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  She emerged from the forest, leaning her shoulder onto the last of the pines, and stepped from the decay of the forest floor onto the soft, weed-infested ground of a new clearing.

  She moved closer to the crumbling bluff and surveyed her new surroundings. To her left the clearing wound around the side of the peak, disappearing into the thick line of trees that marked the forest from which she’d just appeared. To her right the clearing spread out in front of her for fifty feet until it stopped. There was a definite edge, an ending to the clearing on that side.

  Loretta pegged the sun behind a thin haze of smoke and figured it was after noon now. She’d been moving for too long now for it to be morning still.

  She limped toward the edge. She approached warily, not sure where it was weak enough to crumble away from underneath her feet. She stopped at a comfortable spot a couple of steps from the edge, and what lay beyond came into view. Her stomach dropped.

  Beneath her, and as far as she could see, was the expanse of the Angeles National Forest. She could see the green of trees, the hints of trails and roads, jagged peaks, and the low glide of quail or magpie swooping above the tops of pines, firs, and redwoods.

  What drew her eyes though, what kept her attention, was the smoke. It hung low over the trees and plumed into the sky like nonstop geysers releasing a thousand years’ worth of pressure. Beneath the blanket of smoke, she could make out the endless lines of orange and red that glowed, consuming everything in their paths. Some were razor thin from her vantage point, others thick and hungry. They advanced and merged.

  Along the horizon appeared a squadron of large birds. Then she recognized they were helicopters. There were five of them flying in formation, dipping lower above the flames, dunking into the smoke. Then they separated, and two of them dumped streaks of water overtop the burning trees.

  The remaining three did the same before the choppers turned, their rotors beating through the black and gray, and they disappeared. Loretta bent over at her waist, resting her hands on her knees before wiping her face with the back of an ashen hand.

  She spun when she heard the collective thump of another grouping of choppers. This was much closer and behind her on the other side of the peak. She couldn’t see them at first, but they were loud. They appeared from beyond her line of sight, thundering overhead and toward the fires below.

  They were flying close enough for her to read the word FIRE on the underside of the choppers and to see the yellow-suited firefighters sitting inside open bay doors on the choppers’ right sides.

  Her muscles tensed, her pulse quickened. She took two quick steps forward, waving her arms wildly and trying to call out for help. Her voice was nonexistent, but even had it been its normal volume, the firefighters wouldn’t have heard her over the roar of the choppers’ engines and the whip of the rotors.

  For a split second Loretta thought one of the helmeted firefighters saw her. She thought he or she glanced her way. A tingle of hope charged through her. She stood on her toes, her eyes widening with expectation.

  But the chopper banked left with the others and thumped away from her. At a distance the helicopters slowed, and she thought again they’d seen her. They stopped in position and hovered over an area where plumes of smoke were just beginning to puff skyward from the treetops.

  Were they coming back for her? Had they seen her in some sort of helicopter rearview mirror or camera? Was she about to be rescued?

  No.

  Firefighters dropped long ropes from the open bay doors, the lines uncoiling until they disappeared beneath the canopy. One by one, the firefighters descended those ropes and slid toward the danger. She counted five of them in all. They were so close to her, a quarter of a mile, she guessed. It could have been less than that, but given the sudden explosion of smoke between them and her position near the peak, they might as well have been on the moon.

  The lines, once taut from the firefighters’ weight, were slack now. Other first responders in bright yellow jackets and pants edged toward the open door and pulled up the lines. It was strangely beautiful watching them work in synchronicity, like a well-rehearsed dance. The ends of the ropes returned to the chopper’s sizable cabins, and the doors slid shut.

  The choppers hovered for a moment. One of the five then rose and banked to the right. The others, one at a time, followed, and they glided back around the end of the peak. None of them were close enough, apparently, to notice Loretta jumping up and down and waving her hands as if doing jumping jacks. They disappeared, and she listened to the diminishing thwack of their rotors leaving her alone in the wilderness.

  She collapsed to the ground, catching herself awkwardly on her wrist. It tweaked from her weight and she winced. She grabbed at her wrist and flexed her fingers, rolling her hand around in circles, testing the injury.

  It was okay. Not even sprained. When she died in the smoke and flames, she’d have two good wrists. That was the bizarre consolation she reasoned in her zapped mind. She ran her tongue along the roof of her mouth, aware again of her thirst. At the corners of her mouth, gummy white yarns of dried spit had formed. Dehydration might take her before the smoke or the flames.

  “A girl can hope,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER 12

  Friday, October 17, 2025

  Brentwood, California

  Ritz was stuck in a loop. Or better yet, he was on a treadmill from which he couldn’t escape. He was George Jetson stuck in an endless revolution, calling for Jane, but getting no help.

  As soon as he and countless other firefighters attacked one city block, rescued people, and worked to douse the flames, another block caught fire. Like a book of matches, one after another after another sizzling to life, Brentwood was systematically burning.

  This part of the city was in an area typically free from the ravages of wildfire. Even if the Getty Museum, planted high above the edge of the enclave and overlooking the western part of the city like a sprawling keep, was threatened, Brentwood proper and the neighborhood that populated the rolling landscape west of the 405 and north of Wilshire would escape. The worst they could expect was poor air quality and drifts of ash settling in drifts on the roofs of their mid-century modern homes or on the hoods of their fuel-conscious, high-end cars and SUVs.

  Now every home in this idyllic part of west Los Angeles was threatened. Because of the heavy tree canopy and the proximity of the homes to one another, the fire danger was ridiculously high.

  Ritz wanted nothing more than to be sitting on the ratty lime green sofa in front of the television inside station 19. It was on Sunset, nestled amongst expensive homes with sparkling pools and mature trees. The station itself was a single-story pale brick with a flat roof. If it didn’t have a marking of a fire station or thirty-foot flagpole out front, it might look like one of the few remaining houses that hadn’t been substantially remodeled. There was a single beautiful tree out front in the manicured yard, wrapped in a wooden bench.

  Most days, during their shifts, they’d train. They might run on a couple of wrecks, a few medical emergencies. Rarely did they roll on a fire. When they weren’t on a call, they’d chill. They’d make hearty, gut-filling, nap-inducing meals in their kitchen. Cornbread and gravy, chili with sirloin, chicken, and dumplings. They had men and women who were better cooks than first responders, and they were damn good first responders. Every once in a while, a newly converted vegan would take the controls in the kitchen. That was a sad day for everyone.

  The firehouse was the one totally un-California place in west Los Angeles. It was where Ritz was most comfortable. It was where he wished he was right now, watching Wendy Williams or Judge Judy and expecting dinner from the thick aromas of cooking meat filling the house.

  Instead, he was banging on the door of a house on South Saltair Avenue. He pounded his fist against the metal frame of the glass door. It rattled, vibrating his heavy knock.

  No answer. He shook his head so that Lardie and Phyllis could see him. He backed away from
the door, axe in hand, and went back to the street. When he reached the sidewalk, he could see the smoke was closer now. At the street’s intersection with San Vicente, a pair of commercial buildings was in flames. One was a six-story bank building and the other the low, wide home of a real estate development company.

  There was a twin attack with teams trying to curb the flames from their positions on San Vicente. Helicopters equipped with three-hundred-gallon water tanks had begun dumping their contents onto the widespread fires as fast as they could. It wasn’t enough.

  Command had ordered evacuations of several square blocks. Lardie, Phyllis, and Ritz were one of three teams going door-to-door asking people to leave their homes. Given that it was the middle of the day, most of the houses were empty. The ones that weren’t empty were, for the most part, occupied by the help. Maids and nannies answered the doors with wide eyes and obeyed without question, almost too eager to bolt, to leave the danger zone in favor of their own safety and a day off.

  Ritz reached the curb, his heels rubbing raw against his boots. He wasn’t meant to wear his gear for this long, to be block-walking in it. Despite that, he pressed ahead. Lardie took one house, Phyllis the next, and Ritz moved three houses down the street.

  He stepped up the walk toward the house, noticing the large jacaranda trees on either side of the stamped concrete walk. There was ivy growing up the front of the stucco two-story McMansion and the glossy front door adorned with hammered iron hardware. Above the door was the black globe of a surveillance camera. There was another camera on the doorbell. He pressed it. There was no sound. He peeked inside the house through the wide sidelights that framed the door. It was dark inside the house. The power was out.

  He knocked on the door, politely at first, and then harder when there wasn’t an immediate response.

  Ritz stood there, his hands on his hips, inhaling the faint odor of smoke that clung to the dry fall air. He was surprised he could still smell it. He’d been in it for so long he’d have thought he wouldn’t be able to register it anymore. But he could, and it was the constant reminder of the catastrophe unfolding around them. With every breath he could taste it in his throat.

  The third knock elicited a response. A regal woman with short brown hair, dressed in a flowing red silk kimono, floated to the front door. She unlocked a series of bolts and swung the door inward, peeking around its substantially thick edge.

  Ritz took a step back, careful not to trip in his heavy boots.

  “Yes?” she asked. “May I help you?” The question was polite but was laced with the confusion plastered onto the woman’s face. She was in her late sixties. Her skin had softened. The wrinkles around her eyes and mouth were faint underneath a thin layer of makeup.

  Ritz smiled. “Yes. I’m with the Los Angeles Fire Department.”

  She leaned against the door. “Apparently you are,” she said sweetly. “Is this about the fires at the strip mall? I saw some of your colleagues died. I’m so sorry.”

  A sting of sadness jolted Ritz. It surprised him and unsettled him. “You heard about that?”

  The woman motioned toward the inside of her home with her head and opened the door a crack wider. “Yes, it’s on the television. Well, it was. We’ve lost power.”

  “Of course,” said Ritz, “the news.”

  A third person joined the conversation from inside the house. “Is everything okay, Barb?”

  The door widened, and a kind-looking man with broad shoulders set against a thin frame appeared next to the woman. He glanced at Ritz and then back at Barb.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “The firefighter here was about to tell me, I think.”

  Ritz silently cursed himself for not having handled this more quickly. They didn’t have time for conversations and condolences. “We’re evacuating,” he said, cutting to the chase. “I need you to gather some belongings. A duffel bag with some clothes and a couple of bottles of water. You’ve got five minutes.”

  The woman’s soft expression hardened.

  The man next to her visibly tensed. He folded his arms across his chest. His face soured. “Five minutes?”

  Ritz glanced back over his shoulder at the flashing red lights reflecting in the thickening smoke at the end of the street. It was still running dark. The fire wasn’t out yet. “Four minutes and fifty-five seconds.”

  The woman shook her head. Her mouth was open for several seconds before she spoke. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Is our house in danger? Are we in danger?”

  “Yes,” Ritz replied. “I know this is hard to hear, but I need you to pack up and get out.”

  “Do we have a choice?” asked the man. “Can we stay?”

  Ritz’s shoulders sagged. He’d hoped to avoid this. “I can’t forcibly remove you, but ignoring a mandatory evacuation is a criminal offense in California.”

  The man chuckled nervously, his eyes dancing between Barb and Ritz. “Criminal?”

  “Yes,” said Ritz. “You can go to jail for up to six months.”

  “Hal,” said Barb, “I think we should go.”

  He unfolded his arms and put one of them around Barb’s waist. “Where do we go?” he asked. “How far do we have to go?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” said Ritz. “My job right now is getting you out of immediate danger. I can tell you that the intersection with San Vicente is closed. That’s the closest fire.”

  Hal let go of his wife and stepped across the threshold. He moved a couple of steps past Ritz toward the strobing haze. The color drained from his face.

  “Please,” Ritz said. “You’ve got less than four minutes.”

  Hal nodded and stepped back to the door. “Okay,” he said, his voice suddenly hollow sounding. “We’ll go.”

  “I’m going to wait here until I see you go,” said Ritz. “Do you have a car?”

  Barb nodded. “Yes, two.”

  “Take one,” said Ritz. “Stay together. Traffic is a nightmare.”

  Barb thanked him, and the couple drifted deeper into the house. They left the door open, promising to be back before the three minute and forty-five second deadline passed.

  Ritz walked halfway back to the street. He could see Phyllis having a similar conversation with a young couple next door. They were in workout clothes, sweaty, and apparently not thrilled with the idea of evacuating. Phyllis was talking with her hands, the stress in her face obvious even from this distance.

  Two doors down, Lardie was having more success. A silver BMW SUV was pulling out of the driveway, backing onto the street. Lardie was waving goodbye to whoever was behind the vehicle’s dark-tinted windows and was already making his way to Phyllis for backup.

  By the time he’d reached them, Barb and Hal were back at the front door. Hal was holding a large canvas duffel bag. A black computer bag was strapped across his body and hung at his hip. Barb carried matching aluminum tumblers, her purse slung over her shoulder.

  “We’re ready,” she announced.

  “Any pets?” asked Ritz.

  “No,” said Hal. “Just us. What now?”

  “Get in your car and head out. Try to pay attention to emergency alerts. If your phones are working, check your news apps. It’ll be obvious when you can come back.”

  “When will that be?” asked Barb. “Any idea?”

  Ritz frowned. “No, I’m sorry. We’re doing the best we can.”

  She curled her shoulders forward and looked away from him, closing the door.

  Ritz spun on his boot heel and moved toward the street. Phyllis and Lardie had convinced the couple to evacuate. They were leaving on foot, stalking the pavement away from San Vicente toward Kearsarge.

  They grumbled to each other, making aggressive gestures at the air in front of them. But they were leaving. That was something.

  It was never easy asking people to leave their homes. Never. But those who were used to the threats were more compliant. It was as if they waited at their front doors, go bags in hand, waiting
for the orders. In a place like Brentwood, where they weren’t accustomed to the idea of leaving their homes to the whims of wind and fire, the resistance was as real as the smoke in the air.

  Phyllis met Ritz at the curb in front of Barb and Hal’s house. Lardie was already on his way across the street to a large Spanish-style home with ornate fencing.

  “That was fun,” she said. “They told me they knew better than we did about where the fire was going.”

  “What did you say?” asked Ritz.

  “I told them to go fight it, then,” she said. “I offered them my gear. Took off my helmet and tried to hand it to the wife.”

  Ritz smiled. It was a genuine smile.

  “Lardie told them we’d have PD arrest them if they didn’t go,” she added. “That did the trick.”

  “They bought it?”

  “Yep.” Phyllis pointed at the couple walking together, moving farther away from the immediate threat. Then her eyes widened; she glanced over Ritz’s shoulder and grabbed his arm. “Heads up.”

  A blue Prius hummed quietly from Barb and Hal’s driveway. Hal was in the driver’s seat. Barb was wearing large bug-eye sunglasses.

  Ritz waved at them. Hal waved back. Barb lifted a tissue to one eye and dabbed. The car eased into the street and whirred to the right, following the athletic couple away from San Vicente.

  “C’mon,” said Ritz, “we’ve got a dozen more to go.”

  Phyllis patted Ritz on the back. “You’d rather be running into buildings, wouldn’t you?” she asked as they started across the street to the homes adjacent to the Spanish mission, whose gates were retracting for Lardie to enter.

  “On a normal day, without a doubt,” he admitted. “But right now, with the way my ribs feel, the way the city is burning, I wish I were watching TMZ on the couch while Lardie cooked up his pork enchiladas.”

  “With cilantro lime rice?”

  “Yeah. And that chipotle-flavored salsa. That’s where I really want to be.”