"What's the scope."
"Small. Storage unit. A man's car. I need you walking the scene before the other crew gets it. You'll know what I'm looking for."
"Yes, Chief."
"You at the cabin?”
"Yes, Chief."
"You'll be here by eight."
"I'll be there."
"Hale."
"Chief."
"Your head in it this time."
"Yes, Chief."
"Good."
She hangs up.
I stand on the porch in socks in the cold morning and I look at the drive and I breathe. I breathe out through my teeth. I let my shoulder drop. The scar on my forearm gives me a low hum. I roll it out with my other hand.
I go back in.
I stand in the kitchen. I put the phone on the counter. I lift the keys off the peg. I cross to the drawer with the spoons in it and I open the drawer and I put the keys to the old truck in, beside the spoons, as promised. I close the drawer.
I walk to the bedroom door.
She is sitting up in the bed now with the quilt pulled around her shoulders. Her hair is pushed back. Her eyes are on the door when I open it. She has not gotten out of the bed. I can still see her breasts and they are beautiful and I like it.
"I have to go," I say.
"A fire."
"Yes."
"Is it the kind of fire you stop, or the kind you start?”
The question walks across the room and stops a foot from me. I look at her. She looks at me. She says it plain. She says it the way she saysall right. She says it with her voice flat and quiet.
I have a second to choose how to answer.
I choose the truer of two lies.
"The kind I stop."
She nods.
"Okay."
"Truck keys are in the drawer."
"Thank you."
