A Fire in the Night

by Christopher Swann

  Annalise threw the blanket off and crawled up onto the back seat. “God, I’m going to barf,” she said.

  Nick pressed a button to roll down the back window. “Take deep breaths,” he said. “We’ll be out of the big turns in a few minutes.”

  Annalise leaned against the door, eyes shut, hair whipping around from the open window.

  “You okay?” Nick asked, glancing in the rearview mirror.

  She kept her eyes shut. “Trying not to puke here.”

  Nick took the hint and shut up. Ten minutes later, when they had come down the worst of the hairpin turns, Annalise was sitting up straighter and Nick had put the windows back up. “God, that sucked,” Annalise said.

  “Mountain roads can do a number on your stomach.”

  “Especially if you’re lying on the floor of a car under a blanket.”

  “Didn’t want to risk somebody in town seeing you.” Without taking his eyes off the road, Nick picked up a cap from the front seat and held it back to Annalise. “Speaking of, put your hair back and put this on.”

  Annalise took the cap. “Bass Pro Shop,” she read off the cap. “Awesome. Why am I wearing this?”

  “You want to get back under the blanket?”

  Annalise made a face, but she took an elastic band off her wrist and pulled her hair into a ponytail, then slapped the cap on her head. “Sweet hat,” she said. “This is a serious look. Do you have any water?”

  “There’s a bottle in the door cupholder back there.”

  Annalise opened a bottle and sipped. “So,” she said, tightening the cap back on the bottle, “why are we going to Charlotte?”

  “There was a phone number on the back of the piece of paper you gave me. It’s for a private investigator in Charlotte. I called it from the store where I got you the clothes. Guy says he has something for me.”

  “Who, Halliwell? You think my dad hired this Halliwell guy?”

  “Place is called Lapidus Investigations. Don’t know what Halliwell is. Lapidus wouldn’t say over the phone.”

  “Oh,” Annalise said. “That’s the FL in front of the number. Think that’s Lapidus’ name or whatever?”

  “That’s one of the things I’ll find out.”

  “We,” Annalise said. “That we are going to find out.”

  Nick didn’t respond, just tightened his grip on the steering wheel slightly.

  THE RAIN HAD moved off for good and the sun shone in a clear sky. They drove through small towns in a long valley arrowing to the northeast. Mountains rose on either side like the rounded shoulders of giants.

  “I’m hungry,” Annalise said.

  “You wanted to throw up half an hour ago.”

  “Well, now I’m hungry. I’m a teenager—it’s a metabolism thing.”

  “Let’s get to the highway first.”

  “There’s a Burger King right over there.”

  Nick shot her another look in the rearview mirror. “We’re stopping once for gas and for food, and we’ll do it at the highway.”

  “Sheesh, okay,” Annalise said, holding up her hands in surrender.

  When they hit I-26 in Fletcher, Nick filled up at a gas station. When he went inside to pay, he also grabbed a pair of sunglasses. He walked back to the car and found that Annalise had moved up to the front passenger seat, still wearing the Bass Pro Shop cap.

  “Perfect,” Annalise said when he handed her the sunglasses. “Now I’ll look like I’m fleeing the paparazzi. No gas station candy?”

  “Candy?”

  “Everybody knows gas station candy is the best. They have stuff you can’t buy in Target or whatever. Like Now and Laters, and Hot Tamales. Giant Twix.” She looked at him expectantly.

  Nick got back in the driver’s seat and started the car. “I’m not going back in to buy candy,” he said.

  Annalise rolled her eyes. “Fine. Can I turn on the radio?”

  “No.”

  Annalise put the sunglasses on and turned to look out her window.

  They drove to a nearby Wendy’s and got in line for the drive-through. “What do you want?” Nick asked.

  She shrugged, still looking out the side window.

  “Annalise,” he said.

  “I don’t care,” she said, still looking out her window.

  Nick failed to bite back a sigh.

  She turned to look at him. “I’m sorry,” she said, “am I annoying you?”

  “A little.”

  “Whatever,” she said, turning back to the window. Then: “A double-bacon cheeseburger. Large fries, large Coke. And a smoothie.”

  “You sure that’s enough?”

  “This is the worst road trip ever.”

  “I did want you to stay at my house.”

  “Shit,” Annalise said, then again, louder, “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “I left my phone at your house. I wanted to get a charger. Shit.”

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER they were on the interstate. Annalise had devoured all her food and sat slumped in the passenger seat, the cap pulled down low. She hadn’t said a word since they’d left the Wendy’s. Nick left her alone and drove. They were making good time, and he thought they would reach Charlotte before two. But Annalise’s silence filled the car.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” Nick said.

  Annalise turned her head toward him, her face largely hidden behind the sunglasses.

  He kept his eyes on the road. “I’m sorry for saying you were annoying earlier.”

  Silence.

  “It’s just a lot to process,” he said.

  “I can relate,” Annalise said.

  Don’t be a smartass, Ellie said. She’s hurt and scared and still angry. Be kind.

  “I just met you,” Nick continued. “And you don’t really know me at all.” He glanced at her, then back at the road. “And I know you’re scared and pissed off. I get it. I am too.”

  Annalise continued looking at him, and just as he was about to open his mouth and ask something inane, like are you okay, she said, “Good.” She shifted in her seat. “So were you really a spy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How did that happen?” she asked. “Becoming a spy?”

  He hesitated, the old habits of secrecy, of compartmentalizing his life, raising their walls. Slowly he said, “They recruited me when I got out of the Marines. They knew I wanted to get my PhD and be a professor. They helped make that happen, helped pay for school.”

  “And in return you, what, spied on other professors or something?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing like that. I taught overseas and gathered information that might be helpful, passed it on.”

  She didn’t say anything in response, and when he glanced over at her, even her sunglasses couldn’t hide her look of disappointment. It was almost funny. “I’m not James Bond,” he said. “Sorry.”

  “I was thinking more like Jason Bourne,” she said, then gave him a little smile to show she was joking. Mostly. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “Plan?”

  “When we get to Charlotte.”

  Nick thought of the pistol in his day pack, which was stowed beneath his seat.

  “We’ll go to this Lapidus Investigations office,” Nick said. “I’ve got an address.”

  Annalise glanced at the dash. “And you’ve got GPS. Nice. Welcome to the twenty-first century.”

  “I aim to please.”

  “So we go to this Lapidus Investigations. Then what?”

  “We see if we can find out why your dad hired them.”

  Annalise shifted in her seat again, as if trying to get comfortable and not succeeding. “And that might help us figure out who—who’s chasing me?”

  Nick noted that she had left out who killed my parents.

  “Yep,” he said.

  ANNALISE DOZED, HER mouth slightly open. At one point she began snorting softly, cleared her throat, and fell back asleep. At Columbus, Nick turned onto US 74 and continued driving east. A
fter an hour, on the other side of Kings Mountain, he merged onto I-85. Traffic grew heavier and the highway broadened from three lanes to four, like a river widening as it approached its mouth. The hills were behind them and they drove across flat plains, green trees bordering either side of the highway. Billboards proliferated on the roadside. They crossed the Catawba River and Nick got on 478, which circled Charlotte. According to his GPS, Lapidus Investigations was in an office park south of the airport.

  With a snort Annalise bolted upright in her seat, the sunglasses sliding down her nose. “Where are we?” she asked, her voice furred with sleep. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, then pushed the sunglasses back up.

  “Outside of Charlotte,” Nick said.

  An eighteen-wheeler passed on the left, their car rocking slightly like a rowboat in the wake of a whale.

  “I need to pee,” Annalise said.

  Nick nodded and at the next exit took the off-ramp and steered into a gas station. They parked at the pump, and Nick topped off the tank while Annalise went inside to use the restroom. She was still there when Nick went inside to pay. At the counter he hesitated, then went to look at the candy aisle.

  He was back in the car when Annalise came out of the station, her sunglasses pushed back on top of her head. When she got in the car, Nick handed her a plastic bag. “Thought you could refuel before we get there,” he said.

  She opened the bag and stared. Inside Nick had thrown an assortment of giant Twix bars, Now and Laters, Starbursts, M&M’s, and a box of Fudge Rounds.

  “Gas station candy,” Nick said. “They didn’t have any Hot Tamales.”

  Annalise’s eyes welled up and she covered her face with her hands. She released a strangled sob, her shoulders shaking with the effort.

  “Hey,” Nick said. He put his hand on her shoulder, hoping she’d find it comforting. Then a car pulled in behind him, waiting for the pump, and Nick pulled forward and drove across the station parking lot. He parked at the far end, away from the pumps and other customers, and turned off the engine. Annalise continued to cry behind her hands and Nick just sat behind the wheel, waiting it out.

  Annalise lifted her face from her hands, then wiped her arm across her eyes. “Here,” Nick said, handing her some clean napkins left over from lunch. Annalise wiped her eyes and blew her nose, then sat blinking away tears.

  “Mom always bought gas station candy,” she said, staring at the glove compartment. “Whenever we went on a road trip. Dad hated it, but Mom always insisted. It was like our dumb girls-only thing.”

  Nick nodded. “Sounds like a nice ritual.”

  Annalise looked at him. “Yeah,” she said. She reached into the bag in her lap and pulled out a pack of Starbursts. She held it out to Nick, who opened it.

  “Who liked the Starbursts, you or your mom?” he asked.

  “Both of us,” she said. “Mom would eat all of them if she could. Except the yellow ones—she said they tasted like furniture polish.”

  Nick took the first Starburst in the pack—it was yellow—and he unwrapped it and popped it in his mouth. “Your mom was right,” he said, chewing. “Tastes like a square piece of Pledge.”

  Annalise held out her hand and Nick handed her the Starbursts, then started the car so the air conditioning would run. They sat there, eating Starbursts, watching traffic pass on the interstate a hundred yards away. Nick was aware of time ticking on, but he needed to give Annalise a moment.

  “Can I ask you something about my dad?” Annalise asked.

  “Shoot,” Nick said.

  “Were you all ever close?”

  Nick looked out across the highway and turned the question over in his mind. “When we were kids,” he said. “He followed me everywhere. I taught him how to swim.” He stopped, surprised. He had forgotten that.

  “You taught him how to swim?”

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “This girl in our neighborhood, Dorothy Sullivan, had a pool, and the neighborhood kids would go over sometimes. And in the summer when we weren’t in school, our mother would either hover over Jay and baby him to death or kick both of us out of the house. So we spent a lot of time in Dorothy Sullivan’s pool, and I taught Jay how to swim. I mean, he could dog-paddle, but I taught him how to hold his breath and actually swim and all that.” He paused, remembering a six-year-old Jay popping up out of the water after swimming the length of the pool and back, the smile on his face brighter than the sunlight glancing off the water. I did it, Nick! he had crowed. Did you see me? I did it!

  “Dad taught me to swim,” Annalise said. “Actually, he took me to lessons at the Y, but he would get in the water, too, to help me practice. I’d hold on to the side of the pool and then he’d say ‘Green light!’ and I’d have to kick like crazy, then ‘Red light!’ and I’d stop.”

  Nick smiled. “I taught him that.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. He loved it.”

  Annalise grinned, then balled up a couple of Starburst wrappers and dropped them into a cupholder. “So,” she said, “where is this private investigator’s office?”

  Nick nodded and put the car in gear. “Another exit down the highway,” he said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  In his dream, Cole was standing in the backyard of his childhood home, a brick ranch in Columbia, Missouri. He was holding a G.I. Joe action figure, a favorite toy. The sky was dark, clouds roiling overhead. Wind pulled at his hair, made the stand of pine trees at the back of the yard sway and creak like ship masts. Light faded, then shifted to a greenish hue. His ears popped. Somewhere beyond the house there was a moaning roar.

  From behind the screen door to the kitchen, his father shouted, “Get in the house, boy!”

  Cole didn’t move, partly from fear, partly out of spite for his father.

  “Goddammit, boy, get in this house!”

  Cole balled his fists, the G.I. Joe figure pressing into his palm, and stood his ground. The wind thundered around him now, scraps of paper and leaves and roof tiles whirling past. The gas grill scraped across the concrete patio as if pushed by invisible hands. A loud crack and the top half of a dead pine tree toppled into the yard.

  The screen door burst open, but instead of his father it was Winslow, a charred bullet hole in his forehead, flesh rotted and slimy with seaweed, wrapped in his father’s barn coat. Winslow stalked down the stairs toward Cole. “I told you to get in the house,” he said with a leer. A baby eel slid out of his mouth and dropped wriggling to the ground.

  Cole backed away, Winslow advancing with the same leer. Cole threw the G.I. Joe figure at Winslow, who batted it away. The wind screamed, the ground shuddered. Behind Winslow, the house blew apart in a black whirlwind. And Winslow’s hands, leprous, sea-changed, reached for Cole’s throat.

  When a hand touched Cole’s shoulder, he shot up out of bed, grabbing and twisting the arm of the person who had touched him.

  “Jesus, Cole!” Zhang cried out.

  Breathing heavily, Cole realized he had Zhang on the floor of their hotel room in an armlock that threatened to break the man’s arm at the elbow. He released Zhang, who stumbled to his feet. “The fuck?” Zhang said, holding his arm.

  “Dream,” Cole said thickly. “Sorry.” He sat on the floor, leaning back against the bed. Slowly it came back to him—they were in a hotel outside Gainesville, Georgia. Looking for the girl. They’d spent yesterday afternoon canvassing hotels and found nothing. “I’m sorry,” Cole said, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “You just startled me, is all. You okay?”

  Zhang gently bent his arm at the elbow. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s good.” He hesitated, then held out his hand to help Cole stand up. Cole took it and pulled himself to his feet, then clapped Zhang on the shoulder. “What have you got?” he asked, his tone brisk.

  “I got it,” Zhang said.

  Cole glanced at Zhang’s laptop, open on the desk across the room. “Where is she?”

  “Her phone last pinged a tower
in Dillard, north of here.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday at eighteen thirty-four. That’s not all. I looked at Jay Bashir’s cell records, and last week he tried to call an 828 number twice. That’s in western North Carolina. Dillard is less than a mile from the North Carolina border. The number’s disconnected; I haven’t found it yet.”

  “Call Jonas,” Cole said. “Get them back here ASAP. Have them meet us in Dillard.” He took a pair of pants out of his duffel on the floor, started pulling them on. “We’ll drive there ourselves, pick up the girl’s scent.”

  “I looked up our resupply contact,” Zhang said. “We could stop on the way to Dillard.”

  Cole had a flash of Winslow from his dream, wrapped in his daddy’s barn coat, reaching out with his rotting hands. He shoved the memory aside and kept his voice steady. “Then that’s what we’ll do. Keep looking for that North Carolina number.”

  Zhang nodded and pulled out his cell phone. Cole went into the bathroom and closed the door, then braced his hands on the sink. Jesus, the dream had been so real. He looked up at his reflection in the spotty mirror, saw the dark smudges under his eyes, the gray in his blond hair and in the stubble on his jaw. At least he didn’t look like his old man. That asshole had been dead for twenty years, thankfully. Cole took a deep breath, let it out. Goddamn Winslow. Cole didn’t believe in ghosts any more than he believed in the Loch Ness monster, but he had a feeling Winslow might haunt his dreams for a while to come. And he’d nearly broken Zhang’s arm. He turned on the faucet and splashed water on his face. Fuck it, he thought. Focus on the girl. Get the girl, finish the job. Nothing else mattered.

  DAWES DROVE THE Suburban north on 23 out of Gainesville. The land sloped up in gentle blue folds at the horizon. Before Tallulah Falls they took a two-lane road and headed west toward pine-covered foothills reaching down from the Blue Ridge Mountains like long stony fingers.

  A few miles later Zhang, from the back seat, directed Dawes down a dirt road, the ruts wide with only an occasional spray of weeds in between. “Stop here,” Zhang said, consulting a map on his phone. The Suburban rolled to a stop on the side of the road, engine idling. Kudzu swarmed over the hillside here, choking the tree trunks and twisting halfway up a power pole. From the back seat, Poncho got out of the Suburban, a rifle slung over one shoulder, and tossed off a casual salute before disappearing into the kudzu.