I catch a string of violent-sounding Spanish—one of the clients, I guess—behind me. I whirl, but no one is there. I take the rest of the stairs two at a time. As I reach the door at the top of the two-floor stairwell, I think I hear Hawkins’ laughter. But I can’t be sure. I’m probably hallucinating.
I shudder through a coughing fit before I stick my head into the second-floor hallway and call, “Is anybody there?”
I call out several times before someone screams, “MARCHANT!”
I whirl, and there’s Rachelle, stomping toward me. Her blonde hair is sweat-plastered to her head; her eyes are wild. She grabs my arm—“Are you f**king crazy?”—and hauls me back down the stairs.
The place is going fast. I can’t believe it. The hall where the staff stairwell is, the one that leads to the great hall, is lined with fire along the baseboards. Fire writhes in patches on the ceiling. Beyond it, where the hallway meets the great room, I can’t see anything but light. I think I hear screaming from that direction, but Rachelle starts to choke and cough, and I know I need to get her outside. I tug her out the nearest exit, throw her over my shoulder, and rush around the inferno, cutting through the grass to get her to the front of the building.
I sling her down by a bush that’s not too close to the blaze and grab her face so I can see her eyes. They’re red, just like her cheeks and forehead. “You okay? You breathing okay?”
She nods, and tugs on my arm until I help her stubborn ass up, and together we go through the crowd, checking on people, trying to account for others, and asking if anyone saw where the fire started. For some f**ked up reason all I can think about is Suri Dalton, and I don’t see her anywhere.
I see Libby DeVille—soot-smeared and crying—and I grab her arm. “Where is your friend?”
“Huh?”
“Where is Suri Dalton?”
Libby turns a circle, mouth agape. “Where is she? She was just here like one second ago!”
“I’ll go find her,” Hunter says.
“Oh my God, where’s Cross?” Libby’s eyes are huge. “I thought I saw him earlier, but—”
“I’ll find them.” I run around the house, dodging patches of fire on the lawn, focused on finding Carlson and Suri Dalton. I remember a foggy scene from the hospital hallway: me, dickishly asking if she had a thing for Carlson, but I push that aside as I round the house on the pool side. It’s covered tonight, and debris is raining down on the smooth cement. I want to push it back, because a pool is good in a fire, right? I don’t have time to waste, but still, I stop beside it. I’m dizzy as f**k and shaking with adrenaline and crazy, but I want to push the cement cover back. It’s not a huge pool, but it might do something.
I kneel down and push the leaves of a withered fern aside, finding the button that controls the cement pool cover, and sit there coughing and cursing as burning shit bounces off my back.
There’s something I’m supposed to do, but I can’t remember it anymore.
As I wrack my mind, one of the last remaining first-floor doors flies open, and several men run out. They toss a cursory glance my way but keep moving toward the garden. It looks like they’re—what the f**k? Are they packing AK-47s?
No way.
What the f**k?
I’m on my feet, ready to follow them, when someone grabs me by the waist. I whirl around, howling from the pain of grabbing hands on my sore skin—and find myself facing Suri Dalton. Her face is soot-smeared and red, her hazel eyes huge.
Relief washes through me. I grab her by the arms just to make sure she’s real.
“Marchant, look,” she cries, wriggling out of my grasp and whirling toward the house. She starts to cry, and without understanding what the f**k she’s rambling about, I shove her forward. “Go around to the front! Give this place a wide berth; shit is falling. Find Rachelle and Hunter. Tell Hunter I just saw a bunch of cartel thugs—”
“They’re here for Missy!” Suri grabs me by the elbow and tugs me toward the fire. “Look up, Marchant! What do we do?!”
“There’s nothing we can do—” I say, looking into her eyes— “short of turning on the— I should turn on the emergency sprinkler system! Follow—”
“CROSS!” she screams, pointing, and I look up this time. “THAT’S CROSS UP THERE, MARCHANT!”
I follow her finger to find Carlson in one of the smoke-fogged, upstairs windows. I squint a little, and it looks like he’s carrying someone on his shoulders.
I turn to Suri, planning to tell her that I’m going back inside—but suddenly the cartel thugs are rushing past us, a whole f**king bunch of them dressed in fatigues, barking in Spanish, and pointing machine guns at the window over the pool, where Carlson stands.
Suri screams, and one of the Mexican f**kers looks her way, and I know that face: Jesus Cientos—a notorious drug lord who, I’m told, bought Missy King. Motherfucker’s come to take her back, and he burned down my ranch to do it!
My aim is steady. I fire twice, and he goes down. The men around him jump on my ass—or try to. I shove Suri into the trees, then lead them around, toward the side of the house. Bullets whiz past me. I shoot back: BAM BLAM BAM click click— fuck! This f**king gun only holds five rounds!
Another of them topples into a bunch of shriveled ferns. I hear the first wail of the sirens, and the rest scatter. Seconds later, there’s an explosion of glass above me, and I look up to see a bulky shadow fall toward the pool.
Then there’s water spraying everywhere, a fire truck rolling through the grass, men and women in uniforms hauling hoses and ladders. I’m walking backward, looking up at the main house. It’s almost gone. It’s already gone. Where is Suri Dalton?
I cup my hands around my mouth. “Suri? Suri!”
I shout her name for the longest time, dragging air into my stinging lungs, watching the place go down in pieces while it’s sprayed with hoses. But they’re too late. Way too late.
The air is black, the world is orange and red. It’s hell and I feel like hell. And suddenly a police car is here, pulled up beside the pool. I stare at its lights, and for a second they are lights on the top of a car outside a mortuary in New Orleans. I’m going to jail for assaulting a doctor, and I don’t f**king care. As quickly as the memory comes, it goes.
Where is Suri Dalton?
I stumble forward a few steps—so close the heat stings me—and find myself staring into the eyes of a middle-aged police officer with a thin mustache.