Page 9 of On Fire

“What is this about? Why the Blue Wave?”

“That’s the big question isn’t it,” I say.

΅

When we’re allowed inside, Finn decides to stay with Jackson until Tory arrives. She texts saying she’s stuck in traffic and will be another twenty minutes or so. No one is allowed inside the building except law enforcement. After a brief conversation with yet another lieutenant, Henry and I are waved inside.

The front of the house isn’t in great shape and is coated in a thick layer of dust. We pick our way through debris to the kitchen, where several members of a forensics team are crouched down by the ovens, talking, and taking pictures of the main gas shut-off lever.

I see something over in the corner, just under a piece of twisted metal and leave Henry’s side for a moment. It’s a small rubber die, a white cube with inky, smeared dots. It’s filthy from the blast. It’s out of place—dice don’t belong in a kitchen. I pick it up and shove it in a pocket.

Henry glances around the kitchen. He’s been on the phone with Stephan every three minutes calling up with updates of what he’s seeing.

Here, it's almost as if the dust itself was sucked in and then spread out in the wave of the percussion from the bomb. Pans, dishes, bowls, lids are strewn over stainless steel surfaces. Bottles of olive, avocado, sesame, and other oils that were shelved near the basement door lie smashed on the cement, their thick slick contents pooling everywhere.

The basement door is wide open, and the stairs, thick with dust. By the time we reach the bottom, it’s clear the major impact of the bomb is here.

This was a breakroom for the cooks and waitstaff. Now, the heavy brown leather couch is turned over on its side, books from shelves lay scattered across the floor, all the eyebrow windows are shattered, and the fridge rolled to the center of the room. Throw rugs are burned in sections. At one end the tattered carpet melted into the concrete.

This is a huge hit. Henry hasn’t spoken to his parents in years, and the pipeline of cash from them has long withered. He and Stephan have a small nest egg, but not enough to cover this. Hopefully insurance will.

Chunks of concrete are missing from one wall and the door of the vault is warped, peeled back like skin, in layers. The inside is black.Thank God Jackson acted in time. This could have been so much worse. Lives could have been lost and the building obliterated.

The blood smeared on the floor must be Jackson’s.

Henry stares at the spatter and then the rest of the disemboweled room, and swiftly goes into shock. His face pale, he keeps wiping his hands on black jeans. Despite the fissure with his family, he’s still just a transplanted surfer who was born in Montecito with about a dozen silver spoons in his mouth. But he lost his financial safety net when he came out to his family. Suddenly he wavers on his feet.

“Put your head between your legs,” I tell him perhaps too loudly and I’m careful not to touch him. There are two officers who brushed by us and are moving up the stairs and I don’t want to send Henry’s emotions spinning toward me in ways I can’t control.

I have never liked PDA, finding it too risky and uncomfortable. I certainly can’t afford to trigger any expectations or fall into old patterns. His neediness, once somehow appealing, is one of the reasons we broke up.

The other was that he cheated. But it was nearly a dozen years ago and I don’t fault him. I was a mess back then. Five years after I relocated to Boston, I found out he’d moved here as well. I was leery, but we’ve managed an easy friendship. I come about once a month and nurse a beer while he chatters about the latest drama at the Blue Wave.

With others still in the room, I can’t help him. What he needs is a consoling hug. Instead, I stand still while he takes a few deep breaths, bent over, hands on knees. But as soon as the officers ascend the stairs and the room clears, I throw an arm around his back and add a gentle touch to his shoulder with my other hand. He turns his head sideways to glance at me, and I help him to a standing position again.

“Better?”

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and nods. I drop the arm. Don’t want to foster any expectations. Or, as Henry would say, “don’t be a cock tease.” He’ll take anything as a sign of affection. He and Stephan sleep with other people outside their relationship, so I need to tread lightly.

“I don’t understand.” He pauses. “The cop out there—she said it went off at ten of two?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s during the last call.”

I tap a finger to my nose. “It’s also the last ass call.”

“You still say that?” It was our joke and with Henry things are never simple. He’s aways looking for a double or triple meaning to leverage.

“Whoever set it wanted to make sure people were punished.”

His glance catches on more drips of blood leading up the stairs. “I’ve seen enough.”

We ascend the stairs, careful to step near the edges and then make our way through the building. Outside, Henry takes a deep breath, and I direct him towards the tree where everyone was parked, but now it looks like it’s just Finn and Jamal. Tory must have picked Jackson up. I hope she took him to the ER. Remos is nowhere to be seen. We start across the brick plaza.

“You're insured right?”

Shoving his hands into his pockets. He nods. “Well, yeah, but I can't—I mean, I'm going to lose so much business. The Blue Wave will be even more of a target.”