Critical Reaction (7 page)

Poppy was being treated like a whining kid. It was a wonder the doctor hadn’t offered a lollipop. What’d the guy think? Poppy had been around leaks out at Hanford his whole career—his dosimetry badge had gone red occasionally. A time or two he’d even gotten some mandatory time off to avoid excess accumulated
exposure. Each time they’d tested and declared him “fine”—and he hadn’t complained or questioned them once. He knew there were more risks working at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation than the Sherman Public Works Department, and he’d always trusted his bosses at Hanford to tell him what was going on.

Until now.
This time was
different
, Poppy thought as he stepped into his shoes. It was different because he’d read the summary of Covington’s investigation report on the LB5 explosion in the newspaper. Not a word was mentioned about Lew’s shot being fired, the lights going out, the late take-cover sirens—even though he’d submitted all those things in his own after-event statement about that night. They hadn’t even interviewed him about what he’d put on that page—or answered his emails to Covington HQ.

And now his cough and headaches wouldn’t go away.

They could take that investigation report and shove it—like the doctor could shove his advice. He didn’t send his emails to whine or complain. He was taking the explosion seriously, like they always had at Hanford during his career. And he had a right to know what was in the cloud that night.

Poppy slipped through the quiet lounge, barely acknowledging the receptionist’s “Have a nice day, Mr. Martin.” In the lot, he started his GMC Sierra and headed toward the highway leading to Hanford and his night shift.

The pain and congestion weren’t easing up, and he didn’t have time to fill the new prescription before the night shift started in half an hour. If it wasn’t for the twenty days of leave he’d already taken since the explosion, he’d probably turn around and head home again today. But he’d rather bull through it than lie in bed, with pain knifing from behind his eyes and long coughs keeping Suzy awake. Besides, Dave Prior, his manager at PCL 237, was a good man. Dave would let him go home early again if things got too bad.

Poppy passed the Keys Diner, where he and Lewis occasion
ally had breakfast after the night shift. It reminded him of the strangest part of the explosion: the disappearance of his young partner. Poppy’d never had the chance to hear Lew’s story of what happened at LB5 that night. He still didn’t know what Lew had seen on the east side of LB5—what he’d fired at or whether he’d hit a target. When Poppy’d recovered enough to return to his regular station at PCL 237, Dave told him that Lewis had gotten an immediate transfer after the explosion—and that he’d also requested confidentiality about where he’d gone.

Maybe Lew did it ’cause he was worried his panic that night would get around. If that’s why Lew left, he didn’t know his older partner very well. Nobody but Poppy knew about Lew’s reaction that night. Nobody ever would.

Of course, all this could’ve been cleared up if Poppy’d had a chance to ask Lew all his questions the night of the explosion. But the rest of that night was a blur of panicked gasps. Poppy remembered Lewis dragging him from the roof’s edge and helping him down the dusty air of the stairwell—then the two of them coming out again into the cool night in the front parking lot. There they’d laid him in the back of a van and raced into town to the hospital, while Poppy struggled to pull in enough air between coughing jags. The stars slipped past an open moon roof as Poppy fought down panic by focusing on the whir of tires, bumps on the road, and the whine of the racing engine. From up front, snatches of Lew’s rattled voice filtered back, talking to the stranger behind the wheel: “It happened just like
that
 . . .”; “Felt like an earthquake . . .”; “Hope Poppy’s gonna be okay.” And one word Lew kept repeating:
sabotage
.

In the ER, they’d slapped a mask over Poppy’s face until his breathing slowed and his weary chest muscles relaxed. By then, Suzy had arrived and Lew had disappeared—and his partner hadn’t returned to work since. It was all too strange.

The night crew’s cars and trucks were already in their usual spots by the time Poppy pulled his truck into the lot of PCL
237. He parked where the guys always left him a spot, next to the front side entry. He stood for a moment beside the truck, coughing to clear his lungs until they ached and burned. Then he grabbed a water bottle from the cab, gulping half of it down.

He rubbed a hand across his face to wipe away the cough tears and straightened himself up. He’d stow it all away again, like he did before every night’s work. There’d be no complaining on the job, despite what that doctor might think of him. He was a Hanford man, like his dad before him, and he had a shift to get through.

But as Poppy trod the sidewalk to the glass doors, his last thoughts were the same as they’d been every night for the past several months.

What had he swallowed out on that roof that night? And where on God’s green earth had his partner disappeared to?

CHAPTER 5

Emily looked out the passenger window of Kieran’s ancient Corolla as it bucked and creaked on the rutted dirt road. Her thoughts ran to the smell of boys’ cars—an amalgam of the scent of their skin, the leather of their shoes, their soaps and deodorants, gym bags stored in back seats, fast-food wrappers.

This one was different. Absent were the loose MP3 wires and stray clothes, empty energy drink bottles and papers littering the back seat. There was a sense of order about this car past its prime. It spoke of someone less scattered, more centered and solid—qualities she’d liked about Kieran when they met.

Still, there was a touch of isolation about Kieran, an echo of loneliness. Maybe it was the lawsuit; maybe it was the loss of his father. She didn’t recall that quality in Kieran years ago.

An hour ago, he’d picked her up at the Winchester Inn, where she’d dropped her own car. It was the Sherman bed and breakfast where her dad had made reservations for the night. At Kieran’s suggestion, she’d come into town early to catch up before her father arrived for their dinner meeting.

The past week, she’d thought a lot about her friendship with Kieran at college. It wasn’t hard to dredge up old feelings and recollections: Emily had only had two steady boyfriends since, and neither turned serious. Of course, she hadn’t actually
dated
Kieran. And those other boys were competing with the blur of law school and Emily’s first legal jobs.

But that was all history anyway, and unimportant. She was there to get her father on board with Kieran’s lawsuit, not to start a romance. Besides, she wasn’t the same girl she’d been her junior year of college. She couldn’t imagine Kieran was the same boy.

She looked at him again now, focused on the dusty road ahead. Thick blond hair almost reached broad shoulders, framing a face of quiet reserve. He seemed a little nervous, his expression reminding Emily of her mother’s early high school advice: “When it comes to girls, young men can imagine a thousand varieties of rejection. You’ve got to give them time.”

Except Kieran hadn’t been quiet during the year they’d been friends at the University of Washington. Even suffering through the slow death of his father, Kieran had been outgoing, nearly an extrovert. It was, of course, a show, given what he was going through—it had to be. But Emily had still been drawn to his refusal to wear his pain on his sleeve—pain Emily understood so well with her own mother’s illness.

“We’re almost there,” Kieran said.

“Still won’t say where we’re going?”

“Patience,” he said with a smile.

At Kieran’s direction, she’d arrived at the B&B wearing jeans and a light shirt. He’d picked her up right on time and they’d driven northeast out of Sherman for almost an hour before turning onto this dirt road that took them over a hill and out of sight of the highway. Then they’d settled into the pattern of bumps and jolts for another half an hour, passing through a series of twisting canyons that splashed dust onto the sides of the Corolla like a summer storm of fine brown mist.

At last they rolled through a gap into a small valley. A low ranch house waited directly ahead, fronted by a rose-bordered porch, with outbuildings bracketing either side. A truck and horse trailer were parked alongside the building nearest to Emily’s side of the car.

“You kidnapping me?” Emily teased as he turned off the car.

Kieran nodded. “Yeah. If he ever wants to see you alive, your dad has to take my case.”

The dust was settling as she followed Kieran’s lead and opened her car door into the full heat of the day. This flat ground surveyed by the surrounding hills was vacant and sun bleached, though tall firs crowned the encircling slopes. There was another gap through the hills beyond the building to Emily’s right. From that direction, she heard the sound of a stream.

A man stepped from the front door of the house and into the shadow of the porch. His skin was lined and sun worn, his hair pulled back in twin braids. He folded thickly veined forearms across his chest and appraised Emily from under the brim of a black hat with a yellow tassel hanging from the crown.

She smiled and nodded. The man did neither in return. The disapproval in his stare froze Emily as Kieran crossed the dusty yard to the porch.

He didn’t greet Kieran either, though his stare mercifully left Emily’s face. Kieran spoke in a low voice—too low for Emily to overhear. Still, several nods in her direction convinced Emily that they were talking about her, and that there was disagreement. She stood rooted to her spot until the man turned and disappeared back into the house.

“Everything okay?” she asked as Kieran walked back.

“Just a little misunderstanding,” he reassured her with a light smile. He walked to the Corolla and retrieved a tan cowboy hat from the back seat that he set on her head. “Follow me,” he said, steering her toward the nearer outbuilding.

“His name is Ted Pollock,” Kieran said as they walked. “This is his ranch. He lives here with his wife and granddaughter.” Before she could ask anything more, they reached a side door in the building, which Kieran opened and passed through. Emily followed into the dim interior.

From somewhere overhead came the whir of an air condi
tioner. Then Emily heard the clack of hooves on concrete, just as she caught the unmistakable musk of a stable of horses.

“I remembered you liked to ride,” he said, leading her down a row between dozens of stalls.

Emily smiled in the darkness.

In the dusty light at the end of the row, Kieran gestured toward the last two stalls. “Got a preference?”

Her eyes were adjusting now. In the closest stall was a youthful chestnut mare with a thin summer coat and a long mane and tail. Emily glanced to the adjacent stall, which held a larger, thick-necked bay stallion.

It’d been half a dozen years since she’d ridden, and the stallion looked intimidating. “I’ll take the mare,” she answered.

They tacked the horses together, then walked them out the rear of the barn, where Kieran gave her a leg up into the saddle. Then he led on the stallion, guiding them along a worn path through the gap in the surrounding hills.

They crossed the narrow stream Emily had heard earlier. On the other side was a large corral holding several horses. They rode on by, moving toward open country.

The early afternoon heat atop the horses would have been unbearable except for a softening breeze. Emily was glad she hadn’t chosen the stallion: the mare was headstrong and powerful enough. Not a trail horse, she thought. This was no dude ranch—not if these horses were typical.

Kieran motioned her to come alongside. “So tell me everything you’ve been doing since I saw you last.”

“Becoming a lawyer,” she said crisply.

“Sounds boring.”

She smiled. “Never a dull moment.”

“Following in your dad’s footsteps?”

“My mom’s,” she answered immediately, then changed the subject. “How do you know about this place?”

Kieran shrugged. “I met Ted and his wife last winter after the
explosion and they told me I could ride if I wanted to. I started coming here the last six months. It was a good escape—the exercise helps clear my lungs.”

Emily gestured back toward the barn. “This is no trail ranch.”

“No. Ted has some cattle. But he keeps horses and lets them out occasionally to experienced riders. He also catches wild mustangs that wander onto the Hanford Reservation. Hanford security picks them up on their motion detectors or patrols. They’ll call Ted, who rounds them up, keeps them in the corral you saw, then ships them east for sale to barns.”

Kieran turned away and cleared his throat with a long hard cough. “But you’re avoiding my first question,” he said, recovering. “Tell me everything I’ve missed.”

Now that they were there, Emily found it hard starting this conversation. At college, their walks on campus or in neighborhoods along Lake Washington, talking through the sinking weight of their stricken parents, had sustained her. Day after day, Kieran had always been there for her.

But then he’d disappeared. It wasn’t just that he moved away when his father’s illness took a bad turn: that she could understand. But he never came back. His emails and phone calls quickly grew rare and flat and distant—then stopped altogether.

Kieran noticed her silence. “I’m sorry about your mom.”

“It’s been years,” she said flatly.

“Yeah, I know. I should’ve called a long time ago.”

A hawk appeared in the sky circling overhead. Except for wisps of white in the distance, nothing else broke the blue from horizon to horizon.

“What tribe does Ted belong to?” she asked, pushing away again.

“The Yakama.”

“This is a long way from their reservation.”

Kieran nodded. “He’s had this ranch for thirty years. He used to work at Hanford.”

The breeze was fading, leaving the heat to pound Emily’s neck and arms, unprotected by the hat. Kieran must have felt it too. He reined toward a pocket of trees lining a crest, where they tied their horses to saplings overhanging the hilltop’s edge.