Free How to Start a Fire by Lisa Lutz Page A

ballpoint pen turned Kate’s already almost indecipherable script into a cipher. Anna could confidently glean only a few simple facts: Kate had received Anna’s letters; she wanted to know how Anna was doing; she was thinking about writing NASA; and she would write again. Anna saw this as a door cracking open and promptly sent a two-page reply describing her dishonorable return to the Fury homestead.
    Anna heard from Kate again just a few weeks later, a longer letter including tales from her journey, but just the postcard-worthy bits. The two of them continued communicating solely by the United States Postal Service. Anna felt a rush of excitement whenever she received a letter and recalled afternoons at summer camp when the mail was delivered, holding the promise of stickers and candy and mix tapes.
     
    Kate had been sitting in her car for four hours, minus two bathroom breaks and a short trip to the coffee shop—which she fully acknowledged was a bad idea during a stakeout—when Colin phoned. She picked up out of boredom and then she regretted it.
    “Where are you?” he said.
    “I don’t know.” It was less of a lie when they both knew it was a lie.
    The day before, she’d driven for over twelve hours on I-70 from St. Louis to Stratton, Colorado. She could have stopped overnight in Kansas, but the pancake-flat prairie land, tumbleweeds, and messages from God on billboards made her soldier on. She held her bladder until she crossed the Colorado border, then she stopped at the first Motel 6.
    At dawn, she’d driven along the same highway, which suddenly become a tangled, twisty, and breathtakingly beautiful mountain road. She pulled into a gas station and got directions to the address Mr. White had given her for a Leanne Hicks in Boulder, Colorado. A light blanket of snow covered the brown lawn. The ranch-style home needed painting and a junk truck to haul away forgotten chairs and TVs and other things that apparently no longer had to be inside. Kate rang the doorbell. No answer. She’d returned to her car and waited. Then Colin had called.
    “We need to discuss your corporate finances,” he said.
    “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
    “Who are Janet Gray and Leanne Olmstead, and why did you have me write them checks totaling over ten thousand dollars?”
    “Because I owed them money. A good business pays its debts.”
    “Why did you owe them money?”
    “For services rendered.”
    “What is the business model of Golden Retrieval Inc.?”
    “I’m still working out the details.”
    “Work harder. What is it about these people that makes you feel like giving them all your money? Are they special?”
    They weren’t.
    “Did I ever congratulate you on your wedding?” Kate asked.
    “Yes. And thank you . . . for the rock.”
    “It’s a geode, a dragon stone. I was told it’s pretty rare. Although I’m not a rock expert, so it would be fairly easy to pull the wool over my eyes.”
    “As your lawyer, I need to advise you to stop this, whatever it is. Now.”
    “I don’t think of you as my lawyer. More as my accountant or bookkeeper, but if it’s a title you’re after, we can work on it.”
    “Kate, the money is going to run out. And then what will you do?”
    “Get a job. I have to go. My client just arrived.”
    Kate disconnected the call as a green pickup truck pulled into the driveway. The woman behind the wheel had two inches of roots in her bleached-blond shoulder-length hair, which left a black trail down her center part. Since she was carrying groceries, Kate waited exactly ten minutes for her to put them away.
    “Are you Leanne Olmstead, formerly Hicks?” Kate asked when the woman answered the door with an impatient scowl.
    “Who are you?”
    “My name is Sarah Lake,” Kate said.
    “What do you want?”
    “I wanted to talk to you about your deceased brother’s estate.”
    “He owed me fifty dollars when he died. There’s no way he had an estate.”
    “I work for Golden