Call after call his torso sagged with each negative. The sum total: no units registered to Desmond Backer. Milo’s eyes closed. His breathing slowed, grew shallow, his big head flopped back in the chair, and his arms dangled.

When the snoring reached nuclear-blast level, I saw myself out.

Robin was working her laptop on the living room couch. Blanche napped on an ottoman, her little barrel chest heaving. Not up at Milo’s level, but moving some audio needles with her snuffles and snorts.

Opening one eye, she smiled, dove back into some wonderful canine dream.

The screen was full of Google hits. Mansion arson the keywords. I sat down. Robin kissed me, continued scrolling. “Playing Nancy Drew. Couldn’t think what to cook. Leftovers or out?”

“Out sounds good.”

“My soul mate. Nothing turns up in San Luis, but plenty of fireworks in other cities. Someone builds a dream, someone else can’t wait to take it down. How ugly.”

Years ago, a psychopath burned our first house to the ground. We rebuilt, agreed the net result was an improvement, neither of us talks about it anymore. But a fire station is perched at Mulholland, a short drive to the north, and another sits to the south, near Beverly Glen and Sunset, meaning a fair bit of nights are broken by sirens.

Generally, the banshee howls are short-lived, we touch feet in mutual reassurance, go back to sleep.

Sometimes, Robin sits up, shivering, and I wrap my arms around her and before long, morning’s arrived, sour and disorienting.

She closed the laptop, stood, stroked Blanche. “Okay, I’ll get dressed.”

“Chinese, Italian, Thai, Indian?”

“How about Croatian?”

“What’s Croatian cuisine?”

“Let’s fly to Zagreb and find out,” she said. “Italian’s fine, hon. Anything’s fine, long as I get out of here. Let me freshen up.”

We ended up eating fish-and-chips at a stand on PCH in Malibu, watched the sky waver between coral and lilac, soaking in the final morph into indigo as the sun went off-shift.

When we returned home, I ran a bath. The tub’s not meant for two but if someone’s careful not to bump their head on the faucet, it works out. That kind of togetherness sometimes leads to more. Tonight it didn’t and we read and watched TV and went to bed just before midnight.

When I woke to reverb shrieks, I thought I was dreaming, woke expecting the din to fade.

Full consciousness amplified the noise. Robin said, “That’s the fifth one. They’re heading south.”

Three seventeen a.m.

Siren number six wailed. Dopplered.

“Someone’s life’s going to change, Alex.”

We slid under the covers, touched feet, gave it our best shot.