Gregg Hurwitz - You're Next

On the bed Kat mumbled something and rolled over.

Mike fought his voice level: ‘What kind of a man leaves his kid? Just leaves him somewhere? There is no forgiving a parent who could do that to a child.’

Annabel kissed him. Long and tender, mouth closed, on the lips. ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Breathe.’

He did.

She said, ‘You get whatever resources here that you need to face this thing.’

He kissed her on the forehead, and she wrapped his waist tightly in a hug.

In the kitchen he paced beneath the harsh fluorescent glow with the cordless phone pressed to his mouth. Finally he dialed. The last number he had in his book was no longer in service, but the recording gave a forwarding number with a Reno area code.

It rang and rang. Though it had been seven years, the voice was just as he remembered, quiet and a touch hoarse. ‘Yeah?’

‘I need you here.’

‘What?’

‘I need you here,’ Mike repeated, a bit more loudly.

A rustling sound. A second or two of silence. Shep said, ‘’Kay.’ There was a click, then the dull blare of the dial tone.

Five hours and fifty-seven minutes later, the doorbell rang.

The family lay nestled on the master bed, slats of morning light linking their bodies. Mike and Annabel hadn’t fallen asleep until some time around 5:00 A.M., when the adrenaline had finally ebbed, leaving behind mounting dread and stripped-bare exhaustion. He’d drowsed off fully clothed, revolver in one hand, fistful of bullets in the other.

Mike’s eyes fluttered, and he lifted his head, which seemed to have taken on weight during the night. The alarm clock read 7:47 A.M. – late for school and work, not that any of that mattered today. Revolver at his side, he trudged down the hall. Since there was no peephole, he opened the front door the length of the looped security chain and drew back his head, surprised.

Reno was more than five hundred miles away – what should have been an eight-hour drive. After Mike called, Shep must’ve put the phone down, walked straight out to his car, and pushed the needle to ninety the whole way.

For the first time in recent memory, Mike felt relief. He set the.357 beside the empty vase on the accent table, unfastened the security catch, and pulled the door wide. Shep blocked out the rising sun. Behind him a ’67 Shelby Mustang sat steaming in the driveway like a horse in lather, the air above the hood wavering from the heat. Midnight blue, two white racing stripes laid lengthwise across the top and right down the hood.

Shep shifted, and the sun came across his right shoulder, striking the side of his face. He had a new scar, a twist of hard tissue beneath his ear – shattered bottle, maybe, though Mike knew that it was something they’d never talk about. Shep still kept his hair short, a little longer than a buzz, the right length to avoid foster-home head lice. He wore a V-necked undershirt, the St. Jerome pendant, rubbed faceless like an old coin, swaying on its thin silver chain. The muscles ridging the top of Shep’s chest were as distinct as those that used to frame the bottom of Mike’s a decade ago. Though Mike was still in good shape for his age, the contrast made it clear: He had softened.

That slight overlap of Shep’s front teeth – the familiarity – was comforting. It felt like home. But there were differences, too, beyond the purpled seam of scar tissue. The muscle of Shep’s neck had hardened, grown sinewy with age, and his features looked more pronounced; they had a lean, hungry intensity that was almost wolfish. Regarding him across the threshold, Mike was all too aware of the missed years.

Shep said, ‘Well?’

Mike said, ‘You got any stuff?’ ‘Nope.’

Kat’s footsteps pattered on the tile behind Mike. Shep brushed past him and crouched, bringing his head level with hers. ‘The eyes,’ he said.

‘You’re big,’ Kat said. And then, to Mike, ‘He’s big.’

‘Kat, this is Shep.’

Her hand looked tiny shaking his. Annabel came around the corner, smoothing her shirt. Her posture firmed when she saw Shep.

‘Thanks for coming,’ she said. ‘The way Mike and I have been going, I need someone new to fight with.’

Shep looked at her blankly.

‘That was a joke,’ she said. ‘Except for the thanks part.’

They moved into the kitchen. With a yawn Annabel tugged the omelet pan from the rack. She looked at it wearily, set it aside on the counter, then poured coffee for the adults and cereal for Kat. ‘Eat fast, monkey. We gotta get you to school.’

‘I don’t know that I want her going today,’ Mike said.

‘You think those guys are coming after me ?’ Kat’s cheeks looked hollowed out, dark fingerprints beneath her eyes. They’d filled her in on what had happened, keeping the details as vague as they could get away with. She needed to know that dangerous men were focused on them; she didn’t need to know that they’d crawled into her bedroom while she was sleeping.

‘No, honey,’ Mike said. ‘They want to mess with me. But you can’t be too safe.’

Annabel said, ‘The teachers are on alert, the playgrounds are fenced, they have three supervisors out there at all times, and frankly, it seems they’re finding it easier to break into our h-’ She caught herself and shot Kat a quick look, but Kat was busy staring at Shep. It occurred to Mike, with some regret, that Kat had never met anyone like him. ‘Plus,’ Annabel continued, ‘even sitters and relatives on the pickup list have to sign out the kids with ID. She’s probably safer at school than she is here.’

‘So it’s not safe here?’ Kat asked.

Shep sipped his coffee and stared straight ahead, playing up his deafness. He could retreat like that when strategic or convenient. Mike would bring him up to speed when the time was right, and until then all this was none of his concern.

‘You are safe,’ Mike said. ‘We will keep you safe. Your mom’s right. School’s safe, too.’

Annabel took Kat by the shoulders, steering her toward the hall. On her way out, Annabel caught sight of her textbook – Experience & Education – on the phone table and groaned. ‘I was supposed to write up a mock lesson plan for today. Dr Skolnick’s gonna be annoyed with me.’

‘We’ll get things back on track,’ Mike said.

Annabel eyed Shep, still gazing blankly forward, taking his coffee one deliberate sip at a time. ‘Promise?’ she said.

The telephone rang, and Mike crossed, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and picked up.

A woman’s voice said, ‘Michael Wingate?’

‘Yes.’

‘My name is Dana Riverton,’ she said. ‘I knew your parents.’

Riverton hadn’t given any more information or revealed why she wanted to meet. She’d said only that she’d rather handle their business in person. Mike had picked a café nearby, and they’d agreed to meet at noon. Shep would watch from the shadows and follow the woman home to get an address.

Mike had asked Sheila to clear his schedule for the day, a directive that was met with passive-aggressive cheer. He’d called Hank, eager to find out who the hell had put the alert out on him and which law-enforcement agencies didn’t have him flagged. Hank was still grinding away, hitting walls everywhere he looked, the whole thing feeling more ominous by the hour. Waiting on several return calls, he swore up and down he’d phone back the minute something broke. Before hanging up, Mike had told him to also see what he could find out about a Dana Riverton.

The few hours since then, Mike had spent filling in Shep, who’d listened intently, interrupting here and there to ask highly specific questions that Mike couldn’t always answer – ‘These guys have any jailhouse ink?’ ‘Did Dodge square up on you like a boxer or a streetfighter?’ ‘Who’s the senior detective, Markovic or Elzey?’ Then he and Shep had walked the property, spending extra time at Kat’s window – ‘You need a sturdy check rail with the sash lock or you can slide in a flexible form hook and pop the latch. See the scratch marks here? They ain’t from a chicken.’