Scorched to Ash Beneath the Blazing Sun novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Dumpster

Rhonda salvages Lorena's life from the trash, Brody sends a video of Lance fainting, and Lorena decides to be at the sheriff's office at nine.

Rhonda came through the ICU doors at eleven that night carrying two garbage bags and smelling like a dumpster.

"I climbed in," she said. "Don't ask."

She dropped the bags on the foot of my bed and hugged me so hard the IV line pulled.

Then she stood back and looked at my face, and her own crumpled.

"I told those boys I'd call the sheriff," she said. "One of them said Lance told them you abandoned the lease."

"I almost told them you were in a hospital bed, but I kept my mouth shut like you asked."

She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist and started pulling things out of the bags.

My scrubs from the clinic.

My winter coat.

My laptop with its screen cracked down the middle.

At the bottom, wrapped in a dish towel, was my grandmother's recipe tin.

It was dented, and it was dry.

I held it against my chest and could not say anything.

"I got everything I could carry," Rhonda said. "The rest is under a mattress."

"Lance took the couch you bought with your own paycheck."

"Let him keep it."

"Let him? He threw your life in the trash, Lorena. Call a lawyer."

"Not yet."

"Why not?"

"Because if I sue him quietly, he settles quietly," I said. "I want his friends to hear what he said."

Rhonda looked at me for a moment.

Then she sat down heavily on the end of the bed.

"I'll do whatever you want," she said. "But I'm going to say it loud while I do it."

My phone buzzed against the blanket.

Brody again.

This time there was a video.

I almost did not play it.

The screen showed a barbecue restaurant parking lot, a string of yellow lights and a row of pickups.

Lance was walking across it with his arm around Callie, laughing.

Then he stopped.

His knees folded.

He went down hard on the asphalt and stayed there with his eyes half open.

His face was gray, and sweat had soaked through his shirt in a dark patch.

Somebody screamed.

Callie fell on her knees beside him.

*He's okay. Says it's the heat,* Brody had written. *He's never had a day like that in his life.*

I watched it twice.

I knew that gray.

I knew the cold sweat and the open mouth.

I had been wearing that face for three years, in every bathroom and bed in this county.

I held still and waited for the voice in my head to say something.

It said nothing.

I had not expected it to.

"Who's that?" Rhonda asked, leaning over my shoulder.

"The man who owes me an apology."

"He looks terrible."

"Yes," I said.

I did not tell her how much that meant to me.

Brice came back at midnight with a paper bag and a plastic spoon.

He had changed out of the ranger shirt into a plain gray one, and he still smelled of sunscreen.

Rhonda took one look at him and sat up straight.

"This is the ranger," I told her.

"Oh, I know who he is," Rhonda said. "Sit down, young man. You're blocking my light."

Brice sat, a little startled, and opened the bag.

It held green chile stew from the diner on Main, still hot.

"The doctor said soft food only," he said. "I asked what's softer than stew."

He put the spoon in my left hand, because the nails on my right were torn down to the skin.

I ate three bites before I noticed he was watching my hand shake and had not looked away once.

I noticed that I wanted him not to look away.

I put the thought down quickly and kept eating.

"The detective called me again," Brice said.

"Lance Lyle phoned the front desk at ten tonight to report you missing."

"He wants to bring in a photograph of you and file the paperwork himself at nine tomorrow morning."

"He's still looking for you?" Rhonda said. "A man who dumps her stuff in the trash?"

"He told the desk you were emotionally unstable and might hurt yourself," Brice said.

The spoon stopped halfway to my mouth.

"He said that to a deputy."

"He did."

"Then he'll say it again to your face," Rhonda muttered.

"The detective asked whether you'd come in," Brice said. "She has my report. She doesn't have you."

"She can have me at nine."

"You have an IV in your arm."

"Then bring the pole."

Rhonda burst out laughing.

Brice did not laugh, but the corner of his mouth moved, and for the second time that night I saw it happen.

"The doctor will fight you on this," he said.

"The doctor can send a nurse."

I pushed the spoon into the stew and looked up at him.

"I've spent three years being told I was dramatic by a man who never once got sick."

"I'm going to walk in there where he can see me."

"I want him to watch me do it."

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