I see Libby DeVille—soot-smeared and crying—and I grab her arm. “Where is your friend?”
“Huh?”
“Where is Suri Dalton?”
Libby turns a circle, mouth agape. “Where
is
she? She was just here like one second ago!”
“I’ll go find her,” Hunter says.
“Oh my God, where’s Cross?” Libby’s eyes are huge. “I thought I saw him earlier, but—”
“I’ll find them.” I run around the house, dodging patches of fire on the lawn, focused on finding Carlson and Suri Dalton. I remember a foggy scene from the hospital hallway: me, dickishly asking if she had a thing for Carlson, but I push that aside as I round the house on the pool side. It’s covered tonight, and debris is raining down on the smooth cement. I want to push it back, because a pool is good in a fire, right? I don’t have time to waste, but still, I stop beside it. I’m dizzy as fuck and shaking with adrenaline and crazy, but I want to push the cement cover back. It’s not a huge pool, but it might do something.
I kneel down and push the leaves of a withered fern aside, finding the button that controls the cement pool cover, and sit there coughing and cursing as burning shit bounces off my back.
There’s something I’m supposed to do, but I can’t remember it anymore
.
As I wrack my mind, one of the last remaining first-floor doors flies open, and several men run out. They toss a cursory glance my way but keep moving toward the garden. It looks like they’re—what the fuck? Are they packing AK-47s?
No way.
What the fuck?
I’m on my feet, ready to follow them, when someone grabs me by the waist. I whirl around, howling from the pain of grabbing hands on my sore skin—and find myself facing Suri Dalton. Her face is soot-smeared and red, her hazel eyes huge.
Relief washes through me. I grab her by the arms just to make sure she’s real.
“Marchant, look,” she cries, wriggling out of my grasp and whirling toward the house. She starts to cry, and without understanding what the fuck she’s rambling about, I shove her forward. “Go around to the front! Give this place a wide berth; shit is falling. Find Rachelle and Hunter. Tell Hunter I just saw a bunch of cartel thugs—”
“They’re here for Missy!” Suri grabs me by the elbow and tugs me toward the fire. “Look
up
, Marchant! What do we do?!”
“There’s nothing we can do—” I say, looking into her eyes— “short of turning on the— I should turn on the emergency sprinkler system! Follow—”
“CROSS!” she screams, pointing, and I look up this time. “THAT’S CROSS UP THERE, MARCHANT!”
I follow her finger to find Carlson in one of the smoke-fogged, upstairs windows. I squint a little, and it looks like he’s carrying someone on his shoulders.
I turn to Suri, planning to tell her that I’m going back inside—but suddenly the cartel thugs are rushing past us, a whole fucking bunch of them dressed in fatigues, barking in Spanish, and pointing machine guns at the window over the pool, where Carlson stands.
Suri screams, and one of the Mexican fuckers looks her way, and I know that face: Jesus Cientos—a notorious drug lord who, I’m told, bought Missy King. Motherfucker’s come to take her back, and he burned down my ranch to do it!
My aim is steady. I fire twice, and he goes down. The men around him jump on my ass—or try to. I shove Suri into the trees, then lead them around, toward the side of the house. Bullets whiz past me. I shoot back: BAM BLAM BAM click click— fuck! This fucking gun only holds five rounds!
Another of them topples into a bunch of shriveled ferns. I hear the first wail of the sirens, and the rest scatter. Seconds later, there’s an explosion of glass above me, and I look up to see a bulky shadow fall toward the pool.
Then there’s water spraying everywhere, a fire truck rolling through the grass, men and women in uniforms hauling hoses and ladders. I’m walking backward, looking up at the main house. It’s almost gone. It’s already gone. Where is Suri Dalton?
I cup my hands around my mouth. “Suri? Suri!”
I shout her name for the longest time, dragging air into my stinging lungs, watching the place go down in pieces while it’s sprayed with hoses. But they’re too late. Way too late.
The air is black, the world is orange and red. It’s hell and I
feel
like hell. And suddenly a police car is here, pulled up beside the pool. I stare at its lights, and for a second they are lights on the top of a car outside a mortuary in New Orleans. I’m going to jail for assaulting a doctor, and I don’t fucking care. As quickly as the memory comes, it goes.
Where is Suri Dalton?
I stumble forward a few steps—so close the heat stings me—and find myself staring into the eyes of a middle-aged police officer with a thin mustache.
“Marchant Radcliffe?”
I nod.
“I’m Officer Dirk Eilhert with the county police. I’m not sure where you’re headed off to, but I’m gonna ask that you stay put. We need you to—”
“No!” I shake my head. “I need to make sure everyone’s okay.”
“We’ve been working with the EMTs and we’re told no one is trapped inside.”
“Are you sure? When did they tell you that?”
“Just now.”
“Who’d they get that info from?”
“Manager. I believe the name was Rachel.”
Rachelle. My shoulders loosen. “Good.”
“Do you have any idea how the fire—”
“Hell yeah I do.” I point to the body by a burning chunk of house. “Jesus Cientos did this. Mexican drug lord motherfucker.”
“I know who he is, sir. How did he go down?”
I look from the body to the cop. “I shot him.”
His eyes widen even more, and I wonder if I should be saying these things. He writes something on his clip board, and says, “I need you to wait until we can take you down to the station for your statement—”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m not leaving. I’ll do it here.”
It takes forever for the right person to arrive, and I forget what I tell him the moment the words leave my mouth, but they work, because he leaves me with his card.
I talk to Rachelle, to Hunter and to Libby. I help people into their cars and thank the firefighters as they start coming down from their ladders. I don’t see Suri Dalton.
Smoke is pouring off the building. It’s black. Nothing but a stone shell.
I wander around it a few times, aware that other people are here, but not sure who they are or what they’re doing. It’s so dark. It doesn’t matter.
Someone comes and wants to talk about insurance, but I tell him to come back later. “It was arson,” I say. “Just ask the cops.”
I drift toward the pool and stand there, looking in the direction of the gardens, of my cottage, where my guns are. I pull a .38 out of my pocket, suddenly surprised that I have it.
I don’t want that thing. I don’t like guns. I throw it into some bushes, beside a fountain, and walk toward the pool.
My skin hurts. I’m hot. I need to get in the water.
I walk in with my eyes on the blackened shell before me. I’m choking on the smoke, but I don’t care. I’m not leaving.
The water’s cold—surprisingly so—and for a second my whole body freezes up. I know I should probably get out—I’m gonna send myself into some kind of shock, going from hot to cold like this—but the sensation is mind-numbing. I take a few more steps into the water, deep enough now so it laps at my chin.
I look up at the sky, an army of stars blotted by writhing smoke. An army of stars, looking down on the ruin all around me. I sink in to my nose, and as the water seeps into my ears, I remember something I heard a long time ago. Something I read somewhere I can’t even begin to remember, but for this sentence: “For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.”
I look up at the stars again. Then I open my mouth and inhale water.
*
SURI
The cops are still here, so I’m not alone. There are a few firefighters, too, asking me to stay away from the building as I walk around it, looking in the charred grass for my grandmother’s emerald ring. I know I won’t find it, but I have to look.
As I search the dark grass with a flashlight app on my phone, I remember how blistered Meredith’s skin looked when they loaded her into the ambulance, and how lost Cross looked beside her. That was the first moment I’ve felt at peace about Adam’s and my breakup. At peace about Cross and his choices, and about what happened between the two of us. Before the ambulance doors shut, Cross hugged me, and it felt like we were friends again. After the ambulance doors shut, I thought about the look on Cross’s face—one of total devastation—and I knew Adam wouldn’t have looked that way about me. He would have been upset and unhappy, sure, but never devastated. Honestly, I can’t say I would have been devastated if that had been Adam in the ambulance.
I glance up at what remains of the building. Made to look like an English manor house, the “main house” was made of stone and wood. It’s situated between two smaller replicas; one of which got burned some, the other of which did not. The main house, of course, is all but gone.
I wonder how hot the fire must have been to crumple the stone. The building is still pouring smoke, emitting enough heat to make me sweat from thirty feet away. In some places, you can see down to the charred twigs of the house’s foundation. In one spot, I can see what’s left of a large bed-frame.
It’s hard to believe that a few hours ago this place was fully operational and now it’s just…decimated. Gone, the beauty of the rugs and bookshelves. Gone, my luggage and clothes. Gone, the open bar, the plush beds, soft rugs.
Less than three hours ago, I was consoling Lizzy about her pregnancy. How did that night turn into
this
? How could anyone be so filled with hate and evil that they chase a victimized woman into another country and try to kill her?
It makes me feel ill.
I look up when I see the darting blue-green light coming from the pool. A light breeze ripples the water’s surface, casting shadows through the glowing water. It’s so pretty, compared to the devastation around it, that for a second I just stare. And that’s when I notice:
There’s something big and dark at the bottom.
I walk slowly forward, because the firefighters have said to be cautious, and the pool is right behind the charred remains of the house. My eyes are trained on the object at the bottom of the water—something about it tugs at my attention, but I have no idea what it is. A chunk of the roof? A piece of the window Cross and Merri jumped out of?
I step onto the pool’s cement deck, and all the air goes out of my lungs.
Holy shit, that’s a
person!
I hesitate for a moment—long enough to ask myself if this person might still be alive—before realizing I’m wasting precious time. I kick my shoes off and dive into the deep end of the heart-shaped pool.
The water is breathtakingly cold. I open my eyes and kick toward the bottom, stretching my arms to reach for this person.
It’s dark at the bottom of the pool, so it isn’t until I’ve grabbed the person’s large shoulders that I see the outline of his face.
NO FREAKING WAY.
It’s him.
It’s Marchant Radcliffe, I think.
I know.
The shock of it is almost enough to send me racing for the surface. But I can see him laughing at my panic. I thread my arms under his, kick off the bottom of the pool, and scissor my legs as hard and fast as I ever have.
Don’t be dead.
Please, you freaking asshole, don’t be dead.
Oh God, what if he’s dead?
I can barely get my face above the water; he’s so heavy. When I do, I take a deep breath and begin to sob.
“Marchant… Oh, Marchant. Shit. Oh shit.” I’m babbling as I kick, reaching for the pool’s side. I grab onto a metal ladder and I let myself sink a little, swimming beneath him to turn him over, face up. His hair is in his eyes and his face is limp and lifeless as I scream, “HELP! HELP, HELP! HELP ME, PLEASE!”
I can’t get him out of the pool, so I wrap my legs around the ladder and clutch his torso. His face is so pale. Is he breathing? I can’t see his chest move. I grab his chin. Isn’t that part of CPR? It is. It definitely is. Except there’s water in his lungs! Surely there’s water in his lungs and how do you do CPR if there’s water in the lungs?!
“HELP ME! HELP!”
Why won’t anybody come?
I try to tilt his head back but he starts to sink. Shit! I don’t have a good enough grip on him. I hear footsteps and clutch him closer to me, kicking hard to keep my head above water, craning my head so I can see, over my shoulder, two figures moving fast with clomping footsteps.
“HELP ME! PLEASE!”