Burning Bright

by Nick Petrie

  “I read a lot of science fiction in junior high,” said Peter. “What do you use it for?”

  “Dude, I work on computers,” said Boyle. “You gotta be careful when you’re opening up somebody’s laptop. Plus I help out some people who really like their privacy. You want to see it?” His face was flushed. He was showing off for June, thought Peter.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” he said. “You can really get rid of the malware?”

  “Totally.” Boyle nodded sagely as he unwrapped another lollipop. “I can probably even figure out who did it.”

  June said, “I got hacked two years ago using the Wi-Fi in a Starbucks. Someone tried to empty my bank account using my own goddamn computer. Leo found the hacker.”

  “Piece of cake,” Boyle said grandly, waving his hand. “Guy was a total amateur. I sent him a worm that locked him out of his own computer. This new guy might be tougher, those internal cell modems are a bitch to access. But I’ll help if you want.”

  Peter was starting to see why June thought of Boyle as her younger brother. He was so much younger than his years, and he wanted June’s approval so badly. There was definitely something a little off about him, but nothing Peter could really put his finger on. Maybe the guy was just stoned.

  “We’d really appreciate it,” said Peter. “June needs all the help she can get.”

  June stuck out her tongue, and Boyle’s pants barked like a dog.

  He extracted his phone from a front pocket and glanced at the screen. “Whoa. I forgot, I’m supposed to be someplace. Hey, you guys want to go party? We’re gonna get fucked up and watch kung fu movies.”

  “Not tonight,” said Peter. “But I’ll walk you out.”

  “Yeah, great, yeah.” Boyle put on his jacket and opened the door.

  Peter followed him out. The rain had stopped for the moment and Peter felt the static fade and his shoulders ease. The cool night air smelled dense and green with spring growth. A car drove by, the sound of its tires on the still-wet pavement like painter’s tape peeling off the roll.

  Boyle opened the door to his beat-up BMW and climbed inside. The interior of the car smelled like an Afghan hookah parlor. Yet the man’s house had a beautiful and expensive six-color paint job.

  “It would really help to figure out who hacked June’s old laptop,” said Peter. “Can you take a look in the morning?”

  Boyle gave Peter a sloppy grin and cranked the ignition. The big engine idled with a ragged purr, as if one of the spark plugs was misfiring. “I’ll be out pretty late, bro. Might even crash at my friend’s place.” He waved idly at the house. “Leave it inside the back door. Spare key behind a loose board.”

  “Thanks, I’ll find it.” Apparently Peter had graduated to some kind of friendship status. Or else the chemicals in Boyle’s bloodstream had really kicked in.

  “No worries, dude.” Boyle reached into the glove box and pulled out a pair of yellow lollipops. “You want one of these?”

  Peter shook his head. “No thanks.”

  “That’s cool.” Boyle tore the wrappers from both suckers and jammed them into his mouth in a single practiced movement. He made a mock salute, revved the engine, and backed out to the street at high speed.

  Peter heard the blast of a horn and screeching tires, but no crash. He shook his head. Leo Boyle was living proof that it was better to be lucky than good.

  He walked to the minivan and opened the rear hatch. He still had a few chores to do.

  • • •

  AFTER COLLECTING the small tarp, bungee cords, and flashlight he’d bought at the lumberyard, Peter pushed through the wet backyard tangle of spiky juniper and glossy-leafed rhododendrons to the sheltered space by the neighbor’s garage. The medical boot was getting wet, but he could always toss it in June’s dryer.

  With the light clipped to the brim of his baseball hat, he hung the tarp between the tall evergreen trees, high enough so he could stand without brushing his head, but angled so the collected rainfall would drain to one side. His leg was sore again, and raising his arms above his head made his ribs hurt. Suck it up, Marine.

  He hauled a pair of two-by-sixes through the bushes, cut each one to length with a short hand saw, and nailed the pieces together into a rectangular frame with a few swats of his shiny new framing hammer. His ribs complained some more, but it didn’t hurt to breathe, so he figured he was okay.

  As he hauled the cedar planks from the van, June stepped outside and followed him through the brush, coatless, her feet bare on the wet fallen leaves. She watched silently, shivering, as he tacked down the decking with just a few nails, making a neat platform seven feet long and five feet wide. It rocked when he stood on it, so he shimmed one corner with a stone.

  He used the claw end of the framing hammer to split his scrap into thinner pieces. He found more stones in a heap at the back of the neighbor’s yard and borrowed them for a fire ring. He took pages of the local free weekly, the Stranger, crumpled them up, then arranged the kindling on top. He pilfered an armload of firewood from the dry middle of the neighbor’s mossy, untended woodpile. June still hadn’t said a word.

  The rain started up again as he worked, a soft hush on the plastic tarp. He lit the fire and made a final trip to the van, returning with the new sleeping pad and bag he’d bought at REI that afternoon, tucking them in a dry spot under the eaves of the neighbor’s garage, and two short fabric camping chairs, which he unfolded on the little deck.

  He set the light on the platform and turned to June.

  “I know you weren’t crazy about that last hotel,” he said. He couldn’t read her face in the dark. “I doubt this one’s any better. No bathroom. No spa. No room service. But it does have a fireplace.”

  When she turned and walked back toward the house, he thought he’d screwed it up completely. Misread her, misread everything. For chrissake, he’d only known her for two days. He stood beside the struggling fire in the cold wet night, feeling the ache in his ribs and listening to the rain on the tarp, which sounded too much like the static in his head.

  Then June pushed her way back through the rhododendrons, holding the bottle of wine in one hand and two jelly jars and a Swiss army knife in the other. He took the knife from her and turned it in his hand, trying to find the corkscrew in the dark.

  She said, “Put that down, you idiot. The wine’s for afterward.”

  He looked up at her then, saw the firelight on her freckled face, the heat in her eyes.

  She grabbed him by the front of his jacket and kissed him hard. Her stitches prickled. “Ow, fuck,” she said. “My lip.” Then kissed him again, harder. “You better kiss me someplace else.”

  Peter kicked the chairs from the platform as she pulled his jacket and shirt off, not bothering much with the zippers or buttons. He took a little more time with her clothes, enjoying the slow revelations. Her skin was hot to the touch, soft as silk, and she tasted still of that exotic spice that he knew now was utterly, completely, entirely addictive.

  She said, “There goddamn well better be room for both of us in that sleeping bag.”

  He licked her nipple experimentally. “Maybe if one of us is on top?”

  She arched her back and pressed herself into him. “I’m the boss and don’t you forget it.”

  • • •

  THE WINE WASN’T for afterward so much as it was for between. The evening passed in a long, languorous dream punctuated by intervals of slippery athleticism. It didn’t help Peter’s ribs any, but it was very good for the rest of him.

  He got up several times, naked in the night, to feed the fire from the neighbor’s woodpile, turning to see June ogling him from the sleeping bag. Later he woke to see her creeping back through the jungle, nude but for the stitches on her lip and the bandage on her arm. Her firelit figure was a sylvan fantasy of compact curves punctuated by a fierce, lascivious smile. She’d
brought a carton of ice cream.

  He licked it out of her belly button while she giggled and shrieked, scandalizing the neighbors.

  And so on, and on, and on.

  • • •

  IN THE MORNING, she was gone. The sleeping bag was a wreck. He found his clothes, hung the sleeping bag where it might somehow revive itself in the open air, then pushed through the dripping underbrush. Her door was unlocked, but she was not inside. It was after ten.

  He ran the shower hot and stood under the spray, eyes closed, backing down the static with the memory of June floating above him, upturned nipples bobbing with her greedy, eager motion. Then she was there in the flesh, slipping through the gap in the shower curtain. Naked and sweaty from a long run, and definitely delighted to see him.

  “No way,” he said, “I’m not used to this kind of workout.”

  “Don’t be such a baby.” She climbed him like a monkey and bit his ear. “What about my needs? You’ve got to get yourself into shape.”

  They stopped talking after that.

  28

  SHEPARD

  Shepard strode purposefully into the hospital’s main lobby, pulling out his credentials as he approached reception.

  This was the most challenging aspect of his work. Pretending to be a normal human being.

  Killing had never been difficult for Shepard.

  Making conversation was much harder.

  Tonight, he wore a dark suit, a striped tie, an American flag pin, and aggressively polished shoes. His credentials were quite good, almost as good as the real thing, because for all intents and purposes, they were real.

  The young man behind the counter looked up when Shepard approached. “How may I help you?”

  Shepard held up the laminated ID. “Homeland,” he said. “I need to talk to your senior security person on duty. Right now.”

  “Um,” said the young man. “I don’t know who, uh.” He held up a hesitant finger. “Let me make a call?”

  Five minutes later, Shepard was walking down the hall with a yawning, overweight ex-cop named Jenks. “Sorry, third shift is a bitch. Homeland Security wants what?”

  “I want to look at your feeds. You had two people here, and I need to see where they went and who they talked to. Let’s start with the ER.”

  Five minutes after that, Shepard was down in the security dungeon, sipping burnt coffee and reviewing grainy video footage.

  He knew the girl’s face from the salesman’s file, and he found her as she walked into the waiting area. She wore a floppy hat, and her face was puffy and strange, like she’d been hit in the face, but it was clearly her. The hat failed to conceal her long, narrow nose and her wide mouth. The freckles didn’t make it through the poor video quality.

  Her file was far from complete, but it painted a certain kind of picture.

  A wild child with a long and distinguished record of causing trouble and challenging authority. She first met the law at thirteen for driving without a license. The list went on until she went off to college, where she seemed to find some kind of focus. She’d become an independent young woman either living on the margins or charting her own path, depending on your point of view.

  But Shepard already knew enough about the girl.

  He wanted to know who had helped her.

  In the video, it appeared to be the tall man who’d walked in ahead of her. Broad at the shoulder and physically fit, although he was favoring his left leg and his right side. He wore a baseball hat to hide his face, and he was clearly conscious of the camera, because when the intake nurse handed him a gauze pad, he turned away to take off his hat and dab gently at a darkness in his hair that looked like blood.

  They’d both been beat up when their car left the road.

  He used the joystick to scan back and forth, freezing the video at the clearest view of the man’s face.

  “Print me a picture, please, this frame. What can you tell me about these two?”

  Jenks looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, sir, but that’s confidential information. HIPAA and that. I can’t tell you anything without a warrant.”

  “This thing is moving quickly,” said Shepard. “These two people killed four of my best agents not twenty-four hours ago.”

  “Jesus,” said Jenks. “I’m sorry to hear that. If you had a court order, I could tell you whatever you wanted.”

  “I don’t have time for a court order. But I can tell you’re a patriot,” Shepard said, slapping the man on the back. Was that overkill? Probably not, from the man’s tired smile. “Where do they go from the waiting room? Do you have any cameras in the exam area?”

  “Not in the exam areas or the bathrooms,” Jenks said as he turned back to the keyboard. “But just about everywhere else, including the parking lot. Let’s see what we got.”

  29

  PETER

  Peter poured coffee into a pair of white china mugs and stood examining the contents of the fridge. For some reason, he was starving. Then June sauntered out of the bathroom, opened the warm oven, and pulled out a white paper bag. The smell of chorizo and cinnamon filled the kitchen.

  “Breakfast burritos and fresh churros,” she said. “There’s this great food truck at the end of my running route.”

  He wondered if it was too early to propose.

  Her face looked much better, the swelling down a great deal in the night and the bruises fading from purple to a greenish-yellow, which she’d covered expertly with makeup. They ate on the couch with napkins on their laps and a bag of ice on Peter’s ankle. He wanted to jump her all over again, but June, now dressed in dark blue slacks and a crisp white blouse, was all business.

  “Here’s my plan for today. Let me know if you have any better ideas.”

  “I have a better idea.”

  She gave him a look. “This is work time,” she said. “Before we try to track down those guys from the redwoods, I think we should meet that lawyer, the one who contacted my mom.”

  “Jean-Pierre Nicolet,” Peter said, nodding. “He’s a pretty heavy hitter. If we’re going to approach him, I’m going to need a decent suit.”

  She looked at him, maybe trying to picture him in a suit.

  “I’ll tell you my idea on the way.” He got off the couch. “I’ll meet you at the car in a few minutes. I want to do something before we go.”

  The house’s six-color paint job glowed in the filtered light. Leo Boyle’s dented black BMW was gone from the driveway, so Peter didn’t bother knocking.

  If he hadn’t known the key was there somewhere, he’d never have found it. Even knowing the general location, it took him a couple of minutes to find the chiseled-out hollow behind a loose piece of clapboard siding. Boyle had created a weirdly excellent hiding place.

  Peter wondered why the kid had told him about the key. Maybe he’d thought Peter wouldn’t be able to find it. Maybe there was something else he was tired of hiding. Or maybe he was just stoned. The old lock turned more smoothly than Peter expected.

  He stepped into a small landing with peeling paint and a few hooks for coats. Steep, narrow steps wound down to a darkened basement and up to a closed door that Peter assumed led to the kitchen. Peter had worked on a lot of old homes with his dad, and the layouts were usually pretty basic unless the owners had made significant alterations.

  The space was small enough to set off the static, but Peter was starting to get used to the low level of discomfort, the pricking at the base of his brainstem.

  Maybe Don was right. He could do this.

  Then June opened the door behind him. “What the hell are you doing?” she hissed.

  “Leo said he’d take a look at your laptop,” Peter said quietly. “Before he gets involved, I thought I’d take a look at him.”

  “Leo’s harmless,” she said. “A pothead and a goof.”

  “I’m sure yo
u’re right,” Peter said, and climbed the steps to the kitchen.

  He opened the door to a gutted shell. The plaster was gone from the walls, exposing the two-by-four structure and the cracked bare planks of the exterior walls. A sheet of opaque plastic covered the wall to the next room. There were no cabinets, no fridge or stove. Just a small aluminum sink set into a piece of plastic laminate countertop, held up with scrap lumber.

  “Wow.” June was peering over his shoulder. “I guess Leo was telling the truth. He really hasn’t done anything.”

  “You don’t come in here?”

  “Never. We signed the lease in my apartment.” He looked at her. She said, “Hey, Leo shows up at my place all the time already. I don’t need to encourage him.”

  Beside the sink was a plain black mug and a cheap coffeemaker, both dirty, and a tiny microwave oven. A box of ramen noodles and a can of Folgers sat half-empty on the floor.

  Peter didn’t know what he’d expected. A high-end espresso machine, maybe. An expensive fridge filled with restaurant leftovers. Not this.

  He was used to unfinished spaces. When he was fourteen, his family’s own kitchen was torn out for a whole summer. He and his father had run the plumbing and wiring, then built the cabinets while they waited for the drywaller to get out of rehab. But this didn’t feel like a work in progress.

  It felt more like a squatter’s camp.

  “Did Leo’s trust fund run out?”

  “He never mentioned it,” said June. “Although maybe he wouldn’t have. Leo’s a little weird, you know?”