Gregg Hurwitz: You're Next

He heard her faint reply from around the next corner and took one jogging step before the blast of heat in his stomach reminded him to walk. Around the bend, Detectives Elzey and Markovic were standing near a partially open door. Elzey had a gift-shop bouquet in her hand, probably wondering how much leniency a fistful of carnations would buy when it came time for Annabel’s official statement. When the detectives saw Mike tottering toward them, scowling and stitched together like a low-rent Frankenstein, they turned sheepishly and slinked off.

Heat roared in his face, in his chest, in the mouths of both cuts as he finally reached the doorway. She was on the bed, her skin pale and smooth, her hair lying limp against her scalp. One of her hands moved self-consciously toward her face but froze halfway up from the sheet, the tiny, instinctive gesture rending him. He gripped the door stile, wheezing against the pain, the two of them drinking in the sight of each other. Her father faded from the room like an apparition before Mike had even registered his presence. Mike couldn’t take his eyes off her, couldn’t move; he was frozen in pain and ecstasy.

‘You cut your hair,’ Annabel said.

She mustered a smile, then immediately started crying, the sight sending him, finally, into motion. He pressed his face to the top of her hair, breathing her in, the scent of her still there, deep beneath the iodine and dried sweat. A nurse was suddenly at his side, talking at them with great agitation, but he wasn’t processing her words.

Annabel hovered her fingers above his scars. He parted her gown, checked her bruised skin, the line of the wound. He felt helpless and grateful and full of rage, the emotions cycling through him like a tornado.

Annabel turned her pale face up at him, and he thumbed a tear from her cheek. ‘Let’s go get our daughter,’ she said.

The nurse came in then at full volume, ‘You are not going anywhere with that nicked artery, Mrs. Wingate.’ She wheeled on Mike. ‘And you. You’d best march back up that hall and get horizontal. And you’re due for some Percocet.’

‘Can’t take it,’ Mike said. ‘I have to drive.’

‘ Drive ?’

Annabel said, ‘Go.’

He kissed her softly on the mouth and walked out.

Shep was waiting in the hall, slumped with his shoulders against the wall like a Chicago gangster.

Mike said, ‘Can you get me some ibuprofen?’

‘How much?’

‘A million milligrams.’

Shep put a hand across his back, and they started for the elevator. Mike said, ‘You got a car?’

‘What kind you want?’

‘No, Shep. I want to borrow yours.’

Shep pulled the keys from his pocket. ‘It’s not a Pinto.’ He plunked them in Mike’s hand. ‘With your driving record, I’m just sayin’.’

Shep leaned over the counter at the nurses’ station and swiped a bottle of Advil from the back shelf. Mike swallowed six pills dry, and Shep shoved the bottle into the pocket of his scrubs, along with something else. Mike saw the furry white arm protruding and smiled.

Riding down in the elevator, Shep nodded at the bruises covering Mike’s torso. ‘What you did for your family…’ He shook his head with admiration.

‘You idiot,’ Mike said. ‘I learned it from you.’

The doors dinged open, and they walked across the lobby and outside, the breeze reminding Mike that he was, inanely, bare-chested.

The ’67 Shelby Mustang was waiting across the lot, spit-shined, the wide grille sneering. Shep said, ‘Gassed up and ready to go.’

A town car eased up to the curb nearby, and a white-haired man in a gray linen suit emerged quickly, waving at Mike and hurrying over to catch them. He had to walk briskly to match their pace.

‘Mr Wingate?’ he said. ‘I came immediately to offer our condolences about this terrible situation.’

‘You are..?’ Mike asked.

‘Now that Brian McAvoy has been detained for his egregious crimes, I am the senior trustee of Deer Creek Tribal Enterprises, Inc. And I come here on behalf of the board to tell you that we had no knowledge of any of Mr McAvoy’s indiscretions. And that we cared for your great-grandmother at the end of her life. I knew her personally, in fact. She wanted for nothing. If there’s any way we can assist you in this transition or anything you need-’

‘Yeah,’ Mike said. ‘I need a shirt.’

The man’s mouth came ajar, the fringe of his white mustache hanging over his upper lip.

Mike said, ‘Give me your shirt.’

The man pressed a smile onto his face. Shep helped him out of his jacket, and then the man loosened his tie, unbuttoned his shirt, and handed it to Mike.

Mike pulled it on, grimacing, and began pushing the buttons through the holes. ‘Thanks. You’re all fired.’

He and Shep continued on toward the Mustang.

‘You need us,’ the man called after him. ‘Who will run the casino?’

Mike said, over his shoulder, ‘You’ll have to talk to my chief of operations.’

The man, bare-chested beneath his suit jacket, climbed back into the town car, and the dark car eased away. They came up on the Mustang, and Mike ran a finger along one of the racing stripes.

Shep said, ‘Chief of operations?’

Mike tilted his head at him.

‘Yeah?’ Shep said. ‘How much?’

‘How much you want?’

‘Can I still pull jobs?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

Mike tugged open the door, and Shep gripped his hands and helped lower him down into the bucket seat. Shep tossed in a wad of cash and his cell phone – the sole surviving Batphone – and Mike rested both by the e-brake and swung the door closed. The engine roared to life, but before Mike could back out, Shep tapped the glass.

When Mike rolled down the window, Shep said, ‘They always say it doesn’t solve anything. Revenge. But when you killed them, did it feel good?’

‘Yes,’ Mike said, and drove off.

The few times he stopped for gas, food, or caffeine, he drew odd stares. Fair enough – with his dress shirt, scrub bottoms, and bare feet, he did look like he’d escaped from an asylum. He popped Advil for the pain, but it was mostly adrenaline that kept him pushing through. The drive was long, and he dreamed a little.

He’d get immunity or wouldn’t, but either way he’d return Kat and Annabel to their home and they’d have enough money from the casino to be taken care of for the rest of their lives. He could repay his countless debts of gratitude – to Hank’s survivors, to Jocelyn Wilder, to Jimmy. Hell, he could repipe all of Green Valley with vitri-fucking-fied clay or pay back the fraudulent green subsidies. Those houses would be the first place he’d spend the casino’s money, a public penance for the lie that had put all this into motion.

And whether as a free man or on prison release, he would have a quiet little ceremony for his parents. John and Danielle Trainor. Proper caskets. He would lay them in the ground and turn over the first spadeful.

At long last he would put them to rest.

At a truck stop an hour away, sipping Coke and eating a Snickers, he caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror. A few drops of blood, probably from a dripping IV line, had dried on the lobe of his ear, and whoever had shaved him had missed a patch of stubble at the corner of his jaw. He licked his thumb and tried to wipe the blood off, and it wasn’t until he saw how badly his hand was shaking that he realized how nervous he was. He went into the bathroom, washed his face, and did his best to make himself look human again. Still, by the time he got the Mustang back on the road, his pain had taken a backseat to the hum of fear running like a current between his ears.