Page 41 of Sunburned

“A delay? What planet are you living on?” Tyson demanded. “This could tank us. Now every center is going to want to do their own environmental report—”

“And when they do, they’ll find everything is fine,” Allison said. “Won’t they?”

“I don’t need this right now,” Tyson growled.

“Is there something you’re not telling us?” Cody asked.

“Nothing you need to know,” Tyson snapped. “You don’t have the balls to make the decisions that need to be made.”

“This sounds like a conversation we should have in private,” Cody said pointedly.

I didn’t have to turn around to know he was shooting a glance at Laurent and me in the front seat.

“I trust them more than I trust either of you,” Tyson retorted.

“Would you like me to raise the privacy partition?” Laurent asked.

“Yes, please,” Allison said.

Laurent pressed the button, and the screen began to rise. Once it was in place, we exchanged a glance as the voices in the back intensified, their content muted by the partition. Whatever it was they were so upset about, Laurent and I both knew it was Allison who’d leaked it to those two men from the city council last night.

The question was what I should do with that information.

Eleven Years Ago, July

A couple of weeks after the Fourth of July, I was asleep in Tyson’s bed when I awoke with a start to the sound of a buzzer and banging somewhere in the house. Tyson continued to sleep as I sat up, looking around in the pitch-dark room. The banging seemed to be coming from the sliding glass door out to the pool. I tapped my phone, bringing up the time: 2:24a.m.

“Tyson,” I whispered, jostling him.

“Mmmpf,” he said, rolling over.

“There’s someone at the door downstairs.”

He turned quickly, suddenly awake, listening. In a flash, he was on his feet, reaching into the bedside table to pull out his handgun. He released the safety, swinging open the bedroom door and creeping onto the landing in his boxers as I pulled on a T-shirt and gym shorts and went to the window that looked out over the pool, lifting the blackout shades.

I gasped as my eyes caught sight of the flames erupting from Ian’s trailer, a column of black smoke rising into the night sky.

I swiped my phone from the bedside table, dialing 911 as I dashed out the door and down the stairs, not bothering to find shoes. I couldsee Andie banging at the glass but flew past her into the kitchen on Tyson’s heels, reciting the address into the phone. “We need the fire department, fast,” I said.

Tyson dropped the gun to the island with a clatter and pulled a fire extinguisher from beneath the sink, tossing it to me. “I’m grabbing the other one,” he said as he went into the laundry room off the kitchen.

I ran to the sliding glass door and flung it open. Andie was in sleep shorts and a ripped T-shirt, her hair wild, ash streaked across her face. “You have to help me,” she cried. “Ian’s not waking up and I can’t drag him by myself.”

“There’s someone in the trailer,” I said to the operator on the phone. “He’s unresponsive. Please send help fast.”

I waited for confirmation before hanging up, then looked at Andie. “What’s he on?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “He was pretty fucked up when he passed out.”

I gripped the fire extinguisher to my chest as we sprinted across the pool deck and out the back gate. “But he’s breathing?”

She nodded, her eyes scared. “He was when I left.”

The ground was still wet from the rain, leaving the path to the trailer slippery and pocked with puddles, and I slid in the mud, catching myself with the base of the fire extinguisher. “Where is he?” I asked, getting back to my feet.

“In the bedroom,” she answered. “I went out the window. The fire’s in the kitchen.”

The flames reflected in the surface of the lake as we raced around it, and a chemical smell accosted my nostrils. “Is the bedroom door closed?” I asked.

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