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get some air. I’d expected it to be empty. What I hadn’t expected to see were the obvious signs of looting, of storefronts smashed in, merchandise scattered across the sidewalk.

Mouth grim, I parked the Cherokee in a place that would have been heinously illegal a few days earlier, straddling the curb at the intersection of Palace Avenue and San Francisco Street. There really wasn’t anyplace else, as cars still lined the streets, their meters run out long ago. I didn’t bother to look and see if there were piles of gray dust inside those cars. If their owners had died outside, the wind would’ve blown their remains away days earlier.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why would people loot here? Food or medical supplies I can understand, but expensive jewelry and art?”

I don’t know for certain. Perhaps they were attempting to assert some control over their environment as everything was falling apart.

That was one way of looking at it. My hiking boot hit something that clinked against the sidewalk, and I looked down to see that it was a heavy gold cuff bracelet studded with sapphires and diamonds. I thought I even knew which store it had come from, because it was a place where Elena and Tori and I had pressed our noses to the window and gawked at the wares inside, trying to figure out how anyone would pay almost fifty grand for a pair of earrings, even if said earrings were huge drops of tanzanite and diamond that looked as if they should be at the Academy Awards, not a shop window in Santa Fe.

Without thinking, I bent down and picked up the bracelet, then slid it onto my wrist. It was cold against my skin; the day had turned cloudy and dark, the temperature dropping with it. I even thought I felt the first spatter of a raindrop or two against my face.

Or maybe those were tears.

I saw other items scattered around — a lone earring, a trinket box of carved stone. For some reason, I began to pick them up, gathering everything I could find and then taking it into the nearest store, a shop that seemed to have specialized in high-end western gear. It had been hit, too, but not as badly as the jewelry stores.

Again the voice asked, Jessica, what are you doing?

“What does it look like I’m doing?” I asked angrily. “I’m cleaning this up.”

A long pause. Why?

“Because — because someone loved these things once. Someone made them, and someone chose them to sell in their store, and I don’t want them lying all over the place like garbage. They deserve better than that.” As I spoke, I realized that tears were running down my cheeks, dripping bitter salt into my mouth.

When it spoke again, the voice was very gentle. My dear, they are just things.

“I know that!” I raged. “But I also know they’re the only things left! So I’m not going to leave them here!”

Silence again. Then, Jessica, do not distress yourself so. I will take care of it.

I don’t even know how to describe what happened next. A wind came swirling out of nowhere, seeming to come in and pick up all the detritus in the square — baskets and rugs and loose bits of jewelry and hats and paintings and pots, everything that had been scattered on the ground during the looting. It coalesced into a cloud of debris, snaking through the air and rushing into the open door of a shop, then slamming it shut.

Blinking, I stared at the streets around me, saw how they were clear of everything except a few scattered leaves, all evidence of chaos gone as if it had never existed. Somehow, I managed to find my voice. “That — that was you?”

Yes.

“But…why?”

I do not like seeing you in distress.

What could I possibly say to that? I swallowed, my throat dry. The air around me was still once more, heavy and cold. Again I felt the stinging touch of rain sharp against my face.

“Thank you,” I managed at last.

Go home, beloved.

I nodded, then made myself turn around and go back to the Cherokee, to climb behind the wheel and turn the key in the ignition. Perhaps there was more damage beyond the plaza, but I didn’t want to look. I’d seen enough for one day.

The trip home was uneventful, though, and in a way it felt good to busy myself with hauling all those bags of dog food out of the back of the SUV and storing them in the basement, save for one that I shoved into a corner of the pantry. I also got out a chewy treat and gave it to Dutchie, who wagged her tail ecstatically and settled down on her rug to start masticating.

It wasn’t until later, when I’d put away the Ruger I hadn’t needed and similarly stowed the shotgun, then sat down to catch my breath, that I stared down at the heavy gold bracelet on my wrist. How much was it worth?

Wrong question, in this time when a pound of beef was probably worth a lot more than a pound of gold. The more accurate question to ask would be, What did this cost?

I didn’t know. I’d had a small collection of costume jewelry and a few pieces of Native American work, mostly turquoise. When I packed my belongings and left Albuquerque, I hadn’t brought any of it along, save the small silver hoops I was already wearing. Just hadn’t seen the point.

But this thing, which should have been adorning the wrist of some movie star on the red carpet? Who knows. Probably as much as the Grand Cherokee had cost my father when he bought it brand new.

I twisted the bracelet around and around, and then became aware of something sharp sticking into my left hip bone. Puzzled, I reached into the pocket of my jeans, thinking that maybe I’d stuck something in there earlier and forgotten about it.

My fingers closed around two cool, heavy objects. I drew them out, then opened my hand to see what the hell they were.

For a second or two, I just stared down at them. Then, because I couldn’t think of what else to do, I began to laugh.

In my hand were the tanzanite and diamond earrings Elena and Tori and I had admired on our last trip to Santa Fe.

* * *

I didn’t bring up the subject of the earrings. How could I? That would mean I’d have to ask how the voice knew I’d seen those earrings and fallen partly in love with them, even though I’d known I would never in a million years be able to afford something like that.

No, I’d stowed them in the drawer of my nightstand and tried to put the incident out of my mind. And since in the days that followed, I didn’t need to leave the compound, I didn’t hear from the voice much. If I was trying to find a certain item, like a screwdriver, I’d ask where it might be located, and the voice would always answer. Otherwise, though, it seemed to be leaving me alone again, allowing me to find some equilibrium in my new life here.

There was, surprisingly, enough to keep me busy. As I’d promised my father, I wrote down as much as I could about the way the Heat had come to Albuquerque, and what the city had looked like when I left. That was a spare and painful narrative, though, and so I also wrote down random memories, just so I wouldn’t forget them — the surprise party my father had thrown my mother for her fiftieth birthday. Devin’s touchdown at the homecoming game last year. The crazy artist who’d approached me on one of our girls’ Santa Fe trips and told me I had an amazing face and that he wanted to paint me. Things like that…bright pieces of a world now gone forever.

In addition to all that, I tended the plants in the greenhouse and puttered around the house and took Dutchie for long walks, which also helped me inspect the perimeter of the property. The wall was in perfect condition, as far as I could tell, and a good barrier against wild animals, of which there were plenty in the area. I could hear the coyotes calling at night sometimes, and one time the snarl of a cougar or bobcat. Needless to say, I hadn’t ventured out to investigate, although Dutchie had gone nuts, growling and barking as she moved from window to window, presumably following along as the wild cat moved along the wall that bordered the property.

But none of those animals had gotten close enough to trigger the security system, which was why I almost had a heart attack one afternoon, about ten days after I’d come to Santa Fe, when all of a sudden the house was filled with a shrill alarm. I’d been sitting in the breakfast nook in the kitchen, keeping one eye on the book I was reading and another on the loaf of bread I had in the oven. Bread-making was a new venture for me, but really, what else did I have to do with my time?

I shot a quick glance at the timer and saw the loaf still had around a half hour to go, then bolted from the kitchen so I could bring up the security feed on the computer in the office. After I jiggled the mouse to wake up the iMac, I saw the grid with its images from all nine security cameras, including the one at the front gate.

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