Читать книгу Disorderly Conduct - Mary Feliz - Страница 8

Chapter 1

A crisis is a terrible time to develop an emergency plan. Be prepared.

From the Notebook of Maggie McDonald

Simplicity Itself Organizing Services

Sunday, August 6, 8:00 a.m.

I told the kids it was a drill. I told myself it was a drill. But I wasn’t fooling anyone, especially not the cats.

Late summer in California is fire season, and the potential consequences had never been more apparent, nor closer to home. Air gray and thick with smoke and unburned particulates was so dry it hurt to breathe. My compulsive refreshing of the Cal Fire website throughout the night revealed that the cause was an illegal campfire abandoned on the coastal side of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Thirty-six hours later, it now encompassed miles of state- and county-owned hiking areas and threatened to jump the ridge and barrel down on the South Bay, Orchard View, and our family home.

This morning, a dry wind originating in the Central Valley had driven the firestorm back across land it had already transformed to charred desert. Firefighters hoped it would burn itself out due to lack of fuel, but I knew anything could happen at any time, and I needed my family to be ready.

Like everyone else in flammable California, we work year-round to keep vegetation from growing too close to our house. Wide stone and concrete verandas surround our hundred-year-old Craftsman house on three sides, while our paved driveway and parking area protect the east-facing walls. A plowed firebreak separates our barn and field from the summer-dry creek that borders our land.

“Do you want these in the car, Mom?” Brian, now thirteen, would one day tower over me. For now, I pretended that perfecting my posture and straightening my spine would maximize my five-foot six-inches and preserve my position as the taller one. Brian held an empty cat carrier in each hand.

“Leave them here in the kitchen for now. Leave the crate doors open.”

“David,” I called to my fifteen-year-old, who was now unquestionably the tallest in the family. To the chagrin of my husband, Max, David had recently gained the few inches he required to realize that Max’s luxuriant walnut-colored curls were thinning. “Make sure to leave room on the back seat for the animals and two passengers.”

“Two?” David entered the kitchen from the top of the basement stairs.

“Ideally, we’ll take both cars. But I want to be prepared for anything.” I tilted my head toward the view outside the kitchen windows. A plume of smoke filled the sky on the far side of the ridge to the west. “If that blaze shifts direction and marches this way, we’ll need to clear out fast, no matter what. If one of the cars breaks down, I want us all to be able to jump into the other one.”

“We could strap Brian to the roof.” David’s eyes twinkled as he nudged his younger brother.

I rolled my eyes, but a smile escaped when I saw that both of my thrill-seeking boys were intrigued by the idea. I turned my attention back to packing up snacks, water, and our perishable food. Our initial plan, should we be forced to evacuate, was to camp out in the living room of my dearest friend, Tess Olmos, whose son, Teddy, was fourteen and a buddy of both Brian and David.

Tess’s house was a great Plan A, but I’m a belt-and-suspenders kind of gal and I needed a backup strategy. We packed as though we might resort to Plan B and end up in a shelter for a day or two. As a professional organizer, it’s part of my job to help people anticipate emergencies. It’s my superpower and my business. I sighed and pushed my wavy light-brown hair back from my forehead. Using my skills to streamline the lives of friends and strangers was a snap compared to getting my own family in line.

I heard a scuffle on the kitchen tiles, looked up, and burst out laughing. All three of our animals, Belle, our boisterous golden retriever, and Holmes and Watson, our marmalade-colored cats, assisted Max as he loaded their food, travel dishes, water, and kitty litter into a plastic bin. Watson’s head was buried in a bag of cat kibble, while Belle nudged Max’s arm with her snout. She knocked Max’s steady hands out of alignment as he poured dog chow from a ten-pound bag into a one-gallon screw-top container. Dried nuggets skittered across the floor. Belle scrambled to help by gobbling up each morsel as quickly as possible. Holmes, Watson’s more reserved brother, batted at a tidbit that had bounced to a stop at his feet.

“When you’re done with that, hon, can you help the boys gather up the electronics? It’s too soon to put them in the cars, but I’d like them all down here charging up and ready to go.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Max said, saluting without looking up from his task.

“Too many orders? Too bossy?” Under stress, I tended to bark out instructions without thinking about how they might be received by the folks around me—even the people I loved the most.

My phone rang, saving Max from responding. I pulled it from my pocket and glanced at the screen as I answered. “Hey, Tess,” I said. “We’re nearly there. Did Patrick show up?”

The day before, Tess had told me that Patrick hadn’t responded to her phone calls. She’d wanted to let him know we might be camping out at their house for a few days to get out of the path of the potential firestorm. She’d speculated that he’d gone on an extended run or become caught up in a project at work. A devoted engineer, he often vanished into the thicket of a thorny technical problem and lost track of time, especially on weekends. But Patrick had been out of touch longer than usual, and I knew Tess was worried.

“That’s just it.” Tess’s voice caught, and I could hear her take a deep breath.

“What’s wrong? What’s happened? Do you want us to make alternative plans? If it’s not convenient—”

“No. No. No. It’s not that. It’s...”

“It’s what? You’re scaring me. Spill.”

“It’s Patrick. The police think they’ve found him.”

“The police?” The words I was using and the strained tone of my voice must have worried Max. He looked up and furrowed his brow.

“Does she need help?” he asked. “Take off if you need to. The boys and I can finish up and meet you in half an hour.”

I flapped my hand at Max, urging him to stop talking so I could hear Tess, who was, uncharacteristically, having trouble completing a sentence. She sighed.

“Oh, Maggie. The sheriff’s office just called. Around dawn this morning, they found a man up off the old Pacific Gas and Electric maintenance road. It looks like he fell. Patrick runs there all the time. They...they think it’s Patrick.”

“Is he hurt? Where is he now? Do you need a ride to the hospital? Is he conscious? Why don’t they just ask him who he is?”

“He’s dead.” Tess’s voice broke with a sob. “I mean, the guy they found is dead. It’s not Patrick, but they think it’s him.”

I couldn’t think of a thing to say, and Tess didn’t give me time.

“Can you get down here, Maggie? Can Max and the boys stay with Teddy? They want me to identify the body, and...” Tess coughed and soldiered on. “I mean, they want me to confirm that it’s not my Patrick so they can figure out who he really is, poor guy.” Tess struggled to get her voice, tears, and breathing under control. In her grief, she sounded as if she’d just finished a marathon. Breathless and exhausted.

“Of course. Whatever you need. We’ll be right—”

Tess didn’t let me finish. “I don’t think I can drive safely, Maggie. It’s in Santa Clara. The medical examiner’s office.” She sniffed. “This is so stupid. I keep bursting into tears. But it’s ridiculous. Of course it’s not Patrick. He’s at work. Only he’s not answering his phone. The battery is dead, I’m sure. You know how he is.”

I did know Patrick. Keeping his phone charged wasn’t high on his priority list. But my skin rippled with goose bumps and I shivered. Whatever we discovered at the medical examiner’s office, I suspected the lives of Tess and her son, Teddy, would never be the same again.