Т Паркер - The Room of White Fire

Casita three is vacant but listed.

I’m a landlord because I need the money. Can’t remember a single time when all of my tenants — not counting Wesley Gunn — paid their rent on the first of any month.

At any rate, this was home and I was happy to be there. I poured a large bourbon on ice, wiped a lemon wedge around the rim of the glass, gave it a squeeze and dropped it in. I like alcohol as much as I like tobacco, which means I have to say no to myself a lot. I’m fair at that. I nuked some good barbecue leftovers that probably Lindsey Rakes had put in the fridge for me.

I fully reclined in the living room reading chair with Clay Hickman’s file on my chest. Judging by weight, Paige Hulet had done a good job on the file. Maybe used all the time she saved not dancing. She’d assembled not only a detailed treatment history at Arcadia, complete with Hickman’s long formulary and notes from her sessions with him, but also his DoD service record and medical charts subsequent to his discharge from the Air Force. Plus, a good accounting of Clay’s run-ins with the law, via police reports and court records.

I tore through the bio all the way to where Clay Browne Hickman was born to Rex Gayle Hickman and Patricia Browne Hickman on October 7, 1988.

When my phone rang deep in some uneasy dream, I read the time as I answered it: 3:55 a.m.

“Mr. Ford, it’s Sequoia. My truck just drove up so I think he’s here. I better go.”

I made good time, turning from the state route onto Sequoia’s dirt road in the dark of five in the morning. I cut the headlights and clipped right along, the rocks rapping the underside of the truck like small-arms fire. The first two years after my tour of duty I heard those pops everywhere I went, even in my dreams. Less now.

Coming around a bend I saw the Lazy Daze sign lit from below by one weak floodlight. Beyond the sign stood the squad of Airstream trailers, faintly luminescent in the trees. A light was on inside Sequoia’s trailer but there was no small silver pickup truck in sight. What looked like Sequoia’s sister’s car waited in the faint porch light downslope, beside another Airstream.

I turned slowly into Lazy Daze and picked my way past the unlit manager’s residence. I parked and zipped my jacket against the mountain cold. Things felt nervy and wrong. Scar on my forehead was tingling, never a good sign. Clay Hickman had apparently come and gone and... done what? I was responsible for Sequoia Blain, and it was on me if Clay hurt her. Or worse. She was a free-spirited girl and he was a physically fit psychotic male with a history of violence. She’d quickly allied herself with him against odds and logic, as only a free-spirited nineteen-year-old would do.

In the rearview mirror I saw a pale SUV cruising slowly down the dirt road from the direction I’d come, raising a little cloud of dust behind it. Ten seconds later a bulky, dark muscle car — looked like a Chrysler — followed through that diminishing cloud, leaving one of its own.

I crunched across the pine needles and down a short pathway to Sequoia’s deck. Took the steps quietly and stood close enough to the trailer to feel the cold coming off its body. Heard nothing inside. The door handle turned freely and the door opened: small dining area, light shining softly down. Empty table, bench seats. Down the short hallway to my left, the bedroom door was open. I looked behind me to the parking area and the dirt road beyond it, then stepped inside the Airstream.

Smell of coffee and dish soap. “Sports fans? Just your friendly neighborhood PI here. Sequoia? Clay?”

Stone silence, so I walked two short steps down the hallway, felt the whole trailer rocking with my weight. Turned on the bathroom light, saw little, then took another step and squeezed through the bedroom doorway. Found the light, picked up the faint scent of laundry soap and bleach. Closet open: two pairs of green cargo pants and two tan short-sleeved blouses with Wild Animal Park emblems on the sleeves. Parting the window curtain slightly, I looked out to the manager’s cabin, where a light was now on. No movement inside. Dirt road, pines against the gray sunrise.

Back to the bathroom, oddly empty. No toothbrush or toothpaste, no shampoo, no deodorant, no perfume.

No problem. I’m hearing you, Sequoia.

Kitchen again. Fridge lightly stocked. By the sink a plastic grocery bag stuffed with more plastic grocery bags. Coffeemaker grounds still warm and damp.

Off on an adventure, I thought. Home and job now distant blips in the rearview of a trashed silver pickup. Plastic bags for luggage, a cute hunk calling himself Jason Bourne for company. What more could a girl ask for?

I crunched across the needle-covered grounds to Sequoia’s sister’s trailer. No light on, no car out front, and no one answered the door. A squirrel undulated across the grounds and climbed a tree, pausing to consider me, tail waving.

When the manager answered her trailer door, she looked and smelled as if she’d slept through a fifth and a beer or two. She hadn’t seen Sequoia since the day before, had neither seen nor heard anything unusual earlier this morning. She studied my card as if it were a complex legal document. “I sleep like the dead,” she said.

I nodded.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Rolando. Sequoia’s a good girl. Early riser. You don’t worry about her. I’ll have her call you.”

I started up my truck and checked my phone. Watched the rearview for a minute for a pale SUV or a black muscle car, saw only the dirt road and a pair of crows squabbling in the trees beyond. I wondered what exactly they had to argue about, but every creature has its grievance. I had mine right at that moment: It annoyed me that my target, Clay, and my semiresponsibility, Sequoia, were now in the wind together, not far from here, in a vehicle that would be easy to find. Easy if you’re a cop, that is. As a deputy I’d have hot-listed the truck plates and stood a good chance of it being pulled over within an hour. I miss that power sometimes. But I had not been a good team player. I would have loved to have had some of that power again just long enough to find Clay Hickman and get him back to Arcadia.

I thought of calling Sequoia, but that could surprise or anger Hickman. I didn’t want an angered psychopath driving around with a trusting teen.

I called Dr. Paige Hulet and told her I’d be at Arcadia by nine that morning to talk to some of Clay Hickman’s friends.

“Yes, yes, Mr. Ford, I’ll make sure. That he’s available. There’s one best friend, really. I can do that.” She sounded flustered and short of breath, or both.

“You’re okay, Doctor?”

“Yes. Of course. I’m on the treadmill.”

“Aren’t we all?”

She rang off.

Clay’s best friend at Arcadia was Evan Southern. Dr. Hulet introduced us out at the pool. Mid-morning, and the April day was sunny and cool, showers in the forecast. Southern wore seersucker shorts and leather deck shoes and a white pullover sweater with navy trim on the cowl and cuffs. His tortoiseshell glasses magnified his eyes, which were blue. He was deeply tanned and parted his hair, dark brown, in the middle. He looked to be in his late twenties. Evan removed his earbuds and rose slowly from the thick blue pad of the chaise longue. “A friend of Clay? Why, this is a pleasant surprise. Where has that boy gotten to?” I heard the South in Southern’s speech.

Dr. Hulet excused herself, then walked away along the pool edge. Evan watched her, exhaled audibly, and offered his hand. “I’m not surprised by Clay,” he said, not much above a whisper. “We need to talk. But we need to move. There are microphones and cameras hidden in the trees, and some of the birds you see are actually surveillance drones. So speak quietly and face the ground if possible. Come.”