Gregg Hurwitz - You're Next

‘I know.’ Mike took a deep breath, gestured through the wall at their bedroom, then at the pistol. ‘Sorry ’bout that. It’s been a rough couple days. We’ve never dealt with something like this.’

‘ She hasn’t, you mean.’

Mike moistened his lips. ‘You don’t like her,’ he said. ‘Annabel.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Technically.’

‘She loves you,’ Shep said. ‘That’s all I need to know.’

Mike looked at his feet. Shep stared at the seam where wall met ceiling.

‘Look,’ Mike finally said. ‘How things were left. I never-’

Shep waved a hand. ‘The past don’t interest me. You need me now. So here I am.’

‘I didn’t know how to handle things,’ Mike said. ‘How to reconcile…’ He sensed Shep’s disinterest and trailed off.

‘You’ve come a long way,’ Shep said.

‘And not so far, too.’ The stymied conversation left Mike feeling like he wanted to say something more, but he didn’t know what. ‘We did some good work today.’

And they had. Shep had followed Dana Riverton back to an apartment in Northridge. From across the street, he’d watched her enter a second-floor place. He’d found an elderly neighbor out walking her schnauzer, who’d told him that no Dana Riverton lived in the complex. Mike had left the address, as well as the other bits of information or misinformation on Hank’s old-fashioned answering machine at the office. In the afternoon Shep had applied his focus and Mike’s tools to the house, getting the locks secure as only a safecracker could ensure.

Shep looked relieved at the turn in conversation. Back to logistics. Safer ground. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘I’m gonna go see about tracking that cell-phone signal.’

‘How?’

‘I called a guy who knew a guy.’

‘Long shot?’

‘Yup.’ Shep tugged back on the pistol’s slide, and the round reared up its brass head. He released it again, put it back on his chest. They were, it seemed, out of things to talk about. For once Shep broke the silence. ‘She’s a live wire, Kat.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, she is.’

‘What’s it like? Being a parent.’

The question, a bit vague for Shep, caught Mike off guard.

‘Besides the obvious stuff,’ Shep added.

‘They’re yours,’ Mike said. ‘All yours. And then you’re letting them go for the rest of your life. You move them out of your bed. They walk on their own, don’t want to be held the same. You stop cutting their food for them. They go off to school. Pretty soon some jackass in a car’ll be out front, wanting to take her to a concert.’

Shep said, ‘We were once that jackass.’

‘Let’s hope she does better than that .’

‘No shit, huh?’ Shep scratched his cheek with the pistol barrel. ‘I guess if you do your job well,’ he said, ‘you get to let go of her again.’

All the smart stuff Shep ever said came packaged like that, wisdom smuggled in simplicity. Gratitude welled in Mike, and he realized just how much he’d missed him. Again he found himself searching for words. ‘All this’ – his gesture encompassed the room, the house, his family – ‘I got because of what you taught me.’ He looked around, his words echoing in his head – all this – and he realized with chagrin that it may have seemed as though he were bragging, a big shot. On one level – logistics, security, shorthand – he and Shep had fallen right back into sync, but at the same time a part of Mike couldn’t seem to get comfortable.

Shep said, ‘I didn’t teach you shit.’

‘Stamina.’ Mike couldn’t bring himself, just now, to list ‘loyalty’.

Shep’s eyes pulled to a photo on the bookshelf, Kat at three, hair in her eyes, blowing bubbles. ‘Nah, you were always smart enough to know there’s more than that.’

‘But we needed it. Stamina.’

Shep said, ‘That’s because we didn’t have anything else.’

He closed his eyes, though Mike knew he was just resting, not asleep.

After a time Mike rose quietly and headed back to his family.

Two sleepless hours later, Annabel stood at the refrigerator getting water from the door dispenser, one thumb hooked inside the cup to sense in the darkness when it was full. Turning, she froze at a man’s shape in the living-room doorway. Her hand went white around the glass.

‘Shep?’ The word came out strangled.

‘Yuh.’

She shuddered. ‘You scared me.’

‘Didn’t mean to.’

They stood there, two faceless silhouettes.

‘You don’t want me here,’ he said.

She wet her lips. ‘Yeah, but I’m generally wrong half the time, so don’t pay me any mind.’ She cocked her head slightly and seemed to consider him, up and alert at her footsteps, keeping watch. ‘You know what? I don’t know what I want right now. This has been so horrifying. And you’re here, aren’t you? In it with us.’

‘Sorry.’ He shifted on his feet, a rare show of discomfort.

Her face softened; his politeness, his out-of-placeness, seemed to tug at her. ‘You and I have had our differences, but I want you to know that I’m grateful to you for coming.’

Shep said, ‘Okay.’

‘And it means the world to Mike. I’m worried about him. He’s been really… angry. I’ve never seen him like this.’

‘You don’t worry about Mike when he’s mad,’ Shep said. ‘You worry about him when he’s quiet .’

‘There’s someone new at the house.’

‘Good. Movement.’ Boss Man, on the phone, was even more abbreviated than in person.

‘He showed up in a Shelby Mustang, the ’67, a beaut,’ William said. ‘It’s got that wide grille, makes her look like she’s scowlin’ at you.’

He sank to the bed, freeing a cloud of dust from the threadbare blanket. Hanley sat opposite, a mirror image, their knees nearly touching. The motel room’s lights were off, but the blinking FIVE ADULT CHANNELS!! sign outside threw a neon glow through the curtains, lighting up patches of their faces, their bodies, the dreary furnishings. Dodge was on the floor by the bathroom, his back to the wall, flipping through one of his comics, some violent tale featuring a guy with jester tattoos on either shoulder. The bathroom door was slivered open behind him, a fall of light laid across the open pages. The stink of mildew hung in the air.

‘When did he get there?’ Boss Man asked.

‘We picked up on him this afternoon, but he may have come in earlier.’

‘He’s formidable,’ Boss Man said.

‘Yes.’

‘We’ll see about that. How’d it go with our estate executor?’

‘Wingate didn’t bite.’

‘I figured. We need confirmation on this soon, before it gets out of hand.’

William could hear the whistle of his breathing through his nose.

‘What’s he doing?’ Boss Man continued. ‘This new fella.’

‘Switching locks. Checking the fences. Looks like they’re waiting.’

‘For what?’

‘Us.’

Boss Man said, ‘Name.’ A request, not a question.

‘Don’t have one yet,’ William said. ‘We ran the plates this afternoon, came back fake.’

‘How ’bout that.’

‘But Hanley went back and pulled the VIN off the dashboard, so we can check on that tomorrow.’ William nodded reassuringly at his brother. ‘He’s been doing good work on this, Hanley. Helping us achieve the mission directive.’

‘What’s the VIN?’

William told him the number.

‘I’m not waiting until tomorrow. I’ll have someone handle it now.’

Click.

William said, to the dead line, ‘Okay, I’ll be sure to do that, sir.’ He clicked the cell shut and said to Hanley, ‘He says you’re doing good.’