WHEN THE EVENING RUSH had finally subsided, Luce left the closing of the bar to Fye and her other employees, and she and Leo came to the house. I stacked wood on the hearth while breaking the news about Elana, and Willard.
“Thank God she’s not dead,” said Luce. “But that poor girl, Trudy. Didn’t anyone go looking for her?”
“She lived alone. Elana knew that, and decided to buy herself some time with texts to Trudy’s boss and posts on Facebook. It worked for a couple of days.”
Luce sat in Dono’s old wingback chair and stretched fiercely, like the topic of conversation demanded it.
“I should be happy,” Luce said, “but using Trudy’s money and things to run away just makes Elana look about as cold-hearted as anyone can get.”
“She’s desperate, maybe. It’s hard to wrap my head around Elana as a killer. Maybe she saw it happen.”
“Then why not call the police? Or Willard?”
“The cops, I can figure. Elana’s family doesn’t trust cops any more than Dono did. Why she didn’t tell her uncle is anybody’s guess. Maybe he’s part of what happened, and she knows it.”
Luce raised her eyebrows in surprise. “But he sent you to the cabin himself.” Then she sighed in exasperation. “Never mind. That could be an alibi, couldn’t it? Pretending to be worried for Elana when she didn’t show up for work.”
“He was honestly surprised when it wasn’t Elana’s body in the morgue, I’m sure of that. That would lead me to believe he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger.”
“Kend and Trudy, dead together,” she said. “I wonder if there was something between them.”
“Maybe. It would be a motive, if Kend were hooking up with somebody else. But I’ll let that whole circle sort through their own trash. I don’t give a damn anymore.”
Leo jabbed at the fire with an andiron. He was still wearing his favorite gray hoodie, with a blue down vest zipped over it tonight, like armor. He hadn’t said a word since halfway through my story. I signaled Luce with my eyes.
“I’m going to shower.” She stood up and gave me a quick kiss. “Would you put on coffee?” Luce could drink coffee at any time, without it affecting her sleep one way or the other. Maybe it was a bartender thing.
Leo waited until Luce was upstairs. He sat on the hearth, the fire crackling into slow life as it ate the damp wood.
“You should have called me,” he said. “When you went to have it out with Willard, you should’ve called.”
“I wanted you on Luce.”
He shook his head. “Luce had the whole lunchtime crowd around her. Or she could have stayed low while I was out. You were the priority, man.”
“I handled it. I know Willard.”
“You think you do. Now you’re wondering if he might be killing people at cabins.” His eyes flickered between me and the windows and the doorway.
“It was my risk,” I said. “Maybe it was the wrong call, but it’s done. Don’t act like I crapped in your helmet.”
“If he’d had another guy there to back him up, you would have been fucked.”
“You’re not some grunt that needs this explained, Leo.”
He stared at me from under the gray hood. “Forget it.” He got up and walked to the kitchen and out to the backyard.
I put another log on the fire and stoked the ashes to let the flames breathe. Leo was brittle. Maybe I should walk tiptoe on those eggshells. But tonight I wasn’t in the goddamn mood.
Luce came downstairs, blond hair sleek as seal fur from the shower. She’d changed into my bleach-stained Mariners sweatshirt and her own yoga pants. If I’d owned yoga pants, she’d have probably have purloined those, too.
“Leo okay?” Luce said.
“Not yet,” I said.
She hugged me. “Can you get him help?”
“I don’t know what kind he needs. He’s tried doctors, and pills.”
“Maybe there are other ones.”
Thousands. And programs and V.A. hospitals and volunteer organizations. Finding help wasn’t the hard part.
I could hear Leo patrolling, coming up the porch out front. He was very quiet, but the old wooden slats creaked. I opened the front door to let him in.
“I’ll make the coffee,” I said.
I heard the kitchen door slam open with a splintering of wood. Leo, eyes wild, came flying through the kitchen. I grabbed for Luce but Leo was already digging his shoulder into her back at a full run, lifting her up like a football tackle and slamming her headlong into me. Glass shattered. I glimpsed a thick, whitish cylinder banded in duct tape hit the wingback chair, bouncing crazily, as I fell back and out through the open front door, Luce and Leo almost on top of me. We all tumbled off the porch. An instant before I hit the gravel, a clap-BANG of high explosive tore everything away from sight sound wall house Luce Leo
On fire. Leo was on fire. He was facedown and still. The back of his vest smoldered and glowed. I grabbed him and rolled him over to smother the sparks, before a hurricane of vertigo made me fall back again.
Leo was out cold, but breathing. Luce lay next to him, moving slowly, saying something to me. My ears were filled with a high insect whine. I tried to say her name, coughed, and was suddenly sick, vomiting through a mouthful of dust onto the gravel of the side lot.
Wisps of white smoke swirled around us. The other side of Luce’s head was bloody. I crawled over Leo to check her. Her ear was cut, and as I bent to look closely at the pink wash, a spat of blood from my own head fell onto her cheek.
“—okay?” she asked. From six inches away I could make out her words. Her eyes weren’t dilated. I peeled Leo’s lids back to check his pupils. He thrashed a little, coming back to the world.
We had to move, my stunned brain told me. Whoever had thrown the bomb might still be near.
Movement, to my right. I had no gun. I fumbled to stand, and then Stanley bounded up to us. His anxious barks pierced through the ringing. He ran in mad dashes, to and fro. Addy Proctor walked slowly up the steps. Her round face was twisted with fear.
The smoke around us churned thicker now, blacker. And there was heat. I steadied myself and bent down to help Luce stand. Addy walked with her toward the street, as I got my arms under Leo and hefted his buck-sixty into a fireman’s carry. I followed Addy, tottering under Leo’s weight and my own unfamiliar legs.
We reached the sidewalk as the first fire engine came screaming onto the block. I could hear the siren just fine.