The Wildfire Season by Andrew Pyper Page A

turn their heads in the same direction. Someone that Miles can’t see has called to them, and now they stand as he stands, waiting for whoever it is to come into view.
    ‘Were you planning on saying anything to her?’ Alex says.
    ‘I don’t think I was.’
    ‘I suppose the wording would be a little awkward.’
    ‘I wasn’t worried about the words to use,’ Miles says, turning to her. ‘I just don’t think what I might say would make any difference.’
    ‘I get it. You leave and let everyone else figure out why. Keep your mouth shut and you can pretend you’re not a liar.’
    ‘She’s not mine, Alex. Not in the sense that matters.’
    ‘And what sense is that?’
    ‘Belonging to her.’
    Alex purses her lips, and with an abruptness that makes him stiffen, leaps up from the bed and turns on the TV. The room is shattered with studio audience laughter. She twists the knob, turning the channels, which offer nothing. The screen seething with black-and-white maggots.
    ‘One channel, huh?’ she says.
    ‘That’s one more than I usually get.’
    She keeps turning until the dial is back to whereit started. Another round of false hoots and hollers.
    ‘You know where she got her name?’ Alex shouts.
    ‘From the apartment. Above the bagel place.’
    ‘Very good! Not everything has been erased from the tapes.’
    ‘Nothing’s been erased. That’s part of the problem.’
    She lifts a cigarette pack from the bedsheets and lights one. She didn’t smoke before. But Miles can tell it’s not a new habit, either.
    ‘I always liked the name of that street,’ she says. ‘ Rue Rachel . There’s a connection for me, I guess.’
    ‘Between me and her?’
    ‘Between then and now.’
    He looks out the window and sees Wade standing among the trampoline kids. Addressing them with a face that shows nothing. And speaking not to all of them.
    Miles watches Wade say something to Rachel and set his hand on her shoulder. It makes her wince. Not the firmness of his grip but its intent. Even Miles can see it. The girl’s face squeezed tight with revulsion, the anticipation of an adult violence she has never been close to before.
    Miles counts in his head and keeps his eyes on Wade’s hand. It stays on the girl a full seven seconds longer than it should.
    Just when he is about to run out the door, Wade releases his grip. Then he does something thatholds Miles to where he is. Wade turns to look directly up at him, meeting his eyes through the window. An unseemly grin stretches over his face. Though he can’t hear it, Miles imagines the chuckle Rachel must be able to hear.
    As Wade leaves the circle of kids, he waves at the girl. She watches him go but doesn’t wave back.
    ‘You shouldn’t have come,’ Miles says.
    ‘I had to.’
    ‘I’ve got a life here. Half a life, anyway.’
    ‘There are some things people have to do.’
    ‘I know that.’
    ‘Then you understand why I’m here.’
    ‘And you’ll understand why I’m telling you to go.’
    There’s a silence so complete it sounds to both of them like a statement made by a third party, a confirmation of the impossibility that lies between them. Finally, Alex startles him by laughing.
    ‘I’m just wondering if you were always such a pathetic coward,’ she says once she can find the breath. ‘I mean, we’ve both been working from the theory that the fire was the thing that got in the way, haven’t we? But maybe it only brought out your full potential for being a useless piece of shit.’
    ‘Guess I always had it in me.’
    ‘And so smug about it too.’
    ‘I’m not proud of anything.’
    ‘Yes, you are. You even think that running from a pregnant woman makes you special. And doing it five years before your old man got around toit. Pity poor Miles McEwan! The Worst Man in the World!’
    He sees that she’s right at the same time he thinks of hitting her. What stops him is Wade. His hand on the girl. A promise of harm that Miles recognizes as a gesture he