The house was a squat stone construction of a sprawling Californian Bungalow meets New Mexico stucco . . . something. Walker liked it. It was homely and masculine and looked like it belonged there, and wouldn’t be going anywhere inside of a century or two. The timber beams holding the roof were from big trees, reclaimed from another project, hewn maybe a century before. The split stone echoed the shades of the desert. The yard wasn’t anything like those of its neighbors, with brilliant green turf and European trees that needed a small town’s water supply to keep growing. This was a product of its environment but constrained by man: cacti and prairie grasses, spindly trees that grew between rocks.
“Coming?” Walker said. He was out of the car and put his head back in through the door. Monica still had her seatbelt on. She looked at the house like it was a mirage in the desert.
“Monica?”
She turned to Walker. Nodded. Undid her seatbelt.
The street was deserted. A two-lane blacktop with grass verges but no front fences, just manicured lawns and the occasional shady tree and clipped hedge. Too manicured; alien to this environment. Except for Paul’s. His place seemed like it had bobbled up from the ground, a tumble of rocks and dirt and old wood and stone. They walked up the driveway. It was concrete with a pattern, oxidized the same earthy red-brown as the gravel that made up the garden beds. A double garage was set back from the cascade of the house, out of view from the front doors by a wall of yuccas, the spiky green leaves standing out in the built landscape.
Walker knocked. Waited. Looked at Monica. She was quiet, nervy at the thought of seeing an old family friend for the first time in years.
“Maybe he’s out,” she said.
Walker knocked again, and then they heard noise from within. Then silence. Walker looked up and saw a tiny camera in the corner above the door. A bolt sliding.
Paul Conway answered the door. His eyes were on Walker, then Monica, then back to Walker.
He had a hunting rifle in his hands. Loose, pointed at the doorjamb but for the time he jostled back from the lock.
Walker drew his Colt .45. Aimed it center-mass.
Paul’s eyes settled on it. Then his body went slack. He looked at Monica then Walker, and back at her, searching.
“Monica,” Paul said. “I knew someone would come—but you? And this guy? Why—how—”
“We need to talk about her brother,” Walker said. “And time’s ticking.”
His face fell. He looked from them to the street. Walker’s car, clearly not government issue. He uncocked the rifle’s breach, ejecting the shell into his hand, and passed the rifle to Walker, who stood it just inside the front door.
“You . . .” Paul looked to them both, and then he closed his eyes and shook his head. “You shouldn’t have come here.”