Gregg Hurwitz - Prodigal Son

The man sat on a ripped La-Z-Boy facing away, watching Jeopardy! , the volume too loud.

Toolkit in hand, Declan glided through the narrow galley kitchen into the living room. The threadbare carpet silenced his loafers as he approached. He paused right behind the man’s chair, watching the TV over the back of his head.

The scent of Old Spice was strong here, overpowering the kitchen smells. The man stayed fixated on the screen, oblivious. Declan rubbed the catch of the leather kit with his thumb, closing his eyes into that bloodred glow, letting the other part of himself take charge.

The game-show host wore a two-button herringbone Ted Baker. He rested an elbow on his podium. “There are two hundred and six of these in the adult human body.”

“Wait, I know this one,” Declan said, and Juan just about fell out of his chair. Declan flicked the catch, the weight of the implements causing the leather kit to unfurl with a snap.

Now his words came forth low-pitched and sonorous. “What are ‘bones’?”

36Four-Letter Word

Coasting through light traffic into Westwood, Evan dialed Joey’s number again. He’d delivered Andre to his woeful room above the Chinese restaurant. After rinsing off Keller’s blood and changing into a new set of clothes from his truck vaults, Evan had extracted a promise from Andre that he wouldn’t leave except to eat. Andre had been shaken enough to concede with minimal complaining, especially after Evan pointed out that takeout was literally a flight of stairs away. He’d left him with a few hundred dollars to cover anything he’d need until Evan could return, and Andre had placed the bills in the zippered pouch that he handled with great care.

Halting at a stoplight, Evan glanced over to the passenger seat where he’d rested the dragonfly drone, the encrypted clearance sticker for Creech North Air Force Base, and the parking hanger for the veterans’ facility.

The spoils of victory.

Joey’s line rang and rang. Just when he was certain the call would dump into voice mail once more, she picked up. “What?”

“Why aren’t you answering?”

“Uh, ’cuz I’m not, like, a child slave sitting around all day stitching Nikes and just waiting for you to—”

Evan said, “I need you to get my name on the visitor’s log at the California Veterans Reintegration Center for tomorrow.”

“I’m gonna write some dialogue for you,” Joey said. “This is what it sounds like when actual humans call each other. ‘Hi, Joey. How are you? How were classes today?’”

“How were classes today?”

“I dunno. I cut.”

“Josephine.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s go back to nonhuman talking. The California Veterans Reintegration Center—and by the way, that name? like, Eastern European communist creepy much?—has no-fooling-around security, like I told you.”

“You got me into prison .”

“Prison is easy by comparison. No one wants to sneak into prison. Well, except you. Like you said, this is a military compound protecting vulnerable human assets who know confidential shit. They’re not trying to keep people in. They’re trying to keep people out.”

“I have the best forged passports in the world—”

“Oh, well, then. Maybe bring a note from your first-grade teacher, too? Pin it to your sweater?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re gonna need more than a fake ID. You’re a military-age male, X. You’re exactly the demo they’d be on high alert for. Even if you are getting long in the tooth.”

He rubbed his forehead. “I’m not getting long in the tooth.”

“Says the prune-juice-drinking retiree. Look. I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”

“I’m almost at your place.”

“What? No. No .”

“Yes. I found a microdrone with a logo on it—”

“A friggin’ microdrone now?”

“—and I already ran an image search on Google, but nothing’s coming up. I need to identify it ASAP. Guess what else doesn’t come up anywhere online? Creech North Air Force Base. Which is what the parking sticker from Hargreave’s rig says.”

“Wait—you went to the lot?”

“With Andre. They were watching that rig, that sticker, and ready to kill anyone who came near it. Six private military contractors followed us in.”

“How many came out?”

Evan let that pass. “We need to figure out what exactly Creech North is and who the person is behind all this—a guy who they call ‘the doctor.’ I need you to—”

He thought he heard a doorbell in the background, and then Joey said, “Don’tcomeovercallyoulaterwhenIhavemoretimebye,” and hung up.

It took a moment for the quarter to drop.

Bridger “Bicks” Bickley.

With his soul patch and his distressed leather black belt and his boy-band jawline. Grab you tomorrow? Like eight o’clock? To “hang out.” With Joey.

Evan glared at the dashboard clock. It was 8:13 P.M. Bicks couldn’t even be on time.

He noted that his hands had gone bloodless atop the steering wheel.

He ran the red light, eliciting a few honks, and accelerated through Westwood Village, cutting off a guy with robust hair in a Jag convertible who gave him what-the-fuck hands. He leaned into the pedal, the Ford F-150 zooming around the corner just as Joey and eighteen-year-old Bridger emerged from her building.

Joey wore a sleeveless shirt, cypress green to bring out her eyes. It took a moment for Evan’s brain to process the fact that she was wearing high heels. Bridger ran a hand across her shoulders and took a hit from a vape pen.

Joey’s shoulders.

A fucking vape pen.

Evan tucked into the curb behind an SUV and kept the engine running.

Up ahead Joey pointed a key fob at a Ford Focus with a ZIPCAR.COM sticker emblazoned across the back. The brake lights bleeped twice, and then she opened the passenger door for Bridger.

Her. Holding the door. For him.

She climbed into the car-share vehicle and drove off.

Evan transitioned into a rolling surveillance position, leaving two vehicles and a half block between them. He tightened up at the choke points and fed her more leash once she banked onto Wilshire Boulevard.

A few blocks up, Joey threw a right-hand signal but drove straight through the light.

She’d spotted him.

Damn Orphan training.

With nothing to lose, he swept into position behind her, giving her a few car lengths. At the next light, she stopped even though it was green. Evan stopped behind her. He could see her angry eyes skewering him in the rearview. Vehicles clogged up behind him, horns blaring.

He waited. The light turned yellow.

“Don’t do it, Josephine,” he said.

Now red.

Cross traffic flooded the intersection from either direction. At the last moment, Joey punched the gas and shot through the gap, motoring away and leaving Evan stranded at the light.

He seethed.

As the Ford Focus drifted off, the brake lights flared. It took a moment for him to realize that she was tapping them in a pattern.

Tap-tap-tap-tap .

Then tap-hold .

Morse code.

For “ha.”

Joey zipped through the next intersection and was gone.

Rather than wait for the light, Evan cut right, inserting himself into the traffic flow, then jogged left, ran a parallel street hard for five blocks, and popped back over onto Wilshire.

There she was ahead, her signal broadcasting a right turn.

Overconfident.

After she went, he crept to the turning lane, counted off thirty seconds, and then eased up the same street. She’d just parked ahead in front of a newsstand. He watched her get out and hesitate at the meter.