Gregg Hurwitz - The Survivor

Cielle and Janie shuffled down the hall, hungover from stress. The four of them regarded one another, at a collective loss. Casper’s nails clacked against the floorboards next, a slight unevenness to the cadence as he favored one paw. Nate regarded him with empathy. Like father, like son. Given the fight in Cielle’s room, he considered what he owed this animal. Crouching, he scratched the dog’s underbelly, a hind leg springing into instinctive motion.

Janie spoke first. “Let’s get everyone cleaned up.”

They located towels and rotated through various showers, reconvening in the living room. With a nurse’s frank touch, Janie tended to the various injuries. A flashlight check of Jason’s eye for a corneal abrasion, then Advil for the swelling. Butterfly stitches from the Jeep’s first-aid kit for the gash at Nate’s hairline. She leaned over him, close, forehead furrowed with concentration, front teeth dimpling her puffy lower lip. The pinch of her fingers. Her soft breaths across his face. Those light freckles, stamping the bridge of her unimprovable nose.

Finally she leaned back. “That should do you till you run into the next Ukrainian.” Despite the joke he could see the dread in her eyes, hiding just beneath the surface.

“What now?” Jason asked, sounding an inappropriate note of adventuresomeness.

“I’m starving, ” Cielle said.

Jason hugged her from the side. “You still freaked out?” he asked. “From last night?”

“If we get scared, the terrorists win,” Cielle said. She was joking in a Fox News sort of way, but also not. Nate couldn’t help but note the quaver in her voice.

“I checked the fridge already,” Janie said. “The cabinets. Looks like they cleared out most of the food before they left on vacation. Someone should go on a grocery run.”

“ I will,” Jason said. Before Nate could protest, he held up his hand. “C’mon, man, no one’s looking for me, really. At least as much. Plus, I can go stealth. I took tae kwon do.” He put more into the pronunciation than seemed necessary.

“Yeah,” Cielle said. “A yellow belt.”

“With a green stripe!”

“Kids, en ough. ” Janie peeled a few bills from her wallet. “Be careful. To the store and home, Bruce Lee. Don’t stop anywhere.”

“Except Nicky D’s,” Jason said.

“What’s Nicky D’s?” she asked wearily.

“What’s Nicky D’s?” Jason clutched for air. “Only the best pizza ever. ”

It struck Nate that Jason had the emotional maturity of Charles. Or vice versa. One frozen in time. The other painfully present. “I don’t know about this,” Nate said. “I think I should go.”

“With your head all Frankensteined up?” Jason said.

“He’s right, Dad,” Cielle said. “You should stay here.”

“Chillax, man. It’ll be cool.” Jason started for the door, then turned. “I’m a strict vegetarian,” he declared.

Janie now, through a tight smile: “Of course you are.”

“I’m just saying, I hope that’s cool. With the pizza, I mean.”

“Anything’s fine, Jason.”

“Jay,” he pleaded. Then: “Can Cielle come with me?”

“No,” Nate and Janie said at the same time.

“Okay, okay.” With a cheery shrug, he headed for the front door. “And by the way, Mrs. Overbay. Bruce Lee practiced Jeet Kune Do, not-”

“Back door, Jason,” Janie said.

He reversed course and headed out. Cielle thumped herself down on the couch, and a moment later a reality show blinked to life, strident women dripping with jewels and makeup, debating over Beverly Hills sushi restaurants. She called the dog over and hugged him, her savior, twirling his ears and baby-talking to him. His eyes closed in languid pleasure as he basked in her affection. He looked ridiculous, a dragon getting a pedicure.

Janie walked across to the wall of glass and stared out at the reservoir. Nate came up quietly beside her. With the midday heat wavering through, warming them, they watched the scene below, a painting come to life. The sun slanted down on the water, turning it to a sheet of hammered copper. Cyclists circled the path around the perimeter, blurring by beneath them. Couples strolled and held hands. Dogs strained on leashes. Life in motion, everyone oblivious to the troubles of the three people on the near side of the glass-the depleted, tentative family doing their private best. Knowing that the world continued on with its quotidian pleasures and challenges was an unexpected comfort.

Nate sensed a burn in his left hand, as if he were clenching it, but when he looked down, it was hanging loose. He considered the traitorous muscle beneath the skin.

“I wish I could call my parents,” Janie said softly. “My friends. But Shevchenko’s men found out about the flight, didn’t they? We don’t know what or who’s being monitored. So we’re just here. In a bubble. Cut off from the world.”

He couldn’t think of what to say, so he said nothing.

“I’ll withdraw more money,” she said. “Stop at different ATMs in no particular pattern, hit the daily max. All that Law amp; Order stuff.”

Below her words he could make out the faintest suggestion of her extinguished lisp, one of those imperfections that seemed to catch and distill the light of her.

She placed a hand on the pane, as if testing the heat. “We’re safe here. For the moment. Then what?”

“I’ll touch base with Abara,” he said, “see if he can give us a time frame for his answer about Witness Security.”

“And if he can’t get us into the program?”

“Then you and Cielle should hit the road,” Nate said.

“I won’t leave,” Janie said. “I feel safer with you. She does, too.”

“Then let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Her throat jerked in a strained swallow. Then she was back in control. He risked a direct glance across at her. The sun turned her irises translucent, a postcard shade of blue, and he forced his gaze back to the reservoir before she could read his expression.

Behind them, from the TV: “Bitch, you wouldn’t know good hamachi if it bit you in the-”

“Call Abara,” she said.

He moved to open his cell phone, both arms giving off a dull ache, as if sore from lifting weights. He added the new symptom to his mental list and did his best to move on. There was no time for foreboding just now.

His fingers clawed weakly around the edge of the clamshell phone, finally prying it open, and he turned it on with a jab of his thumb. A voice mail waited from his boss. He knew that something was amiss when she used her title in the salutation.

“Nate, Sergeant Jen Brown here. It’s been brought to our attention that you were detained as a person of interest in an ongoing terrorism investigation and that there are charges pending. Needless to say, you are suspended until the matter resolves. I need you to come in, clean out your desk, submit final paperwork on the last few notifications you served, and sign some papers from Legal.”

The last one being, of course, the real reason she wanted him there.

He shook off the call and dialed Abara, who answered in a hushed tone. “Hang on.” Some rustling as he moved around, and then Nate could hear wind whipping across the receiver. “You can’t just call me, Overbay.”

“When will you have an answer about Witness Security?”

“Soon. Look, sit tight. The DA is less than thrilled with me for releasing you before arraignment. I can’t talk right now, and not over the phone.”

“We barely got out of the house,” Nate said. “We’re twisting in the wind here, Abara.”

A sigh blew across the receiver. “Give me twenty-four hours.”