Set the Night on Fire

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  Lila tilted her head.

  “My father—your other grandfather—hung himself.”

  “I’m sorry.” She paused. “But this was your girlfriend’s father’s store. The mother of your children. How could you betray her like that?”

  “I didn’t see it in those terms. I thought I was striking a blow against the capitalist system. I assumed we’d be caught, but we’d go out in a blaze of glory. And usher in a tiny part of the apocalypse. In retrospect, it was incredibly reckless and selfish. And narcissistic. But when you’re young, you don’t think about the consequences. At least I didn’t.” He focused on her. “One thing, though. I never intended to kill anyone. You have to believe that. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone in the store that night. And I certainly didn’t know that your mother was in the alley.”

  Lila hugged her chest. She didn’t know what to believe. “Was … was … my father involved?”

  “No. Your father wasn’t political to begin with, and he’d dropped all his activities by then.”

  “Who was?”

  “It was mostly Payton. Although Teddy became more enthusiastic.” A faraway look came over Dar. “It was Teddy who found the VW van we ripped off. And filed off the VIN so it couldn’t be traced. Except they did, anyway. He didn’t realize the number was also mounted on the engine block.”

  “Why were you the only one charged? The only one who went to jail?”

  “After the blast, I ran off to Colorado. To an abandoned town called Lanedo. Payton and Teddy were the only two people in the world who knew where I’d gone. One of them must have told the feds where I was because they found me pretty quickly. When they did, I figured they’d already picked up the other two. It was only after they arrested me and no one else surfaced that I realized what I was up against.”

  “Which was … ”

  “Let’s just say I realized powerful interests were aligned against me. The system wasn’t going to work in my favor. That’s one of the reasons I pled guilty.”

  “What happened to Payton and Teddy?”

  “Payton went underground … so far off the grid no one ever found him.”

  “For forty years?”

  “About seven years ago I got a letter from Rain saying he’d resurfaced. That he’d changed his name to William Kent and was teaching school in New Mexico.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the authorities? There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

  “I never got the chance.”

  “Why not?”

  “He died in a car accident a few weeks later.”

  Lila was quiet. Then, “What about Teddy?”

  “Teddy?” A small smile played on his lips. “Teddy went to law school. Became a DA. Got elected Senator. Decided to run for president.”

  “So he was the one who set you up.”

  “Rain always suspected Teddy was an informer. I didn’t want to believe it. But yes, Teddy set me up.”

  “You spent forty years in jail because of him.”

  “No.” He swallowed. “I spent forty years in jail because I detonated a bomb that killed three innocent people. Including your mother. It’s just that Teddy and Payton didn’t do the time with me.”

  She shook her head. “How can you go on knowing he got away? He … he robbed you of your life. Climbed on your back to get ahead. If he was capable of that forty years ago, what’s he going to do if he’s elected president?”

  “I’m not convinced he’s evil. Just weak.” He draped his arm over the back of Cece’s seat.

  “You’re being naïve,” Lila said.

  “Maybe.” Dar absently caressed the back of Cece’s neck. She stretched, giving him more of it to stroke. It was a subtle gesture, but Lila was struck by how willingly Cece yielded to his touch. Despite everything he’d done, this woman trusted Dar. Lila felt a stab of envy. She wondered if she would ever trust Dar that much. Would ever trust anyone that much.

  Dar cracked the window. Cold air whistled in. He rolled it back up. “It’s funny. For the longest time, I thought Sebastian Kerr was behind it all.”

  “Because he threatened my father?”

  “Exactly.”

  “He’s been dead for over ten years.”

  “I know.” Dar twisted around. “Since Payton died seven years ago, and Rain and your father a few months ago, it couldn’t have been him.”

  “So … ” Lila said slowly. “The fire that killed my father and brother wasn’t an accident.”

  Dar nodded. “Markham is taking out everyone who could connect him to the bomb. Your brother was probably collateral damage. You would have been too, if you’d been there.”

  Cece glanced into the rearview mirror, frowned, and switched lanes.

  “I don’t get it,” Lila said. “I had nothing to do with any of this. I wasn’t even born. Why is he still after me?”

  Dar sighed. “I made a mistake. When I got out of jail, I called Teddy. I shouldn’t have. I think that call triggered the new spate of killing.”

  “Why did you call him?”

  “I wanted to give him a chance to tell me why he’d left me holding the bag. In retrospect I see how naïve that was. Even arrogant. As if I could exert any influence on him forty years later.” He looked down. “His people wasted no time coming after me. Remember … I’m the only one left alive who knows what really happened back then. Once I realized it, I knew I had to disappear.”

  Lila thought about it. “So he’s coming after me just to flush you out?”

  “Either that or he suspects Casey or I might have told you the truth, which, of course, would be unacceptable.”

  “Either way, when he finds us, he’ll kill us.”

  “Which is why we need to protect you.”

  Lila frowned. “Except that by running you’re doing exactly what he wants.”

  “I don’t see any other options.”

  Lila leaned back against the seat. Something deep within her was loosening, like a rusty lock that had been oiled. Tumblers were falling into place. “Well, maybe we should find some.”

  Cece glanced in the rearview mirror again. “Um, guys … I hate to break up your fun, but we’re being followed.”

  FORTY–SIX

  “I don’t see a motorcycle.” Dar squinted through the back windshield. Cece shook her head. “It’s a rental truck. Budget. It’s been on us for the past mile or so.”

  “How do you know it’s following us?” Lila asked.

  “Because one just like it was staked outside my house a couple of weeks ago,” Cece said.

  Dar straightened up.

  “What do you want me to do?” Cece asked.

  Lila cut in. “How close is the next exit?”

  “I don’t know,” Cece said worriedly. “And we have less than a quarter tank of gas.”

  Lila leaned over the armrest between the front seats. The red line on the fuel gauge hovered near the bottom. “This car gets about thirty miles to the gallon, right?”

  “Sometimes more.”

  “And the tank holds about thirteen gallons?”

  Cece nodded. “About.”

  “We’re good for at least another hundred miles. Go for it.”

  “How do you know?” Cece asked.

  “I know numbers,” Lila said.

  Cece stomped on the accelerator. The Honda hesitated, then surged ahead. Lila tightened her seatbelt and bunched the pillows on her stomach. Dar dug his fingers into his seat. Cece whipped around traffic, passing cars in both lanes. Highway markers passed in a blur. Telephone and utility poles raced by in staccato succession. Cece glanced at the rearview. “Damn. He’s still there.”

  “Bastard,” Dar said. “How far to the next exit?”

  Cece pointed to the glove compartment. “There’s a map in there. You tell me.”

  Dar tried to lean forward, but the Honda hit a bump and he was thrown against the seat. Lila checked the speedometer. They were doing over eighty. A moment later Dar fished out the map. “A
nyone have an idea where we are?”

  “I saw an exit for Route 25 a while back,” Lila said.

  “That’s near Elgin,” Cece said.

  Dar fumbled the map open. “That’s still a ways to Loves Park.”

  “Is that where we’re going?” Lila asked.

  “Not any more,” Cece deadpanned.

  “Route 31 should be coming up,” Dar said. “Just on the other side of the Fox River.”

  “Good.” Cece looked into the rearview. “He’s closing.”

  Both Dar and Lila twisted around.

  “Can you see who’s driving?” Cece asked.

  Lila craned her neck, but the reflection of the sky on the truck’s windshield made it impossible to see. All she could make out was a form behind the wheel. “No.”

  “What about a license plate?”

  Dar shook his head. “Nothing. At least in front.”

  “Figures.” Cece’s face was flushed, and her eyes were bright. She was enjoying this. “Well, I’m not going to make it easy for the asshole. Hang on, kids.”

  Cece started to swerve between lanes, passing one vehicle, then veering sharply back to pass another. The truck tried to follow, but the Honda’s tiny size was an advantage. The truck swayed, careening off balance, while the Honda nimbly darted in and out.

  “Look!” Lila pointed to a sign. The exit for Route 31 was two miles ahead.

  “We’re there,” Cece said.

  Cece floored the accelerator. The speedometer rocketed past ninety. Lila turned around. They’d pulled away from the truck.

  “Exit coming up,” Dar said. “One mile and closing.”

  Cece nosed the Honda into the left lane. A massive eighteen-wheeler was barreling down on their right. Lila’s chest went tight. How in hell was Cece going to get past the truck and over to the exit ramp? She could see it about a quarter mile away. A sign and arrow pointed towards McHenry.

  Dar clutched the edge of his seat.

  The ramp loomed closer. Cece was still abreast of the giant semi. If she didn’t move, Lila thought, they’d never make it.

  Suddenly, Cece pumped the accelerator and swung the wheel. The Honda swerved into the semi’s lane, barely a few feet in front of it. The driver let loose with an angry blast of his horn, but Cece kept going. The ramp was right beside them. Lila’s stomach twisted. They weren’t going to make it. Cece gripped the wheel. Lila squeezed her eyes shut. She heard the scream of metal scraping concrete. Felt the Honda bang and lurch. When she opened her eyes, they were speeding up the ramp. They’d made it! Lila looked back. The eighteen-wheeler was still blaring his horn, but the Budget truck had overshot the exit and was heading past them down the interstate.

  “Oh my god!” Lila was breathless. “How did you do that?”

  Cece slowed the car, allowing herself a small smile. “Damned if I know.”

  Dar ruffled her hair.

  Watching their easy intimacy, Lila felt another jab of envy. They were driving down Route 31 toward McHenry. On one side of the road was a cemetery, its sign proclaiming “River Valley Memorial Gardens.” In the flat gray light the gardens looked desiccated and brown with patches of dirty snow on the earth.

  “It’s probably not over,” Lila said. “If I were Budget, I’d double back at the next exit and hunt us down. We need to disappear.”

  “And get the damn car fixed. The engine sounds like a sick duck.”

  “I can help,” Dar said. “The place where we’re headed … that’s what the guy does.”

  “Excellent.” Cece relaxed her grip. She turned left on Boncosky Road.

  “No!” Lila cried out. “Not this way. He might pass us if he backtracks from the next exit. Turn around and head east. To the Fox River.”

  “Good point.” Cece made a left into a driveway and turned around. “Aren’t there new housing developments over there? Maybe we can get lost in one of them for a while.”

  Lila fell back against the seat and took a breath. The adrenaline that had been pumping through her subsided, leaving her exhausted, but oddly contented.

  Dar smiled at her.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “It’s just … you look so much like your mother right now.”

  She looked away, annoyed. It was too much, this intimacy. Too much and too soon. This man had killed her mother. She changed the subject. “Cece, where’d you learn to drive like that?”

  “My brother always wanted to drive NASCAR. I guess he taught me a thing or two.”

  FORTY–SEVEN

  Benny Spivak’s home in Loves Park was four miles from his shop. A small ranch on a street of indistinguishable houses, its best feature was a path from the back yard into the surrounding forest preserve.

  Three days later, on a crisp February morning that hinted of spring, Lila, Cece, and Reba ventured down the path. For Lila it was a test: most of her wounds were scabbed over, her bruises yellowing. She pushed up the sleeves of her borrowed sweatshirt, enjoying how the air kissed her skin. She breathed in the tangy scent from the evergreens. “I’ll never take my health for granted again.”

  Reba laughed. “Amen to that, girl. When you got here, you looked like you were in a fight with a porcupine, and the porkie won.”

  Lila had taken an immediate liking to Reba, a small, plain-spoken, unpretentious blonde. The woman didn’t seem surprised when they’d arrived at the shop after dark, tired, anxious, and hungry. She promptly locked up, led them to the house, and hustled them inside. Then she covered the Honda with a tarp so it couldn’t be seen from the street, went out, and returned with a bag of tacos.

  “So what is your next move?” Reba asked now. “I mean, we love having you here, but we know it’s not for long.”

  “I’m not sure,” Cece said.

  “I am,” Lila said.

  Reba and Cece looked at her.

  “I’ve been thinking. We’ve been lucky the guy in the rental truck hasn’t found us. But that doesn’t mean he won’t. It’s not safe for us here. Or for you.” She bent down and picked up a stone. “The man on the motorcycle is still out there, too.”

  Reba nodded. “Your dad told us about him.”

  The word “dad” rolled over Reba’s tongue so easily, Lila noticed.

  “I reckon you should consider that a back-handed compliment.”

  “What?” Lila palmed the stone.

  “That you’re so hard to pin down they have to send two teams.” The path they were on made a sharp turn left. Reba followed it, then stopped. “One thing don’t make sense, though.”

  “What?”

  “We know why they’re gunning for Dar. The question is why they’re trying to kill you.”

  “Does it really matter? The end result is still the same. We have to stay one step in front of them. Until we stop Markham.”

  “How?” Cece asked.

  “I don’t know.” Lila made the turn on the path. “But I’m not going to let some politician control whether I live or die.” She rolled the stone in her hand. “I do want to know why they’re suddenly using a rental truck. Compared to a motorcycle, it’s slow and awkward.”

  “I guess it depends what’s inside,” Reba said.

  “You think they stashed something in back? Like weapons or explosives?”

  “Or a motorcycle.”

  Lila raised her eyebrows. “A Trojan horse.”

  “Or someplace to squirrel you away once they get you,” Reba said.

  “If it’s a rental,” Cece asked, “couldn’t we track down who signed for it?”

  “Unless it’s really not a rental, and they just painted it to look like one,” Lila said.

  “If that’s the case,” Reba said, “it would be a huge time suck to try.”

  “Plus give them more time to find Lila,” Cece added.

  “Markham would have the resources to pull off something like that, don’t you think?” Lila pocketed the stone.

  “I think.” Reba stopped at a low-hanging branch. She bent bac
k a dead branch, but it was too thick to snap off. She dug her hand into her jeans pocket, pulled out her HideAway knife, and started sawing through it instead.

  When Lila saw the knife, she froze. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Why?”

  “Someone sent one just like that to me.”

  “Now, is that a fact?” Reba turned around slowly. She and Cece exchanged glances.

  Lila caught it. “It was you! You sent it. How … ”

  “It was Dar.” Cece corrected her.

  Reba nodded. “He wanted to know all about ‘em when he was here. I told him no woman should be without one.”

  Lila spread her hands. “I left mine at Danny’s apartment. With everything else.”

  Reba kept hacking at the branch. Finally it snapped off. She stripped off the smaller twigs, turned it upside-down, and started using it as walking stick. “Well, then, I’d better teach you how to use mine.”

  After dinner that night, Benny and Reba went into the kitchen to wash up. Cece started a load of laundry, while Dar and Lila stayed in the living room, watching the local news. The search for the “missing Evanston woman” was no longer the top story, but a reporter, citing the recent deaths of Casey and Daniel Hilliard, followed so quickly by Lila’s disappearance, couldn’t help speculate about the “star-crossed Hilliard family.”

  Lila squirmed. “Maybe it’s time to go to the press.”

  “With what?” Dar asked.

  “The fact that we’ve been stalked. And shot at. There is the police report from the Gold Coast.”

  “Which they can explain away as a drive-by.”

  “What about the house burning down?”

  “A tragic accident.”

  “And the grenade?”

  “Dar Gantner, himself convicted forty years ago of using explosives … ” Dar shrugged. “It’s too risky. And circumstantial. We need more solid evidence.”

  Lila frowned.

  Dar muted the TV. Commercials whizzed by in a dizzying series of cuts and colors. He was about to turn it off when Lila said, “Wait.”

  He looked over.

  “I just remembered something. From the day of the fire, when Danny and my father … ” She cut herself off.

  “What?”

  “There was a rental truck outside the house before it happened. It was on the street when I went to the store to get Christmas lights. I’m sure of it.”