Combustible (A Boone Childress Novel) (30 page)

Two
.

He kissed her again.

“Stop kissing me and—“

Three
.

In
a single deft motion, he pushed his thumb aside. An instant later, he squeezed with all of his strength. A few ounces of petroleum jelly squirted out. The oil chamber pushed the water back into the top of the tube. Boone squeezed again for good measure, but the job was done.

Cedar was safe.

He rocked back onto his butt and breathed in deep gulps.

"Now cut me loose,
" Cedar said, "and don't forget the thermite."

On cue, the fire alarm sounded, and the sprinklers went off.
Water showered down on Boone's face. Within seconds, he and Cedar were soaked, and water was pooling on the floor around them.

As the fire alarm rang, the sound of sirens cut through the
air, Boone stripped the lengths of tape off Cedar's thigh and then unwrapped her hands.

More smoke poured in, and Boone could see a bright red glow forming at the
doorway. With Cedar's hands free, Boone lifted the tube carefully off. He stuck a piece of duct tape around the tube and then pushed it into a cactus plant on the receptionist's counter.

As he released the tube,
Boone slipped on the wet floor. He fell to one knee. His hands slapped the bar, and a finger caught the lip of the cactus pot.

For a second it
teetered on its edge.

Ready to fall to the floor.

"Gotcha!" Cedar said as she snatched the pot up. She set it down on the bar again, farther from the edge. "How about we get the hell out of Dodge?"

Boone thought it would be a good idea, too.
The only exit from the suite of offices was the door, but when he reached for the knob, it was white hot. No surprise. A thermite fire was on the other side of the door.

In
the few seconds it took to free Cedar, the reaction could've burned straight through the floor.

"Windows,"
Boone said and led Cedar into the interior offices. "Locked!" he called from the first office, then moved to the next.

"In here!"
Cedar called from the last office.

Boone
ran inside, sloshing through the rising flood of water. Cedar lifted the window a few inches when Boone grabbed the stash and slammed it open.

Outside, the courthouse green was in a state of bedlam.
Fire trucks from all over the county roared down the roads around the square. Groups of firefighters ran toward the building while pulling on their turnouts.

On the green, people clustere
d around the bandstand. A bevy of debutantes clung to the back railing, trying to avoid Sheriff Hoyt as he was slapping the cuffs on G.D. Landis, who was seated in his wheelchair.

"Up here!"
Boone yelled through cupped hands. "Help!"

Luigi
was standing near the bandstand next to Abner. He heard Boone's voice and looked up.

"Boone
-san!" Luigi ran toward the window. "The building is on fire!"

"I know!"
Above him, smoke poured out the open window. Boone pulled Cedar down to avoid it. "We're trapped! We need a ladder truck!"

"No time!"
Cedar yelled. "The fire's at our backs."

The ladder truck was bulky and long, and the trees, buses, and hundreds of chairs on the green would slow it down too much.

"Boone!" Abner yelled, cellphone pressed to his ear, "Stay there! They're bringing a trampoline."

A trampoline. They wanted him to jump.
From a two story window. "I don’t think I can do that, Boone!"

"Me, neither!
" he said.

"I have acrophobia!
" she shouted.

"Me, too. Let's
take our chances with the fire!"

"I'm serious!
" she yelled.

"Me,
too!"

Down below, the firefighters gathered. They str
etched the trampoline ring out. Lamar was barking orders to the others, and Boone saw that the whole Frisco squad had taken hold of the ring.

"Let's go!
" Boone yelled.

Cedar
looked down and froze. She couldn’t move.

“Go I said!” he shouted and without hesitation, pushed her off the
windowsill.

As she fell, Cedar screamed, “Booooone.” Her
butt hit the center of the ring, and the trampoline collapsed inside, wrapping her safely like a cocoon.

"Your turn!
" Lamar called, as the EMTs held Cedar to a rescue vehicle.

"I'm good!”
Boone called.

"Boone Childress,
” Cedar yelled as they reset the trampoline for another go, “jump down here this instant!"

Boone licked his lips
nervously. He had to jump. He lifted a foot, bent his knees, and told himself to go. But his feet stayed stuck to the sill.

Behind the door, the receptionist's counter exploded.
The door flew open, and splinters flew. The force of the blast knocked Boone off balance, and he fell backward out of the window.

“Cedar!”

He landed in the trampoline with a huge humph of air, and the wind was knocked out of him. At first, he saw only stars.

Then
Cedar was leaning over him, smiling, and the sky was a deep, rich blue, the color of a wide-open sea. She cradled his head in her arms. “I love you, you big idiot.”

“I love you, too,”
he said and pulled her onto to the trampoline as their lips met.

“Next time,” she said. “You better
not push me.”

“Next time,” he said, “You better jump.”

There was little evidence that the farm where Athena and Troy Blevins grew up ever existed. A bulldozer had swept away the bones of the fire that had destroyed it, along with shell of the heating oil tank that had been buried beneath it. It was above that tank that Peter Mercer had placed a pot of thermite and then ignited it with a delay fuse like the one
he had stuck into Cedar’s hands. The fuse lit the thermite, and the thermite burned white-hot straight into the tank, where it ignited a decade’s worth of sludge and leftover oil. The explosion unearthed the remains of Athena and Troy's distant aunt, who was buried in closest to the house.

Now,
the aunt was being re-interred, along with the rest of the bodies that had been removed by Stuart and Early. The man paying for the work was Trey Landis, who had donated the site to the Bragg County Historical Society as an apology for the trouble his father had caused.

"Trouble he caused?"
Boone asked Cedar as they stood in the shade of live oak watching a crew of graduate students from Carolina Tech processing each set of remains.

"That's how he's phrasing it in the paper," Cedar said. "Damage control."

"Trouble is a pleasant euphemism for all that Landis did."

The process had taken a day a half so far, and
Abner expected at least two more days. Yesterday, Dr. K and Mr. Blevins had been on hand, along with Frisco VFW and Boone's family. A preacher had blessed the work before they started, and he would return later to bless the graves once the work was finished. Mr. Blevins had left right away. Dr. K had stayed most of the day, but when it came time to identify her own family, she was overcome and had to leave.

"Is there anything left to drink?"
Boone said. "Watching them out in the hot sun is making me thirsty."

"You're such a wuss," Cedar said.

"What? I'm fair skinned."

"Fair skinned. Is that
another word for wimp?"

Together, they walked over to a tent that had been set up as a break area. There were four colors filled with ice and drinks and another loaded with snacks.
Two platters of cookies were stacked on one of the folding tables, still covered in plastic wrap. Barefoot Bennie’s catered in breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Except for the cookies. Boone had made those.

"The headstones came in this morning," Boone said as he grabbed a
beer for himself and Cedar.

"I saw them. They look nice."

Cedar pressed
the icy bottle on the back of her neck. She was wearing a bikini top and shorts and Boone watched a stream of condensation roll down the full length of her sun-kissed spine.

"Did you try
the cookies yet?" Cedar said.

"I'm afraid to."

"How will you know if they're edible?" she said.

"I could feed them to the graduate students."

"That bunch of vultures?" Cedar sat down on the table. "They think Barefoot Bennie’s is fine dining."

Boone laughed. But he didn't try the cookies. A lot had changed. Stumpy Meeks was still living in a trailer, but it was on
Dr. K's property, and he was getting treatment for his diabetes. The county courthouse was undergoing repairs for the fire and water damage. The preservation efforts were being led by Mrs. Yarbrough, who wanted the building renovated, not just fixed. She would probably get her way. Lamar had let him back on the Frisco VFD, and after two calls, he hadn’t been kicked off. G.D. Landis and Pete Mercer were locked away. Only one thing hadn’t changed:

His cookies.

"Wish your mom could see this," Cedar said.

"She was out
here yesterday with Lamar. They're coming back this evening when Mom gets off work. It's probably better if she doesn’t hang around. Abner gets kind of squirrely when she starts butting in."

"Heard anything more about old man Landis?"
she asked.

"
Nothing that’s not in the paper."

Because the arrest of G.D. Landis took place in front of roughly half
the town of Stanford, it took only nanoseconds for the rest of the county to find out about it. By the time he was booked and processed through the Bragg County jail, there was an old-fashioned mob outside the jailhouse. There was also a team of attorneys from Raleigh, the advance guard for a group that would soon include over a dozen high-powered and high-priced lawyers.

G.D. spent no time in
jail. A judge who was presiding at the festival convened a special session in the courthouse annex as the volunteer firefighters knocked down the fire and were using foam on the Class D metals fire. He set Landis' bond at two million dollars, and the old man was free. Free until Trey had him committed to a hospital in Raleigh for psychiatric treatment. Conventional wisdom said that he would die before the case ever came to trial. For his part, Trey claimed no knowledge of his father's arson for hire spree, and he had no idea that Autumn Hills was being created as a white man's utopia. He cancelled the project and started trying to clean up the mess. Last Boone heard, he had sold his home and was planning to move to New York to pursue a career in art.

Pete Mercer wasn't so lucky. After his arrest, he was house
d in the drunk tank, which had not been cleaned since the last two occupants. He was being held without bond for murder, arson, kidnapping, assault, and lying on his employment application. A public defender had been appointed for him, but Mercer fired him and demanded to act as his own attorney. His trial was months away still, and no one expected him to go quietly.

Eugene Loach was dismissed from the Atamasco VFD, along with the captain of the station. Eugene closed the family store on the highway, and no one
had heard from him or Dewayne. Boone sometimes worried what they were up to.

Cedar took a long drink of her
beer, tilting her head back so that her neck stretched out, tanned, long, and delicate.

"Cedar," he began after clearing his throat.

"Yes?"

"I was thinking."

"Thinking about what?"

"I was thinking
about fall semester and where we would both be.”

“Funny,” she said, “I was a lot more interested in the summer
than the fall.”

She threaded her fingers through his and stood on
tiptoe for a kiss, which was immediately interrupted by the sound of a car horn. A Chevy Suburban bounced over the rough group, coming too fast. Boone recognized the truck as Gretchen’s.

B
ut Gretchen was in the passenger's seat.

"Luigi's driving," Boone said.
“Hit the brakes!"

"Oh my g
od," Cedar said.

She hopped from the table, then grabbed Boone's
shirt and pulled him back. They stumbled through the row of plastic chairs as the brakes on the Suburban squealed, and the front bumper knocked into the first cooler, spilling ice and beer on the ground.

"My bad," Luigi said as he hopped out of the truck. "That is correct slang, no?"

Cedar ran up to Gretchen. "You let him drive?"

"Wasn't he cool?"
Her face was glowing. "I was taking him to the airport? And he says, I have only one regret about America, and I say what? And he says, I have not learned to drive a car. So I was like, I'll teach you. So I let him drive from my house to say goodbye to you guys. Très cool, huh?"

"
Gretchen," Cedar said through clenched teeth, "You think it was cool that he almost ran over us?"

Gretchen laughed and ran to the driver's side. "Hurry up and say bye, honey-kin."

"Honey-kin?" Boone turned to Luigi. "You let her call you that?"

Luigi shrugged. "How can I stop her? She
is like the breeze though my bushes."

"You mean the wind
through the trees."

"That, too." Luigi stuck out his hand. "This is sayonara, Boone-san. Thank you for being my friend."

"Uh." Boone shook his hand. "Uh. Well. Sure. I—"

Luigi laughed. "Ah, you know so many words in class, but with friends, not so much. You must work on that."

Gretchen honked the horn. "You're going to miss the plane!"

Luigi hugged Cedar, then jogged back to the Suburban. "Boone-san! Do not forget the exchange program application. The deadline is soon. You must come Osaka. Visit me on my
grass."

“Turf!
” Boone and Cedar yelled.

Gretchen put the truck in reverse as Luigi closed the door. She whipped through a three-point turn and floored it, throwing mud and sand behind her.

"I'm sad," Boone said.

Cedar turned to him. She set a tender hand over his
and winked. "It's okay, Boone. I know you hero types aren’t good at expressing emotions. You can let it out."

"No, no," he said, removing the wrap from a tray of cookies. "I wanted him to try my snickerdoodles."

"You, you, you." Cedar gasped. "I can't believe you would do that to me. Of all the inconsiderate—"

Boone stuffed a cookie in her mouth.

"Mmm," she said, taking a bite and chewing. "These are terrific. How did you make these?"

"Mom taught me," he said.
He scooped up one and took a bite himself. Buttery, just the way he liked them. "You know, spending time in the kitchen with someone is a bonding experience? You talk about all sorts of things. And not just recipes."

"Mm-hmm," Cedar said, taking another bite of snickerdoodle. "Like what?"

Boone moved closer. "Like, you know, stuff. Like how sometimes, you can see all of the dots, but for some reason you can’t see to connect them. Know what I mean?"

"Nope." She reached for another cookie.

Boone caught her hand. "I was just thinking."

Cedar tilted her head. "What about?"

"That you have crumb on the side of your mouth."

“Oh?”
Cedar smiled. "Want to help me out with that, sailor?"

"
Yes, ma’am, I do.” He bent down and touched his lips to hers. He traced the edge of her lips and felt the heat from her mouth as her breath caught, and he held there, feeling her skin against his and thinking that she tasted way better than any snickerdoodle ever would.

He finally let go
of her when the sound of the grad student hooping and applauding seeped into his consciousness.

"Boone Childress," Cedar said her arms around his neck, "I'm surprised at you."

“Why is that?"

"Y
ou're not such a tough cookie after all."

THE END