Child of Fire

found a small mention of me in the local news section.

It was strange to read about myself in the newspaper. It was like being in a crowded room where everyone else suddenly sat down but I didn’t have a chair. I felt exposed. Maybe that was absurd, but that’s how it felt.

The article was on the fourth page, and it was barely one and a half column inches. It said, simply and quickly, that Raymond Lilly, convicted felon, had been released from police custody in the matter of the several slayings, followed by a list of the dead. It was quite a laundry list of names. The official reason given for my release was insufficient evidence to charge me with murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking, assault and battery, and breaking and entering. They left out grand theft auto and discharging a weapon within city limits. Maybe they’d been short on space.

What the article didn’t mention was that certain prominent local citizens claimed that I had saved their lives while those crimes were being committed. It also glossed over the forensics reports that stated the people I had supposedly killed seemed to have been dead for days or weeks before they met me.

I looked over the list of names again. Some were strangers to me, but there were several I had known all too well. It still made me heartsick to think about them, even after all these months.

Irena’s name wasn’t on the list. I wondered if her body had been tidied away by the society, and I wondered if they would do that for me when my time came. Would people think I’d left the country or changed my identity? I didn’t have much in the way of family or friends anymore, but I had an aunt who’d opened her home to me when no one else would. I’d hate for her to think I wasn’t grateful or wanted nothing to do with her.

Annalise finished her meal. I showed her the article, but she didn’t care. I finished my breakfast while she paid the bill. I didn’t feel like eating anymore, but I’d need the fuel later.

We got back into the van, and Annalise handed me a slip of paper with an address on it. I consulted the ridiculous tourist map and saw that it was near the toy factory.

We drove there through the mist and drizzle, and I realized that it was the toy factory.

The factory was actually two buildings. The first was a glass office building, four stories high, with curves instead of corners. If it had been in a corporate campus or an urban downtown, and if it had been ten stories taller, it might have seemed sleek and prosperous. Here it looked rinky-dink.

The second building was an old warehouse. It stretched from the edge of the office building toward a thick stand of pines and a steep slope that could have been the outer reaches of the Olympic Mountains. The warehouse was three stories tall, although I doubted there were actually floors inside. It was ringed with cars, mostly new, inexpensive models-Kias, Hyundais, that sort of thing.

There was no guard at the entrance to the campus. I pulled in and found a space at the west end of the lot.

I climbed out. The ocean lay before me, just within the limits of visibility in the misty weather. It had been a while. To the south I saw the shape of the light house marked on the tourist map. It was also obscured by fog, so I couldn’t see much detail, but it was certainly picturesque.

Annalise and I walked to the front of the office building. The two spaces closest to the building were reserved. There was a Prius parked in Charles Hammer’s parking spot. He was a man who drove with a conscience. A black S-class Mercedes was parked beside it.

I opened the door and held it for her. She carried a worn leather satchel like she knew what we were doing; I followed along.

The lobby was simple and elegant, if a little low-budget. Annalise stalked up to the receptionist, told the woman her name, and said she had a meeting with Charles Hammer.

The receptionist wore a name tag that read CAROL and had a burning hoop with a squiggle of black lines inside that, at first glance, looked like the sigil on my ghost knife or on Annalise’s ribbons. After a second, I realized it was a stylized HBT, for Hammer Bay Toys. Carol looked at her schedule, then picked up her phone and told the person at the other end of the line that Mr. Hammer’s ten o’clock had arrived. She hung up, smiled at us, and told us it would be just a moment.

The lobby had a slate floor and walls lined with something stained to look like unweathered cedar. A wide flight of concrete stairs swept up to the next floor. I toyed with the idea of asking the receptionist for a job application. Everyone in town seemed to think I should, so why not? It would certainly annoy Annalise. I was wearing clothes she’d bought, had a belly full of food she’d paid for, and had slept in a room she’d rented. I felt like her personal toy, one she would break at her whim. The urge to annoy her was strong.

The elevator dinged, interrupting that dangerous train of thought. A man of about sixty walked out. He wore a six-hundred-dollar suit, three-hundred-dollar shoes, and a twelve-dollar haircut. He had a wide, playful smile on his face. His eyes reminded me of twinkling plastic.

“Ms. Powliss,” he said, extending his hand. There was a little hitch in his smile as he took in Annalise, then his grin redoubled. “I’m Able Katz, vice president of operations. How was your flight?”

“I drove. I don’t like to have my head in the clouds. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Katz.”

Able turned to me, waiting for Annalise to introduce us. She didn’t. “I’m Ray Lilly,” I said, to end his discomfort.

“That’s a familiar name. Have you been to New York?”

“I haven’t,” I confessed. He shrugged, smile still in place.

“Shall we?” He stepped toward the elevator. Annalise didn’t order me back to the car, so I followed them.

We rode to the top floor in the tiny elevator. The cramped space made us all stand slightly too close together, so we said nothing. The elevator dinged again and Able led us out.

I looked around the office as we walked through it. There were desks everywhere but no cubicle walls. Carts and shelves were packed with stacks of papers, disorganized jumbles of folders, and assorted toys. Many of the toys were posed in various positions of everyday life. Heroic action figures sat around a tiny table holding flowery teacups. Barbie-type dolls dressed as Marie Antoinette posed like country-western line dancers. A tiny soldier seemed to be pondering a spreadsheet of sales figures, and another passionately embraced a coffee cup.

The toys made me smile. In fact, they made me feel damn good. I suppressed the urge to pick one up and put