Gregg Hurwitz: You're Next

He entered Parker, Arizona, passing the movie theater where he’d taken Kat, the little dress shop, the diner at which they’d eaten their last meal. Nausea returned like a muscle memory, and, flustered, he lost his way. He got turned around, winding through suburban circles, his frustration bringing him to the verge of tears.

The Batphone rang. Praying for help, he answered.

‘Graham, it seems, was shot during a random home-invasion robbery.’

It took him a few seconds to place the voice. Bill Garner.

Garner continued. ‘Would you like to contradict that account?’

Mike thought of how far back it all went with Graham. Mike’s father, Just John, struggling to the death. The last name that Mike had been saddled with as a four-year-old, assigned by a faceless smart-ass in Social Services. And now it had come full circle. The record would show that Graham had been killed by an unidentified suspect – a John Doe.

‘No,’ Mike said.

‘I had to go to the wall to get Shepherd White included under your immunity deal,’ he said. ‘It was closer than you’d ever like to know. I’ll say one thing, Mike, you’ve got stamina.’

Mike said, ‘And loyalty.’

A street opened up off a curve. He’d looped past it twice before but somehow not seen it.

Garner was saying, ‘-DA can send the documents on to-’

Mike came off the turn, and there ahead was the rambling ranch house and the backyard filled with play structures and girls in motion. ‘I have to go.’

‘We’re talking about your immunity,’ Garner said. ‘You got somewhere more important to be?’

‘Yeah,’ Mike said. ‘I do.’

He eased in to the curb where he’d parked before, where he and Kat had struck their dire deal.

You will come back for me.

I will come back for you.

Before he could brace himself, he saw her, off the front porch, pouring water from a plastic bucket onto a wilted fern. She was wearing the yellow gingham dress he’d bought her, though the sleeve was torn and the hem ragged.

He got out of the Mustang, his legs barely able to sustain him. At the slam of the car door, she looked up, a smudge of dirt on her cheek. She looked right at him.

And then she turned and walked inside.

A breeze blew across his face, an empty, desert sound, and for a moment he actually thought it would shatter him. He stood trembling. He did his best to put himself back together, piece by piece, before he felt steady enough to follow her in.

An older girl answered the door. ‘Are you…?’

He said, ‘Yes.’

A husband. A father .

The girl stepped aside.

Over on the couch, Jocelyn took note of him and beckoned the swirl of children in the room, corralling them magically around her. They hushed and looked with darting eyes.

Jocelyn said, ‘She’s outside.’

Mike’s mouth moved twice before he could speak. ‘Thank you.’

Kat was sitting past the swing set on a patch of cracked asphalt, playing with a doll. Legless Barbie. She was mumbling to herself, manipulating the arms this way and that. Her hair was uncombed and her nails dirty.

Mike reached her. She did not look up. Given the staples and sutures, it took him a while to lower himself to the ground opposite her. He watched her play. Still she did not raise her head.

He reached into the pocket of his scrub pants, tugged out Snowball II, and set it on the ground between them. In a burst of anger, Kat picked up the tiny stuffed polar bear and threw it off into the weeds at the base of the fence.

Mike said, ‘Okay.’

The staples gnawed at his skin, but he wouldn’t move. He watched her hands, the scab on her knee, the top of her head. He was aching to hold her, but he forced himself to sit still, to let her arrive at this moment on her own time. She tilted her head, and he caught a glimpse of her cheek. It was quivering. She banged Barbie against the asphalt.

He said, ‘How’s she feel about having one leg?’

Kat said, ‘She’s angry.’

‘I bet.’

He wanted so badly to reach out and touch her arm, to stroke her hair, to take her hand. Overhead, a woodpecker knocked its face against a telephone pole.

‘It’s okay now,’ he told her.

Kat banged the doll a few more times, then set it down. Tentatively, keeping her face pointed at the ground, she crawled across into his lap. She curled against his chest, and pain rocketed through to his spinal cord, but he didn’t give a damn. All he cared about was her head tucked beneath his chin.

‘Look at me,’ he said gently.

She didn’t move.

‘Honey, look at me.’

Slowly, she lifted her eyes.

He said, ‘It’s okay now.’

And then she was sobbing, screaming, pulling his shirt and pounding her fists against his collarbone. He held her, grunting against the pain, his forehead pressed to hers, rocking her. It was gray with dusk, and still he sat, aching, legs splayed out awkwardly before him, holding her as she quieted, holding her until the only movement was the shuddering of her breath moving through her, holding her, holding her, holding her.

Several experts took time to offer valuable guidance on matters medical, logistical, editorial, and tactical. Thanks to Kristin Baird, M.D., John Cayanne, Philip Eisner, Tyler Felt, Marjorie Hurwitz, Missy Hurwitz, M.D., Don McKim, James Murphy, Bret Nelson, M.D., Andrew Plotkin, Emily Prior, and Maureen Sugden. Any flaws in the book are due not to them but to the author’s inherent obstinacy.

Thanks to my supportive and untiring representatives: attorneys Marc H. Glick and Stephen F. Breimer, and agents Rich Green, Aaron Priest, and the irrepressible Lisa Erbach Vance. Incisive (and patient) editor Keith Kahla and my crew at St. Martin’s – including but certainly not limited to publisher Sally Richardson, Matthew Baldacci, Jeff Capshew, Tara Cibelli, Kathleen Conn, Ann Day, Brian Heller, Ken Holland, Loren Jaggers, Sarah Madden, John Murphy, Matthew Shear, Tom Siino, Martin Quinn, and George Witte. Additionally, I’d like to acknowledge David Shelley, Daniel Mallory, and rest of the UK Sphere contingent, as well as my other publishing partners around the world. Also my Rhodesian ridgeback, Simba, present for the vast majority of the keyboard’s rattling.

And Delinah, there for me every day with a smile that, ten years later, I still feel in my hip pocket.