Gregg Hurwitz - You're Next

When he came back, Kat’s face was gray with exhaustion. On the little counter, he made her a peanut-butter – no jelly – sandwich, grateful to have something to do, some way to provide something for her. Meticulously, he spread the peanut butter and cut off the crust. His hands were shaking, and he thought of his father’s arms in the station wagon, his arms shaking as he held the wheel. For the first time, Mike felt a stab of empathy for his father’s situation: the blind panic of watching one’s life come unraveled. The feeling felt forbidden, threatening; he tamped it down with anger. After all, his father had captained his own fate.

Mike focused on the sandwich, centering it on the plate and slicing it on a neat diagonal. What did he think, that a lovingly made sandwich could mitigate the hell his daughter was going through? Yes, that was his hope.

He gave her a half, and she took a few nibbles before setting it aside.

He was crestfallen. ‘Can you eat any more?’

‘It’ll make me throw up.’ She pulled her legs in Indian style and scratched at her head.

‘Okay, sweetheart. Okay.’

She was really digging at her hair behind her ear and it hit him: head lice.

He sagged against the counter. For some reason this above all else seemed an insurmountable obstacle. It reminded him of those endless first nights they’d had Kat home from the hospital, the baby cries, the feedings and changing and burpings. He remembered the comprehensive exhaustion, himself and Annabel lying there in the dark, trying to rise to the wails, reaching back for more that they just didn’t have but that as parents they had to produce, because if they didn’t, no one else would.

Slurping at a leaky juice box, Kat was having trouble keeping her eyes open. He went over, turned her head, and parted the fine hair at her nape. ‘Honey, your head lice are back.’

She had fallen asleep against him.

‘Sweetheart, we gotta run back to Target. I have to buy mayonnaise and Saran Wrap and get this taken care of.’

‘Can’t I just stay here?’ she mumbled. ‘Can’t I just sleep? Please, Dad?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and her shoulders rocked with dry, soundless sobs.

An exhausting forty minutes later, she was curled in her new sleeping bag atop the starchy sheets, her head wrapped in mayo. Mike nestled the baby-monitor transmitter into the sleeping bag right beside her. And then he retrieved the polar-bear Beanie Baby from the Target bag.

‘This isn’t just an ordinary polar bear.’

Her eyes slid over, found him.

‘This polar bear has magical protective capabilities,’ he said.

‘A magical polar bear.’

‘That’s right. He will keep us safe.’

‘If we get attacked by animal crackers.’

‘We have to name him. Do you like Aurora?’

‘Hate it.’ She picked it up by the tiny scruff, studied its face. ‘Snowball II. Like you said.’

‘Snowball’s Revenge.’

Reluctantly, she tucked the Beanie Baby into her sleeping bag. She scratched at the plastic wrap on her head, doing her best not to look miserable. ‘Will you read me a story?’

They didn’t have any books, but he couldn’t bear handing her another disappointment. Desperate, Mike opened the nightstand drawer, and there, instead of Gideon’s Bible, someone had left a dog-eared copy of Green Eggs and Ham . It might as well have been water into wine. He ran his hand across the beloved orange-and-green cover, then held it up triumphantly.

Kat said, ‘Dad, I’m eight .’

‘Oh,’ Mike said. ‘Too old for it.’ He made a show of putting it back.

‘I mean, if you really want to read it.’

‘I do,’ he said.

‘Then okay.’ She yawned, half asleep.

‘I heard Dr Seuss wrote this after someone bet him that he couldn’t write an entire book using only one-syllable words.’

‘“Anywhere.”’

‘What?’

‘“I will not eat them anywhere .” Three syllables.’

‘Oh. I guess I heard wrong.’

‘Mom does the best voice for Sam-I-Am.’

He collected himself. Read the first page. And then Kat was out cold.

He brushed an eyelash off her cheek. For a time he sat watching her sleep, waiting for the lump in his throat to dissolve.

Finally he crept into the connecting room with his vinyl bag of cash, easing the door shut behind him. He adjusted the volume on the receiver clipped to his belt until he could make out the faint whistle of Kat’s breathing. Slanting the blinds a half inch, he pulled a chair around and sat for a good half hour with his feet up on a rickety radiator beneath the window.

At last the Mustang’s headlights swept the glass, scanning bars of light through the blinds and across Mike’s face. He rose and opened the door before Shep could knock. Shep wore an army-green rucksack over his shoulder.

Mike peered out at the night. ‘Were you followed?’

‘No.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know.’ Shep took in the room, his gaze moving from the dark seam beneath the bathroom door to the interior door to the baby-monitor receiver clipped to Mike’s belt. He nodded faintly, putting it together, then said, ‘Hank wants to see you face-to-face. He’s gotta make sure he doesn’t have a tail, but he should be here within a few hours.’

Shep dumped the contents of the rucksack onto the bedspread. Soap, a razor, a brush, women’s deodorant Mike assumed he’d bought for Kat though she was at least a few years away from needing any, and a stack of Safeway phone cards.

‘Prepaid cards go through a central calling center, so they can’t be tracked.’ Shep’s hand dipped beneath his shirt, then he held out a.357 Smith & Wesson revolver, like the one Mike had left behind at the house but with a black rubber handle. Mike stared at it a moment, then took it.

Shep stretched out on the bed, closed his eyes.

Mike moved the cash from the black vinyl bag into the rucksack. He returned to Room 9, pulled a chair to the bed, and sat before the small bump of his daughter beneath the covers. Her back rose and fell, each sleeping breath giving off the faintest whistle. He felt something inside him give way a little. He swallowed, a dry click in his throat.

His hand, he realized, had tightened around the grip of the Smith & Wesson.

The morgue smelled unnaturally clean. William walked the hall, his shuffle step pronounced, shoes squeaking on tile. He couldn’t find an elevator, so he labored down a flight of stairs to the basement.

Two cops and a coroner awaited him, standing before a picture window covered from the inside with a blackout drape. The big cop produced a card with a flourish. ‘I’m Detective Markovic. This is my partner. And the coroner.’

Everyone nodded awkwardly.

‘I’m sorry for this,’ Markovic said. ‘There’s never anything useful to say.’

‘No,’ William said. ‘There isn’t.’

‘When’s the last time you saw your brother?’ the black cop asked.

‘Months.’

‘What was he doing down here?’

‘Hanley was a drifter.’

‘Fortunate you were in the area.’

‘I was in San Diego for business. I drove right up when you called.’

They’d found William’s cell-phone number in Hanley’s wallet. The brothers carried each other’s number in case of emergency since they were purposefully hard to locate; the house and land were still under their grandma’s maiden name, which she’d gleefully gone back to after the old man succumbed to liver cirrhosis. The call, dreaded as it had been, was not a surprise. William had known that something was off right away, of course, but with the cavalry en route to the crime scene and no call from Hanley, he and Dodge, waiting in the van a few blocks away, hadn’t had many options.