Don Winslow - California Fire And Life

Hears himself yell that.

Hears himself.

And lets up.

Drags Nicky out of the water by the back of his neck and drops him on the beach. Nicky coughing and sputtering and gasping for air.

And Jack swears he can hear a damn dog barking.

He looks up the beach where the Monarch Bay community juts out from the coastline.

The trees are on fire.

Chimneys going up.

Jack starts running.

Natalie holds Michael tight.

Keeping him warm.

Shielding him from the cold salt spray coming off the waves.

Evacuate, the voice had said. Evacuate, she remembered, meant to get out, so she grabbed Michael and got out of the house even before the fire had spread from the tree to the roof.

Out onto the lawn and then the street, and all the people were headed out toward the highway, the Pacific Coast Highway, but Natalie decided that all the people were wrong, because they seemed to be heading into the fire.

So Natalie stopped and thought about it for a few seconds and decided that the safest place to be in a fire would be by water, by the ocean, and that way even if the fire burned all the way down to the beach, they could always jump into the ocean and swim until the fire went out.

So she took Leo under her arm and Michael by the hand and led them down toward the beach. Down the steps toward Salt Creek Beach where Aunt Letty had taken them Boogie boarding and they had gone for picnics and looking for crabs and snails in the tidal pools.

Because Aunt Letty will be looking for us, Natalie thinks, and she will know to come here.

Jack's running along the beach, the bluffs above him on fire, the peninsula of Monarch Bay smoking, and the smoke is thickening. It's hard to see and he doesn't know how he's going to find Michael and Natalie and he's just hoping that they got out of there, and then he hears this dog yipping.

The kids recognize him.

Go to him because he's an adult they know here.

"Where's my daddy?" Michael asks.

Black eyes big and full of tears.

Natalie asks, "Where's Aunt Letty?"

"I don't know," Jack says. "Has she been here?"

Natalie does a little pirouette of anxiety.

Of course she's here, Jack thinks. She's here for the same reason I'm here. Oh, God, I hope she didn't go to the house.

"It's going to be all right," Jack says, holding them. "It's going to be all right."

Because people will lie.

Their mom is dead.

Their dad killed her.

And the last person who loved them is maybe looking for them where they aren't — namely, in another burning house.

And waiting in the wings is Mother Russia.

But Jack repeats, "It's going to be all right."

He heads up for the house.

It's on fire.

He goes in. Hard to see, hard to breathe. The house is filling with smoke.

"Letty! Letty!"

He makes his way up the stairs to the kids' room.

She's facedown on the bed.

"Oh, no. Oh, no."

He turns her over.

"Don't be dead. Please don't be dead."

She's unconscious but still breathing. He picks her up and carries her down the stairs.

Which are on fire.

Too many flames, too much smoke.

And she might not have the time.

So he plunges through it.

Comes out the other side, comes out the door into the smoky air and lays her down.

"Please don't die. Please don't die."

She starts to cough. Cough and then breathe and then her eyes open. When she can speak she asks about the kids.

He picks her up again and carries her down the point to the beach.

When they get there, Nicky is standing with his kids, his arms wrapped protectively around them.

Jack leans in to him, whispers something into his ear.

Let's do a deal.

The next afternoon.

The sun is high and hot over a landscape burned black. Ashes still float in the mild breeze.

Jack sits waiting in the front seat of a used pickup in the parking lot of Dana Strand Beach. Letty sits beside him. She chews on a broken fingernail.

"He'll be here," Jack says.

She nods and goes back to chewing her nail.

Five long minutes go by, and then Jack sees the black Mercedes snake around the curve of Selva into the parking lot.

"Here they come," he says.

The Mercedes pulls alongside. Dani gets out, nods, and then Nicky gets out of the car. Jack gets out of the truck. They meet between the two cars.

"We have a deal?" Nicky asks.

"You have your money, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Then we have part of a deal."

Nicky nods.

Then he hands Jack the signed papers terminating his parental rights over Natalie and Michael. Tom Casey drew up the papers, so Jack is confident they're airtight. He checks Nicky's signature and says, "Looks okay to me."

Nicky walks back to the Mercedes. The door opens and the kids come out, blinking in the harsh sunlight. Natalie has Leo under her arm. Nicky puts his arms around their shoulders and says, "Daddy's going to be very busy for the next little while so you're going to stay with Aunt Letty for a few months, all right?"

They nod and hug him and there are a few tears.

Letty comes over and Nicky ushers the children over to her.

"Take good care of them," Nicky says.

"Kids, go wait in the car for Aunt Letty, okay?" she says.

When they're gone, she says, "In six months I adopt them."

"As you wish."

Letty looks hard at him.

"What kind of man trades his own children?" she asks.

"That's what Mother asked me," Nicky says. "She is devastated."

He pauses for a second, then adds, "But alive."

He walks over to Jack.

Nicky laughs. "Our deal is concluded then? Jack Wade, who doesn't do deals?"

Nicky gets the $50 million. Jack and Letty agree never to seek or aid any prosecution. Jack agrees to walk away from everything he knows about Nicky, California Fire and Life and all the rest of it. Sandra Hansen gets her snitch.

Olivia Hathaway gets paid for her spoons.

"It was an accidental fire and an accidental death," Jack says.

"I just wanted to hear you say it," Nicky says. "So, it's over."

"It's history," Jack says. "As long as you never go back on any of it."

"You have my word."

He offers his hand.

Jack says, "Go to hell."

"Are you so sure," Nicky asks, "that I'm not already there?"

Jack and Letty stand and watch the car drive away.

She says, "And he gets away with murder."

"And two kids get a life," Jack says. "That's a deal you'd make every time, right?"

"Yup."

Some deals, Jack thinks, you just have to make.

Part of life, knowing when to settle.

Letty asks, "Will you be coming out tonight?"

"No."

"This weekend?"

Jack shakes his head.

Letty asks, "You aren't coming, are you?"

"Part of the deal," Jack says. "They want me gone. Out of the state."

Out of the country, too. Past subpoena power. They want a little insurance for their part of the deal, Nicky and Cal Fire and Life. They get their money, they get my silence, they get back to business as usual.

And I get gone.

And if you really get honest, you know it's for the best, Jack thinks. The kids are hurt and confused enough. They don't need to deal with a new "Daddy" in their lives. They're going to have a tough enough ride. They need Letty's undivided attention and that's what she's going to want to give. They don't need some Mommy-Daddy Insta-Kit laid on them.

Letty says, "That's a hell of a price, Jack."

"Worth it, though."

He nods toward Letty's car.

"Worth it," she says.

She squeezes his hand. "I love you, Jack."

"I love you, Letty."

She lets go.

"Come tell them goodbye, anyway."

Jack walks over to Letty's car. The kids are in the front seat, the dog stretched across their laps.