The Trade

He felt the thready flutter of a pulse.

CHAPTER 2

Matt stripped away the wet silky covering, struggled out of his polo shirt and wrapped the newborn infant, a girl, in the soft cotton. Her eyes were closed, her hands curled into tiny fists. Downy strands of gold hair feathered damply against her head.

He scanned the beach but the blowing sand and smoke and falling ash cut visibility down to a few yards. Rabbits and a couple of raccoons huddled against the low bluff close to a flock of gulls. He could see nothing that could possibly be a human form.

Who would leave a baby like this?

He held the almost weightless bundle against his chest with some idea of warming her with his own body heat, put on his wet jacket to protect them both against falling debris, and started back along the beach toward the stairs up to the Edwards house. If they were still standing, maybe there would be firefighters trying to save it.

He scanned the beach as he ran. Trash thrown up by a polluted ocean was caught in the giant kelp above the high tide mark—nylon fishing line, plastic holders for six packs, bits of Styrofoam coolers. No sign of the mother, no patch of blood, nothing to show that a woman had just given birth. He stumbled across a beam of charred wood and saw the beach was littered with planks.

The stairs. Since he had passed them only minutes ago, the ferocious wind had blown the damaged stairs apart.

He swept his eyes across the low bluff, looking for another way up, handholds, anything, but even if he could find a way, the top of the cliff was blazing. He hesitated—the empty restaurant was closer than his own place, he could go back. But he’d lived in Malibu all his life, seen flames leap two hundred feet in seconds, consume a house in minutes. And the tide was roaring in. He had to get home.

Flooded with relief, Matt jogged across the dry sand, toward his own beach stairs. The small gray clapboard house was intact. The large houses on either side were dark, not surprising. His neighbors used them only on weekends, and that rarely.

For the last hour he’d been running nonstop, across soft sand, in and out of the ocean, holding the baby close as he clambered over the bare rocky reefs that would normally be covered by resting seals as the tide receded. On a night like this, though, they’d stay out at sea.

The sky was a cauldron, the fire dangerously close. He could feel blasts of heat from the thirty-foot flames now whirling south on the ridge above the Pacific Coast Highway as it followed the curve of the coastline toward the enormous expanse of lawn fronting Pepperdine University. That lawn still pissed a lot of people off, they were still arguing about the amount of water used to keep it green, the contaminated runoff draining into the Santa Monica Bay, but in a wildfire it could be a godsend, a break where fire crews could make a stand.

If the wind turned west again as it easily could, a maelstrom like this created its own wind patterns, flames would be across the highway in minutes, take the houses above his on the land side of Malibu Road, jump to the beach side and burn clear down to the water. From what he’d seen, so far the flames had reached oceanside houses in a staggered pattern, driven by the changing wind. His place was vulnerable, clapboard with an old shake roof, it would go in seconds.

He pushed open the door into his smoky kitchen, staggering as eighty pounds of terrified dog hurled himself at his legs.

“It’s okay, Barns. It’s okay, boy.” Matt held off the Lab with one hand and picked up the phone. No dial tone. The line was dead. He shook it in frustration. Of course it was dead—the phone lines were down. This wasn’t the first fire he’d been through in his thirty-six years, he should have remembered that. At least he had his mobile.

The baby close against his chest, he searched his jacket. Then again. Patted the pockets in his pants. The phone was gone. He’d dropped it somewhere on the beach.

He laid the child down on the soft couch in the living room, touched her pale cheek. She was cool. Colder than she had been when he picked her up. Matt felt for the pulse in the baby’s throat, as he’d done on the beach. He couldn’t find it. He flexed his fingers, felt on the other side. No pulse. Maybe he was doing it wrong. He rubbed his fingers on the couch to sensitize them, tried again. Nothing. Heart hammering, he knelt, held the tiny nose, blew gently into the infant’s mouth. Once, twice. Again. But he knew it was useless. There was no breath, no heartbeat. The baby was dead. Sometime in the last hour, as they made their way down the beach, she had died in his arms. He had not even known when life left her. Surely, he should have felt something.

He sat back on his heels. She was so delicate, so fragile, she made barely a dent in the cushion. Long lashes fanned her cheeks. He didn’t even know what color her eyes were. What sort of woman would abandon her defenseless newborn on an empty beach?

Minutes passed. Barney pushed his nose at Matt’s hand, then started to howl as if he knew, a mournful sound that gave a voice to the tangle of feeling swelling in Matt’s chest.

Matt put a hand on Barney’s head, and took a long, deep painful breath. The smoke inside the house was thicker now, the heat increasing. Barney nudged at him insistently. Matt knew he had to get some water on the roof, and soon. He looked at her one last time, then covered her face with his shirt and got to his feet.

“Come on, boy.” He snapped on Barney’s leash in case they had to make a run for it, took the Lab with him into his bedroom. Black particles of ash hung in the air and coated every surface; shadows danced madly in the dirty amber glow that was the only light, but it was enough for him to see what he needed to see. He stripped, got into dry jeans and shirt, socks and heavy boots, then retrieved a black carry-on bag from the closet and looked around for the things that were important enough to save.

He picked up the photograph by his bed, an eight-by-ten of Ginn and himself, Barney at their feet, taken last summer, and put it into the bag. The only other things of value were a framed picture of his mother and an album of old photographs of them together when he was a kid. His memory of her had dimmed over the years, only the pictures kept it alive. He took a second to wrap them in a T-shirt before putting them in the bag, threw in a handful of underwear, socks, some jeans on top. He took some of his books from the shelves in the living room, his laptop. He already had Barney ready to run. That was it. Except for the house itself, there was nothing else here he cared about.

He tied a bandanna around his nose and mouth, then grabbed all the towels in the linen cupboard, dropped the bag by the kitchen door where he could get it easily if they had to get down to the water. He slammed the door closed behind him to keep Barney confined in the house, ran along the side of the house toward the little shed of a detached garage facing the road. He could hear the rumble of fire trucks, power horns and sirens on the Coast Highway above Malibu Road. Help was on the way at last and the fire crews would make a stand wherever they could as long as they had water pressure. At least he and Barney could always get down to the ocean, so they wouldn’t be trapped. If it came to it, he’d let the house, his mother’s house, burn.

Without electricity the garage door was immovable. He climbed behind the wheel of the Range Rover parked inside, shoved the gear into Reverse, hit the gas and rammed the heavy vehicle at the overhead door. The old structure shook but the warped wood splintered at the first attempt and he was through. He got out, grabbed three of Bobby Eckhart’s surfboards, shoved them into the back, added a couple of his own. The ladder he kept for repairs had fallen off the wall with the impact. He picked it up, threw it onto the patio, then backed the Range Rover up to the street, away from the structure. Only a block away, a couple of houses were burning.

He unwound the hose on the patio, turned the spigot, let out a grunt of relief when water spurted, then shoved the nozzle into an empty trash barrel and filled it, dumped in the towels. He soaked his bandanna and retied it over his nose and mouth, dragged the hose with him up the ladder to the roof.

If the water pressure stayed strong, if the wind didn’t turn, if he could beat out sparks with the towels before they got a hold under the wooden shakes—a hell of a lot of ifs—he had a chance of saving the house. His mother’s house.

Matt looked at his watch, saw that it was after midnight. The arc of the night sky from east to west was still red with fire, but something was different. The wind had changed direction and was blowing onshore. He wouldn’t call it moisture exactly, but for the first time in hours he felt as if he could take a full breath without cooking his lungs.

He went out to the street again. Everything in the front of the house was gone, the fence, the bushes, a couple of trees, and the bougainvillea that his mother had planted for privacy thirty years ago. At least the house had survived, scorched but still there. Many landside houses above his, and several along his stretch of beach, were smoking ruins. Fire crews hadn’t even made it down here until now, when it was all over and the firestorm had moved on.

A sheriff’s patrol car cruised by and Matt stepped into the road to wave it down. The black and white slowed. The deputy sheriff looked him over.

“Who are you? This area is evacuated, authorized personnel only.”

Matt had been hoping for Bob Eckhart. He didn’t recognize the man speaking to him.

Matt said, “I live here. You got a minute? I’ve got something here you should see.”

“You got identification?”

“Sure.” Matt reached for the wallet he’d transferred from his wet jeans, flipped it open to his driver’s license.

The deputy reached for it. “What happened to your arm?”

Matt held it up, surprised to see a gash and streaks of dried blood. “I don’t know, I guess I must’ve cut it when I broke a window at the Cove to get some water.”

“I see.” The deputy handed back the license. “Well, I’ll have to get back to you, just as soon as I’ve checked out the end of the road. Things are still pretty hectic.” Fire equipment moved along the road, wetting down hotspots, checking roofs. The black and white started to roll.

Matt paced with the car. “No, wait a minute. Listen, you’ve got to come inside. Sounds crazy I know, but I’ve got a dead baby here.”

The car stopped. The deputy stared at him for a long moment, then pulled off the road. He retrieved a flashlight, played it over Matt’s face, along the still-smoking stumps of the bougainvillea, across the newly exposed house and patio. Barney, muzzle pressed against the bedroom window no longer shielded from the street by shrubbery, barked a warning. The deputy picked up his radio transmitter. “This is 103. I’ve got a report of a 927D at…” He looked at Matt. “What’s the address here?”

Matt told him, the deputy repeated the address, then signed off. He stepped out of the car.

“How come you didn’t evacuate with everyone else?” His voice was guardedly neutral.

“I wasn’t here when the order came. I came home later by way of the beach.”

“What’s your name again, sir?”

“Matthew Lowell. Yours?”

“Deputy Timms.” Ramrod posture, early thirties, dark hair short back and sides, but surprisingly long on top for a deputy sheriff. He followed Matt across the patio, along the deck by the side of the house into the candlelit kitchen.

Matt opened the door of the refrigerator. Except for a small bundle wrapped in a bright-blue polo shirt, the shelves were empty.

“What is this, some kind of joke?” Timms turned a darkening face toward Matt.

“No.” Matt gestured to the sink piled with jars and containers, orange juice, mayonnaise, olives, a carton of eggs. “In this heat, I couldn’t think of what else to do. And I thought if the house burned, she would be safer, maybe. I don’t know. I found her on the beach last night when I was coming home.”

“Jesus.” Timms reached into the refrigerator.

Matt turned away. Even in the flickering candlelight, he couldn’t bear to look again at the little face.