Fire Away

by R. L. Syme

  “Will do.” Aidan gave her a tiny salute, as though she were his captain. He stood and gestured for Claire to follow him. “Let’s go out to my house and find that box of Jane’s stuff.”

  “Let me swing by the diner and get my car. I don’t want to leave it just parked on Main Street.” Claire shook hands with the lawyer. “Thank you, Ms. Croy. I appreciate your sensitivity about my sister.”

  Yumi nodded, her smile bright again. “We can try to keep the irrelevant pieces out of the courtroom. I’m afraid if something becomes evidentiary, we’re going to have to face it in public. And if the prosecution considers it relevant, we’re going to have to address it, one way or another. But I will do my level best.”

  Claire followed Aidan out to the truck. She was about to get in when she realized she needed to go pick up her car, and instead of saying anything, she walked, dazed, past the truck and onto the sidewalk that led back to Main Street. Aidan called after her, but she just waved at him.

  “I remember how to get out to your house. I’ll meet you there,” she called over her shoulder.

  He yelled something back, but she couldn’t really hear him.

  Claire realized they had left the box of diaries in Yumi’s office, and she quickly picked up her pace while she slid the latest diary into her purse and felt the weight of it drag her down into oblivion.

  Chapter Eight

  Aidan was shocked to see another vehicle parked at his house when he took the long turn off Sweet Mountain Road. A thick-wheeled blue Ford had sidled up next to the creek that ran along the driveway. Will Johnson leaned against his truck, pushing off when Aidan shut off his engine.

  “I just finished my shift. Figured I’d stop by on my way home.” Will shook Aidan’s hand and offered a pitying half-smile. “A couple of the guys were gonna swing by later.”

  “How come?”

  “Just to check and see how you are.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Will shielded his eyes with one hand and looked up the road. “I think they just want to make sure they check in.”

  Aidan tried to ignore the car sounds, hoping it wasn’t Claire. But the car stayed on the main road and buzzed behind him until he could no longer hear the motor.

  “Ty Carter was gonna come out here with me, but they got a call out on the edge of the Canyonlands, so he just said to pass along his offer of help if you need it. Ryan Meeks asked if you needed help taking care of the place. And Joe Walker called me on my way over here. Said we could start up a defense fund or something,” Will said.

  “I’ll ask for help if I need it, dude. I promise. It’s probably best if the guys stay away for awhile. Just to keep themselves out of the investigation.”

  Will slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “All right.” He stood awkwardly, as though waiting for something. This baffled Aidan. The two typically never ran out of small talk topics. In a lull, sports would invariably come up, although to be fair, July was the least interesting month on the planet for sports-related small talk.

  Aidan remembered one thing he had wanted to ask, but decided to approach the topic with a sort of benign disinterest, in case his instinct was wrong.

  “Say, do you know Allan VonBrandt?”

  “Sure. The deputy.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “He’s a nice guy. A little aloof, maybe, but I’ve had a beer with him a couple of times. Not married. Lives out with the rest of the VonBrandts out there on the way to Bluebonnet Lake, although I’ve never been to his house. Why?”

  Aidan shrugged. “I’d just heard a rumor about him having a lot of clout over at the Sheriff’s department. Thought he might be worth talking to.”

  “He definitely has a nose for criminals. The way your dad has a nose for arson.”

  “Do you think he has the ear of the Sheriff?”

  “Well, of course he does. He works with the man.”

  “I mean, can Allan influence him do something?”

  “Randall?” Will smiled and kicked at a rock. “Pretty much anyone can influence Randall. No matter how that man pretends, he is obsessed with public opinion. If you can convince him that people will care more about your cause than another, he’s on your side.”

  Aidan’s insides shifted. If Jeff was right, and the Sheriff wasn’t the only one listening to Allan, then Aidan might have to consider running after all.

  But could he take Jeff Young’s word for it?

  Will made a casual salute. “I’ll see you around, Aidan. Don’t be a stranger.”

  Aidan turned to the house. It had taken him almost four years to finish rebuilding after the fire, and just about twice as long to recover from it.

  He could still remember the first time he set foot in Somewhere after the fire. His parents had opened their home to him for several months, but when the winter passed it was time to rebuild. He’d moved back to his own home and only left the house for shopping and work. The judgment of the people in Somewhere had eaten him up for years after that. Made him go elsewhere to get his essentials, his supplies, his community.

  The firehouse was different. Sure, there were a few guys on the crew that took some time to believe what he told them. But he never felt the open hostility from them the way he did at the Sack’n’Save or at Everyday Joe’s or Chandler Hardware. Nowhere felt safe in Somewhere.

  If the people in Spicewood had heard about the fire or about Jane, none of them knew who Aidan was, and they paid him no mind. He soon became a regular face there.

  He’d tried to date a few times—girls he met at the Old Town Saloon in Spicewood, or at the Fourth of July party. Never another girl from Somewhere. They were nice enough girls, just not for him.

  But when he saw Claire again…

  Something started firing inside that hadn’t fired in a long, long time. It could be nostalgia. There was that. But he hoped it was more than that. For the first time since high school, he couldn’t stop thinking about a girl.

  It was driving him crazy.

  ***

  Claire sipped on the iced mocha she’d picked up from the Hot Java Hut. She couldn’t believe the hut was still there, where Carbon Road forked with Sweet Mountain Road. Fading and peeling in the Texas heat, when so many towns had abandoned their huts in favor of the Wi-Fi friendly sit-down coffee shops. There was something so late-90s about driving through a coffee hut.

  She liked that, in many ways, Somewhere hadn’t changed since she left. But when she pulled down the long driveway to Aidan and Jane’s… well, it wasn’t Aidan and Jane’s anymore.

  The squat, square cabin-y house had been replaced by a narrow, two-story, stone and siding place. It was sleek and modern and beautiful.

  As she stepped out of the car, Claire wondered if there was any of the old house structure under there, at all, or if Aidan had demolished the whole thing in order to build fresh.

  She would have demolished.

  The entry was still in the same place, centered on the driveway, but there was a beautifully-hewn stone walkway winding up to the front steps, instead of the old worn footpath.

  This was an adult’s house.

  Claire knocked on the heavy door and Aidan opened it almost before she’d finished. He had changed into a fresh t-shirt and a pair of worn jeans. His feet were bare and the floor was clean under them. Claire resisted the urge to run her hands over the muscles she could see under the t-shirt. She still couldn’t help the urge to touch him every time she saw him.

  And she still couldn’t forget his confession about wanting to kiss her. He felt something, too, and it kept giving her the shivers.

  Claire followed him into the kitchen, where a canvas bag sat on the counter. It had the snarling stallion logo of the Long Rock High School Mustangs emblazoned across the front in the orange and black school colors. Texas Orange, Aidan had once pointed out to her. Around here, even the sunrise was Texas Orange.

  There were a few things lying beside it. A couple of notebooks t
hat, when Claire picked them up, looked like they contained notes from phone messages she’d been taking at work. A large mug with the old Central Perk logo, clean. Another mug with the same Mustangs picture along one side.

  Aidan picked up the high school mug and turned it over. “It’s hard to believe it was so long ago.” He fingered the snarl on the horse’s mouth. “Feels like yesterday, still.”

  Claire pulled the bag toward her. “Really? To me, it’s been forever. I guess, though, I didn’t graduate from this school, so it kinda didn’t end for me.”

  A somber look crossed Aidan’s face. “I forgot you finished high school in Dallas.”

  “Private school.” Claire found a black notebook hiding underneath a sweatshirt and other assorted personal items. She flipped it open, through several pages of phone numbers and addresses. “Still. No one talked about Jane. Not even my parents. So it was sometimes like the whole first seventeen years of my life just never happened.”

  She focused in on the words on the page and her heartbeat raced.

  Website: roebuck718

  Work: roebuck718

  School: sweetmountain2538

  Claire recognized the two addresses Claire had lived at. 718 Roebuck Avenue in Somewhere, Texas. And then the address here, at her house on Sweet Mountain Road.

  Two more entries were listed on that small page and Claire didn’t recognize either one.

  Hotmail: craterlake411

  AOL: sagebrush1889

  Aidan came to look over her shoulder. “You stopped talking. I wondered what you found.”

  Claire pulled her elbow into her body, protecting the latest diary, snug in her purse. But Aidan was too engrossed in the notebook.

  “Jeez, Claire. Are those email passwords?”

  “Looks like. At least the password wasn’t password. That would have been more Jane’s speed.”

  They both laughed for a moment. Claire was glad they could share a moment of happiness about her sister. Regardless of what she had done to Claire, or to Aidan, over the years, Jane was not a bad person. Claire had loved her as a teenager and loved her still.

  “I wonder if we can still access these.” Claire looked around for a computer. “I know her Hotmail username.”

  “I don’t remember her having an AOL account, though.” Aidan reached under the counter and produced a laptop. “Let me look up the Hotmail address.”

  Claire kept flipping through pages in the black notebook, but the rest of them were blank. Not even a stray note written somewhere.

  Aidan typed a few keystrokes. “Dammit.”

  “What?”

  “The Hotmail address isn’t valid anymore.”

  “You tried sweetbabyjane99?”

  Aidan nodded. “It says there’s no user by that name.”

  “Did you try duplicating her school address?”

  “The janelindseymilton one?”

  “Yes.”

  He typed another few keystrokes. “Nope. I’m pretty sure it was sweetbabyjane. Wait. Let me click this.” He threw up his hands. “Hotmail addresses are somewhere else now, so they probably closed all the dormant accounts. I think this may be a dead end.”

  “Well, let’s at least try the AOL one.” Claire pointed to the password.

  Aidan typed the password as he read, then clicked somewhere. Claire nearly held her breath.

  “Good Lord. Security questions.”

  Claire walked around to stand behind him, leaving the notebook on the counter. She read the screen.

  “The first one is my Mom’s maiden name. McAdams, of course.”

  “The second one, I don’t know.”

  Claire read aloud from the second security question. “The name of your first childhood pet.” She laughed. “Oh, of course she would. And I can’t really remember. I think it might have been Banjo, but I can’t remember for sure.”

  “Should we call your parents?”

  Claire froze. Calling her parents would mean admitting that she was digging through Jane’s things. Not to mention the fact that her mother would ask where she was. And why she wanted to know.

  She racked her memory and came up empty.

  “Should we try Banjo? Or ask for another question?”

  Claire ran her fingers over her bulging cell phone. Her mother would certainly know. And if they asked for another question, they might lose the one they already knew.

  “Let’s just try Banjo.”

  When Aidan clicked that mouse, the whole room froze for a moment like a paused movie. Claire wasn’t even sure they would have been able to get in after all this time, but to get the passwords… and to know the security questions… oh, please, God.

  Aidan smiled over his shoulder and Claire’s stomach did a high dive. “We’re in.”

  First, there was a warning about dormant accounts and a request to enter a cell number or secondary email address as backup. Claire gave him her address, just to be safe, in case they got security questions they couldn’t answer next time.

  If there was a next time.

  Once they got to the Inbox, they both sighed in loud relief, then laughed. The last email at the top of the page was dated ten years previous, the same day as the fire.

  Claire would never forget that date. She glanced down at the notebook, then held Aidan’s arm before he could click on anything. “Remember, we said we’d call Yumi.”

  “I want to read these emails.” Aidan expelled a long breath and turned to face her. The air around them buzzed and she found herself breathing raggedly, in and then out, waiting for him to make a move, to do something.

  “I need to know what really happened, Claire. And if there’s something in these emails. I just… I need to know.”

  “Just let me call Yumi. See what she thinks.”

  Claire pulled out her cell and dialed the number. As she sat on hold, the notebook caught her eye, laying open on the counter. She pointed to the small page.

  “I noticed this before. What do you think? Her first two passwords, here, were addresses. But these two, I don’t recognize.”

  Aidan glanced at the notebook. “1887 Sage Brush Road is the firehouse.” He fingered over the other. “Crater Lake. I don’t recognize that one.”

  Yumi came on the line and Claire quickly gave her the rundown of what they’d found.

  “Can you bring that laptop in to my office? Don’t close the window, and don’t open any of the emails, but bring it directly in to my office.”

  Claire nodded, then realized the lawyer couldn’t see her. “Yes,” she said. She was about to tell Aidan when she saw what he was doing. He had the internet mapping software open and was dialing down onto 411 Crater Lake, in Somewhere, TX.

  The location was way off to the west of town, north of the big cattle ranches that all seemed to be clustered there on the edge of the Canyonlands.

  “We’ll be right there,” Claire promised. “Aidan, don’t close that AOL tab. We have to take your computer and all this stuff in to Yumi right now.”

  Aidan held up a hand, as though asking her to stop. “I know this area. I need to find out who lives out here.”

  “That’s not going to help anyone.” Claire pulled at his shoulder. “We have to take the computer to Yumi.”

  “I need to do something first.” Aidan pushed the laptop closed and slung it under his arm. He grabbed Claire’s hand and pulled her behind him. She reached for the notebook and just barely caught it on their way out the door.

  Chapter Nine

  The sun was getting ready to set in Somewhere, TX, and Aidan thought about all the years that had passed as he drove through town on his way out to Crater Lake Road. This place was the same as it had always been. The horizon was that pretty orangey red and the sun was just barely sitting above the buildings as they drove toward the foothills.

  “Do you know what’s out that way?” Claire asked.

  “By Crater Lake Road?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve never heard of it
. The computer found it, so it’s gotta exist.”

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t go see Yumi first?” There was a touch of worry in Claire’s voice and Aidan felt a pang of guilt, deep in his stomach. He shouldn’t have brought her with him.

  “I just need to see what is out here. I’m not going to do anything. I promise.”

  Claire folded her hands. “I trust you, Aidan.”

  “Say, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Are you ever going to tell me why you were at the bakery?”

  “I’m not getting married or anything, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Aidan smiled. That thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. Somehow, he’d known that she was alone. Like him.

  “I guess it’s been so long since I’ve seen you. I want to know what your life has been like since you left. You seemed pretty mad that Marin wanted that cake for her wedding. I figured there must be a reason.”

  Claire looked out the window. “My life since I left?” She shook her head wistfully. “Honestly, it feels a world away. Like I can’t remember it.”

  “I know the feeling.” Aidan leaned toward her, trying to offer some solace, but she kept staring at something far off in the distance. They passed the hospital complex and were out in the open country again, northwest of town.

  “Tande Walker and I went to college together in Austin, y’know. We’ve been friends for… wow… ten years now.”

  “Joe’s sister?”

  “Good old Joe.” He could hear the smile in her voice. Everyone did love Joe Walker. But a part of him hoped she wasn’t about to follow this up with her undying love for Joe. Cuz. Y’know. A guy can only take so much surprise in one day.

  “So you know Tande?”

  “We were both design majors, then we lived together. Worked at the same firm for awhile, before…” She trailed off.

  Aidan turned off Old Tyler Road just past the DD Ranch. At the edge of the property, he could see Derrek Diaz pitching hay off the end of his old pickup truck.

  Derrek waved and Aidan saluted. Another high school friend he’d lost touch with. Of course, both the Diaz kids were younger than him. Closer to Claire’s age. He wondered if maybe Derrek had seen Claire and was waving at her instead.