“For the moment.”

“You said you wanted to rise through the ranks, get a top position. Well, this is the price of admission.”

Faye stared off at the traffic in the distance.

“I’m offering you the chance to create your own future,” Sebastian said. “And I’ll do everything I can on my end to help you find out what happened to your brother.”

Faye turned back to him.

“I’ll drive,” she said, opening the door.

* * *

Santa Paula was an hour away without traffic.

Three hours later, they were still twenty miles out.

On the radio, a female newscaster was discussing the various wildfires in California. The worst one, the Sierra Fire, named because it had originated in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, had already burned its way past the small, quiet, and idyllic town of Paradise, located in the northern part of the state—a good five hundred or so miles from Santa Paula. The wildfire was so bad, so swift, and so crazy out of control that National Guard helicopters and military C-130 airplanes were being brought in to help fight it.

The Sierra Fire was dominating the news. Sebastian was more interested in the Creek Fire. That one had started on Mud Creek Road near Steckel Park, which was to the north of Santa Paula, five or so miles away. There was no mention of the severity of the fire, whether or not it was contained, as he had read online back at the house that it was.

Still, what he’d read about the Creek Fire being contained—that could change, thanks to the unpredictability of the Santa Ana winds.

The National Weather Service used a color-coded system for wind strength. Last night, the color-code had gone from red, the designation for high winds, to the never-before-used purple, which signified extreme. The merciless and unrelenting mountain winds had produced gusts of more than eighty miles per hour—the strength of a Category 1 hurricane. Those same winds were expected to come into the region again later tonight. They, combined with the dry land and lack of humidity, were breathing new life into all the wildfires, but especially into the Sierra Fire.

Faye turned down the radio. “Question,” she said, her tone cautious, seeing if it was okay for her to talk. She had been unusually quiet over the past few hours, Sebastian figuring she sensed his bottled rage, didn’t want to be the one to ignite it.

Sebastian cocked his head to her.

“MLS,” she said. “That’s a real estate term, right?”

Sebastian nodded. “Multiple Listing Service. Why?”

“That day I met Paul, Anton brought along a folder with him. It was full of pictures of commercial properties for sale, I think. It didn’t say that, but it had something with ‘MLS’ written along the top.”

“How many properties?”

“At least a dozen. They didn’t contain much in the way of information, just pictures of the property, an address—the kinds of things I’m guessing you’d find in an online listing. There was one that was different, though. A listing for a house in Ojai.”