The Living End (Daniel Faust #3)(94)

“Good,” I said. I turned and walked away.

“Faust,” she said.

I looked back at her.

“You did a really good thing back there,” she said. “You helped a lot of people.”

I shrugged.

“Maybe you should think about that,” Pixie told me. “I mean…you can do anything you want. It’s your choice. Maybe you could turn things around. You know…keep helping people. Maybe it’d feel good.”

“Yeah, Pix. Sure. Maybe.”

I drove to a cafe a few blocks over, bought a cup of coffee and the morning paper, and sat down at a sidewalk table under the shade of a big brown umbrella. I thought about what Pixie had said, long and hard.

Lauren Carmichael, her cult, and her legacy were gone. The ax hanging over my head was gone with it. Sure, I still had to deal with Harmony Black and her legal crusade, but I’d get through that storm when it came. For the first time in a long while I felt myself standing at a crossroads. Wherever I went from here, whatever I did, was totally up to me. What was it Caitlin had said about Emma? “We all have to be true to our nature.” That sounded about right to me.

I flipped through the paper to the local events section. A jazz festival was coming to town. A new art gallery was about to open. A traveling museum collection was on display. I read every detail, asking myself questions, brainstorming ideas.

By the time I borrowed a ballpoint pen and started jotting down actual notes, circling one article and scribbling about guards and burglar alarms in the margins, old habits had their claws buried deep into my skin. I knew exactly what I was looking for.

My next big score.

We all have to be true to our nature.





EPILOGUE



The rusty sedan clattered down the interstate, heading east.

“Such bullshit,” Nedry said, slouching in the passenger seat with his arms crossed over his chest. “Such unmitigated and utter bullshit.”

“You know it, buddy,” Clark said, driving.

“Years of work, down the drain. Our research money? Gone. Grants? Oh-ho-ho, just imagine us trying to get grants now that we’ve spent years in the shadow economy. Neither one of us has published a research paper in ages! What are we gonna do? Get teaching jobs? High school chemistry? Community f*cking college? Oh Jesus, we’re gonna end up teaching community college, aren’t we?”

“Hey, buddy,” Clark said. “Chillax.”

He turned on the radio. A Grateful Dead tune washed in over the cheap speakers.

“Did you just…you did not just tell me to ‘chillax.’ Tell me you didn’t just say that.”

Clark leaned his head back and smiled serenely. “All I’m saying is, opportunities are everywhere! We’ve got our partnership, we’ve got brains, and you know what else we’ve got?”

Nedry glared at him, sullen. “What?”

“Science.”

Nedry stared out the window, his mirrored lenses reflecting the stark desert wastes, and sighed.

“Yeah,” he said, “you’ve got a point. I guess if we stick together, we can figure something out.”

“We can, and we will. Trust me.”

Clark looked up to the rearview mirror. He smiled at the smoke-faced man sitting in the backseat.

The man raised one bony finger, putting it to the void where his lips would have been if he had a face.

Shh.

“That’s right, buddy,” Clark said, turning up the radio. “Everything’s gonna be just fine.”

<<<<>>>>





Afterword



One story ends, and one begins. Daniel Faust will return soon, with new adventures, new challenges, and, as shadows loom over the Vegas skyline, a new enemy unlike anything he’s ever faced before. If you want to be the first to know what happens next, head over to craigschaeferbooks.com and hop onto my mailing list for announcements about new releases. You can also catch me on Facebook, Twitter, or just drop me an email at [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you.

Grateful thanks to Kira Rubenthaler and James T. Egan at Bookfly Designs, my amazing editor and cover designer. They’re an indispensible part of my team.

Names of certain real-life businesses have been changed for legal purposes. The author has also been politely asked to state that “Justine and Juliette aren’t just great pilots, they’re great at absolutely everything they do. They are smart and wonderful and awesome. Anyone who says otherwise is just jealous and should feel bad about themselves.”

The author hopes they will let him out of this basement now.