual.”

  Amanda’s lower lip trembles, and I know her tears have nothing to do with the display screen malfunctioning.
Her grandfather burned his hands trying to save his house, and he’s still in the hospital. She’s worried. “Thanks,” she says, and wipes her eyes.

  “I’m going to stock the returns, okay?” She nods and I leave the register and head to the shelves with a stack of DVDs.

  The Reel Deal looks out onto Pine Street, and as I’m replacing discs in the Romance section, a long caravan of dump trucks roll by. Many are camouflage green and belong to the Army Corps of Engineers, others to private companies. They’re here to clean up Stony Ridge.

  As the bulky trucks roll down the street, people drift out of the café and the stores and the sheriff’s department to watch them. Children wearing N95 face masks wave at the drivers, and they wave back, a macabre parade. Our wildfire has caused tens of millions of dollars in damage already. I glance away.

  Toward the end of my shift, my phone pings with a group text from Mo to the monsters: OMG! A fire investigator and two deputies just left my house. They asked about the photo!

  I’m in the back room, marking my hours, when the text arrives, and I make a strangled squeak and drop the pen in my hand.

  “You okay, Hannah?” Mr. Henley, the owner of the Reel Deal, asks.

  “Yeah, I’m good. Just college stuff.”

  He looks perplexed but lets it go. He hires mostly teenagers and has learned to ignore us.

  Luke responds to Mo’s text:

  Drummer says: at work. off at 5. sys

  I write: I’m coming over

  And Mo responds: Don’t come here, my parents are home. Can we meet at the attic, V?

  Sure, she answers. What photo?

  The photo, the photo…my thoughts swirl.

  Mo: the one I took at the gap

  Oh, that photo, the one she posted! One of the eighty-two people who “liked” it must have reported her. Stop texting. Delete thread, I write.

  I rush to the break room and lean against the wall. The investigators are closing in on us. It’s time to get serious. We need prepaid phones and quick. My heart rate spikes, and I can’t see straight. I mumble a goodbye to Mr. Henley and barrel out of the rental shop to my Jeep. I can’t get into it fast enough. I turn on the engine and the AC and breathe into my cupped palms.

  Who is in that picture? I remember it in my mind’s eye: Mo smiling, a beer to her lips—a Bud Light, no less! Drummer is in the background, diving into the lake, his face slightly blurred but, given modern photographic forensic techniques (and his tattoo), he’s easily identifiable. It places Drummer and Mo at the area of origin on July seventh, the day the fire started. Fuck!

  I call Drummer from the parking lot, and he answers on the sixth ring. “We are screwed!” I shout.

  “Who is screwed? What are you talking about?”

  “We are, idiot. Didn’t you read Mo’s text?” God, how does Drummer function when he pays no attention to details?

  “Don’t be a dick, Hannah.”

  I slide on my sunglasses. “Sorry, I’m just freaked out.” I would never let the others see me like this. The monsters believe I can keep them safe, but I don’t think I can.

  “Calm down, Hannah.”

  “I’m calm!” My tone is shrill.

  He clears his throat. “No, you’re losing your shit.”

  “Mo was just interrogated.”

  “Han, if you can’t keep your cool, how do you expect to become a cop someday?”

  I’m speechless. Good fucking point, Drummer.

  He continues. “Seriously, Han, you’re…easily upset. You should get that fixed.”

  My body hums with anger. “Now who’s being a dick?”

  He exhales loudly, like an exasperated parent. Drummer has about as much tolerance for conflict as my colt Sunny. “I can’t talk right now, I’m at work. I’ll see you at V’s later.” Then he hangs up on me.

  I gnaw the inside of my lip. Drummer is being way too mellow about this. If there was ever a time to worry, it’s now. I slam my Jeep into gear and drive to Violet’s.

  * * *

  —

  Mo and I arrive at the same time, and Lulu Sandoval meets us at the door with flushed cheeks and wide eyes. “Come inside and sit down,” she says, yanking us into her parlor. Violet is on the sofa with her arms crossed and refuses to look at us.

  What the fuck? I mouth to Mo, who shrugs.

  “Where are the boys?” Lulu asks in a clipped tone. “We need to get this fire nonsense straightened out right now.”

  “They’re coming, Ms. Sandoval,” I answer.

  She directs us to sit. “Then we’ll wait.” I glare hard at Violet. Did she tell her grandmother what we did?

  Finally, Drummer arrives. “Luke can’t get away right now,” he says in a helpless, angry tone that we know means Luke’s mom is on the warpath. When she’s in a “state,” as Luke calls it, he stays home to keep her calm, protect Aiden, and manage things so no one calls CPS. In the past, the boys have been separated into different foster care homes, and Luke told us that would happen again over “someone’s dead body and it won’t be fucking mine.”

  “So, what’s up?” Drummer asks as he collapses onto the couch, dusty from filling lumber orders. His heavily calloused hands rub his dirt-smudged face, and he looks like a man who’s worked hard all day, which I guess he has, and I wonder if he’ll ever quit the lumberyard or if this is his life now that he’s a high school graduate.

  “We’ll start without Luke,” Lulu says. Her tiny body vibrates with anger, and the poodles whine at her feet for reassurance. “This is unacceptable,” she growls, gesturing at us.

  I share a look of pure terror with Mo, and my scalp tingles as if it’s shrinking around my head. I think Grammy knows what we did. I think Violet told on us.

  “We’re sorry,” Mo offers, her voice cracking.

  “Sorry?” Lulu yodels. “Don’t be sorry, young lady, be angry! Violet told me you got harassed over a photo. A photo!” She wrings her vein-lined hands. “Every kid in town drinks beer and swims at the Gap in the summertime. That’s why Violet is here, for Pete’s sake.” Lulu paces the room. “Her friends back home won’t swim if there’s a bug in the pool. They drink mojitos and get their food delivered! You kids are real.” She throws up her arms.

  Mo and I exchange another glance while Violet cringes. So Grammy brings Violet here to slum with the locals. I never thought of it like that before.

  Lulu plows on, oblivious that she’s offended us: “Don’t allow that sheriff or his cronies—sorry, Hannah—to accuse you kids of arson. It’s indefensible. I have invested a lot of money in this town!” Her dark eyes roll, her fists shake. “Could one of you accidentally start a fire? I won’t deny it, but would you lie about it? Never!” She sinks into a checkered chair and deflates like a party balloon.

  Outside Lulu’s windows, starlings chirp and hunt for seeds, wind chimes jingle, and a screen door rattles. It’s a lazy lovely summer day, but we’re speechless. Our guilt has rooted us to the floor and sealed our mouths.

  Lulu continues: “Drummer, you’re next on their list. You all need lawyers. Good lawyers.”

  “Why me?” Drummer asks.

  “You were in that photo too,” she answers, and then turns to me. “Did you know your father was after your friends, Hannah?”

  The monsters creak their heads in my direction. “No!” I cry. “Absolutely not.”

  She nods. “I thought so. These investigators are grasping at straws because they’re incompetent—sorry, Hannah—and if you three aren’t careful, your names will be dragged through the mud before you’re exonerated, if you’re exonerated. I’ve seen witch hunts before, and they don’t end well. You call me or Violet if you need help. Now I need to harvest my green beans.” Lulu Sandoval storms out the back door, followed by her dogs.

  “Your grandma is badass,” Drummer whispers. />
  “She believes in us,” Violet answers with a look of pride and horror.

  As we process what just happened, Drummer studies Violet with such tenderness and fascination that I feel suddenly adrift and nauseated. I look away and catch our reflections in Lulu’s picture window: Violet tucked into a small chair, her glossy hair falling over one shoulder, and then me, long limbs spilling everywhere and hair unbrushed. Violet is pretty, but so what? How hard is it to be pretty? I stand. “Come on, guys, let’s rescue Luke.”

  * * *

  —

  We pile into Violet’s Grand Cherokee Trackhawk and drive to the Red Cross village where Luke and his mom live in their fire-victim trailer. Unlike Mo’s family, Luke’s didn’t own their home, and they didn’t buy renter’s insurance, so they literally have nothing left.

  As we roll past the neighborhoods, I finger the immaculate interior of Violet’s SUV, noticing all the buttons and electronics and the red-trimmed leather seats, and think again about the twists of fate that make some of us rich and some of us poor. “Do you think Violet’s friends back home have nice cars like this?” I whisper to Mo in the backseat.

  She bites back a laugh. “Her mojito-drinking friends? Probably, or they have chauffeurs.”

  “Or self-driving cars.”

  “Or flying cars?” Mo jokes.

  Violet’s head tilts as if she can hear us, and we shut up.

  I wonder about Violet’s life back home in Santa Barbara and why she’s never invited us to visit. Do we embarrass her? I doubt her regular life involves shopping at Target or eating at Applebee’s. I wonder if she tells her friends what hicks we are—that my horses aren’t worth more than nine hundred bucks apiece, that the highlight of our summer is the annual rodeo, or that a big night out in this town is paying full price for a movie and then skinny-dipping in the bug-infested Gap?

  I can’t look at her. I saved for three years to buy my Jeep, and I’ll have to sell it to help pay for college. Violet got her car on her sixteenth birthday, and her trust fund will pay for her tuition, books, housing, and everything else she needs or wants. And I hate that I’m suddenly noticing our differences. I dig my nails into my palms to stop thinking about it.