Chapter One
Archie pushed the gearshift into third and set his hand on
her knee. Coast Highway, southbound. Man in the moon big
and close, like he was tilting his head for a peek down
into the convertible. Archie glanced up, couldn't tell if
the guy was smiling or frowning. Didn't care because
Gwen's skin was warm through the dress, a few degrees
warmer than the breeze gusting through the car.
He looked at the speedometer then at her. Saw her hair
moving, her face sketched in the orange glow of the
dashboard lights. A silver champagne flute in one hand, a
smile.
Archie pretended he'd never seen her before. Pretended
he was trying to look at something else—the squid boat off
of Crystal Cove in a pool of white light, say—only to have
this Gwen creature drop into his world like some special
effect. There she was. What luck.
He lifted the hem of her dress up over her knees and
slipped his hand under. She eased back in the seat a
little and he heard the breath catch in her throat. He
caught the faint smell of her, windblown but unmistakable.
Archie had a sharp nose and loved what it brought him.
Like right now, the milk-and-orange-blossoms smell of
Gwen, bass scent of his life. All the other notes that
came to him—coastal sage and the ocean, the new car
leather—were just the riffs and fills.
She smiled and tossed the plastic champagne flute in
the air, the darkness stealing it without a sound. Then
she slid her hand under there with his, popping up the
cotton dress and letting it settle like a bedspread while
she trailed a finger down his forearm and over his wrist.
"Long way home, Arch."
"Five whole miles."
"What a night. It's cool when we mix our friends and
they get along."
"They're all great. Priscilla drank a lot."
"The cops put it away, too. Thanks, Arch. You spent a
fortune for all that."
"Worth it. You only turn twenty-six once."
Gwen's curls lifted in a random swirl and she pulled
his hand in a little closer. She didn't speak for a long
moment. "Twenty-six. I'm lucky. Will you love me when I'm
thirty-six? Eighty-six?"
"Done deal."
"I'm really sorry about earlier."
"Forget it. I have. Damned temper."
A serene moment then, as the roar of the engine mixed
with the comfort of forgiveness.
"I can't wait to get home, Arch. I'll be outrageously
demanding, since it's my birthday. It is still my
birthday, isn't it?"
"For about three minutes."
"Hmmm. Maybe you ought to pull over."
Archie downshifted and looked for a turn off the
highway. There was one at the state beach, one for the
trailer park, another one back by the juice stand. They'd
used all of them, just one of those things they loved to
do. She'd sit on his lap with her back to him. Up that
high she looked like a tourist craning for a view of
something, one hand on the armrest and the other on the
dash. The great thing about the new convertible was he
could look up past the back of Gwen's head at the stars,
then at her again, put his nose in her hair or against her
neck and wonder what he'd done to deserve her. For a young
man, Archie Wildcraft was not a complete fool, because he
understood, at thirty, that he'd done nothing at all to
deserve her. Dumb luck, pure and simple.
"There's the turn," she said, pointing.
"I love you," he said.
"I love you, Arch. You're always going to be my man,
aren't you."
It wasn't really a question so he didn't answer. He
braked and steered off the highway and into the darkness.
Four hours later, Deputy Wildcraft jerked awake when he
heard something loud in the living room.
Gwen slept right through it, so Archie cupped one hand
firmly over her mouth as he raised her from sleep. Her
eyes grew large as he whispered what he'd heard. He
prodded her out of the bed and toward the bathroom, which
was where Archie had told her to go if something like this
ever happened. All the time Archie was trying to listen
but he heard nothing from the living room, the house, the
whole world.
He watched as she pulled her new purple robe off the
floor and moved through the room shadows toward the bath.
Archie got a nine-millimeter autoloader from under the
bed. He set it on his pillow while he pulled on his
underwear—comic, "Happy Birthday, I'm Yours" boxers with a
big red ribbon printed around the opening. They'd made her
laugh. Him too, and they'd made love again and fallen
asleep damp and tangled in the sheets.
He put on his robe and picked up the gun. Then he got
the phone and carried it toward the bathroom, where a thin
horizon of light shone under the door. He opened it and
gave her the phone and whispered don't worry this guy
picked the wrong house to burgle maybe just a bird flew
into a window if something goes wrong call 911 but let me
check it out first.
I'll call it now, Archie.
Don't call it until I tell you to call it. Turn out
the light the twenty-two's under the sink with a full clip
and one in the chamber. The safety's down by the trigger
guard push it 'til the red shows.
Be careful.
I'll be careful.
Archie got his flashlight and walked out of the room
and into the familiar hallway. Carpet, bare feet hardly
making a sound. There was a light switch at the end of the
hall, where it opened to the living room. He flipped it on
but didn't step in, just stood there scanning right to
left then back again over the sights of the automatic:
wall, sofa, window blinds with a big hole in them, chair,
wall with a painting, Gwen's birthday presents on the
floor. Then the same things again, but in reverse.
He looked down at the big rock in the middle of the
living room carpet. Size of a grapefruit. Saw the shards
of glass twinkling near the sliding glass door. Saw where
the wooden blinds had been splintered when the rock came
through. Offed the light and listened. The refrigerator
hummed and car tires hissed in the distance.
Archie moved quietly into the kitchen and hit another
light. Empty and undisturbed. Breakfast nook the same.
Little family room with the TV and fireplace looked fine,
too, just the VCR clock glowing a steady 4:28 A.M.
He checked the bath and the laundry room. Went back to
the living room and shined his flashlight down on the
rock. Kind of a rounded square, red and smooth with clear
skinny marbles running through it like fat. Gneiss,
thought Archie, veined with quartz. Common.
He wondered who'd do something infantile and
destructive like this. Kids, probably—don't know who lives
here, just want to bust something up, video it, have a
story to tell. Maybe some forgotten creep he'd shoved
around in Orange County jail when he started work eight
years ago. Cops make enemies every day and Archie had made
his. They all came to his mind, though none more than any
other. The crime lab could get latents off that gneiss.
All of this sped through Archie's brain as he unlocked
the front door, slipped outside and quietly pulled the
door shut behind him.
The moon was gone so he turned on the flashlight,
scanned the porch and the bushes around it. A rabbit
crashed through the leaves and Archie's heart jumped. He
stepped down to the walkway. It was lined with Chinese
flame trees and yellow hibiscus and bird-of-paradise. The
drooping branches of the flame trees made a tunnel. Archie
followed the walk around to the back, moving his light
beam with his left hand, dangling the nine millimeter in
his right.
He stayed on the walk and it led him around the
swimming pool. The water was flat and polished and Archie
remarked for maybe the millionth time what a beautiful
home they lived in now, big but plenty of charm, on a
double lot in the hills with this pool and a three-car
garage and palm trees fifty feet high leading up the
driveway. An extra room for his viewing stones. An extra
room for Gwen's music. An extra room for the baby someday.
He continued along the curving walkway then stopped in
front of the slider where the rock had come through. The
beam of his flashlight picked up the big ragged hole and
the gleam of fissures spreading in all directions. He saw
no footprints, no disturbance of the grass.
Archie stood still and listened, clicked off his
flashlight. Never did hear a getaway car. Kids, he thought
again: they would throw the rock, haul ass giggling along
the west fence, jump it at the corner and be down the hill
before he'd gotten Gwen into the bathroom. He thought of
her just then, standing in the hard light with her robe
on, hair all messed up, scared as a bird and listening to
every little sound, the twenty-two probably still in the
cabinet under the sink because she didn't like guns. And
he thought what a jealous little jerk he'd been for a few
minutes at the party. Married to her for eight years and
he'd still feel his anger rise when his own friends hugged
and kissed her.
He missed her. Wondered what in hell he was doing out
here with his happy birthday boxers and a gun and his wife
afraid in a locked bathroom a hundred feet away.
He turned back up the walk. Past the pool. Into the
tunnel of trees. Then a beam of sharp light in his eyes
and by the time he found the flashlight button it was too
late.
Up close, an orange explosion.
Bright white light and Archie watching himself fly
into it, a bug in the universe, a man going home.
Chapter Two
Sergeant Merci Rayborn nodded at the two deputies standing
at the front door of the Wildcraft house. One of them
handed her an Order-of-Entry log, which she signed after
checking her watch. She was a tall woman with a dark
ponytail that rode up the orange letters on the back of
her windbreaker as she wrote, then down again as she
handed back the clipboard.
"Who got here first and where are they?"
"Crowder and Dobbs, Sergeant. In the kitchen area, I
believe."
The other uniform looked past her head and said
nothing.
In the entryway Merci Rayborn stood still and
received. Smell of furniture wax and wood. Smell of
flowers. Murmur of voices. She looked at the entryway
mirror, the living room furniture, the carpet. She looked
at the hole in the blinds, which suggested a hole in the
glass behind. She looked at a rock the size of a newborn's
head lying near the middle of the floor. At the little
pile of gift boxes. No alarm system—kitchen, maybe.
"Merci."
Paul Zamorra came softly down the hallway, light on
his feet. And dark in his heart, Merci thought. He had the
gentle deliberateness of an undertaker. And the black
suit, too.
She turned to her partner. "Paul. Do you know this
guy?"
"Not well. You know, just a friendly face. We'd
talked."
"Wildcraft. I'm sure we talked, too."