Hellbent (Orphan X #3)(10)

The elevator doors parted on the lobby to reveal a bustling crowd of Castle Heights residents massed around various craft tables that had been erected for the event.

Every head turned to take in Lorilee and Evan.

Evan made a snapshot count. Seventeen residents, including HOA president Hugh Walters. They all looked eager for small talk.

*

Evan finally made it into the subterranean parking garage, closed the door behind him, and was about to exhale with relief when he noticed Mia and her nine-year-old son sitting at the bottom of the stairs.

Mia shot him a tentative glance. He couldn’t blame her for looking hesitant. He’d gone to her last night, ready to leave behind his aliases and untraceable help line to see what it might be like to attempt a normal relationship. In the wake of Jack’s call, he had left her—and the conversation—hanging.

Peter craned his neck, his charcoal eyes staring up. “Hi, Evan Smoak.”

Evan said, “What’s new?”

Peter said, “Braces suck.”

“Language,” Mia said wearily.

“What’re you doing down here?” Evan asked.

“Mom’s hiding out from the scrapbooking lady.”

“That’s not true,” Mia said.

“Is too. You called her ‘pathologically chipper.’”

“Well, she is.” Mia’s hands fluttered, then landed in her chestnut curls, a show of exasperation. “And I just needed a moment away from … chipperness.”

Peter’s raspy voice took on a mournful note. “I wanted to see, is all. Plus, she had a bowl of Hershey’s Kisses.”

“Okay, okay,” Mia said. “Go ahead. I’ll be up in a sec.”

Peter scampered up the stairs, paused before Evan, gave a chimpanzee smile to show off the new hardware. “Do I have anything stuck in my braces?”

“Yeah,” Evan said. “Your teeth.”

Peter smirked. Then he fist-bumped Evan and shot through the door into the lobby.

Mia stood. She did a slow half turn, stretching her arms, letting them slap to her sides. “That was an odd conversation,” she said. “Last night.”

He came down the stairs. It was hard to be this close to her and not want to move even closer. She was the first person he’d ever met who’d made the notion of another life appealing. He’d had to overcome a lifetime of instinct and training to summon the courage to go to her door last night.

It felt like a decade ago.

He said, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not looking for an apology,” she said. “Just an explanation.”

Evan thought of a digital video camera hurtling around the cabin of a plummeting helicopter.

He cleared his throat, a rare nonverbal tell. “I’m afraid I can’t give one.”

She tilted her head. “You look terrible. Are you okay?”

That image flashed through his mind again: Jack stepping out of the Black Hawk, vanishing into the void. It seemed like a dream remnant, resonant and unreal.

“Yes,” he said.

“Are we gonna talk about what happened?”

“I can’t.”

“Because of whatever … things you’re into.”

“Yes.”

She looked at him more closely. In his childhood Evan had endured countless hours of training at the hands of psyops experts, training that involved brutal interrogation that lasted hours, sometimes days. To ensure he gave nothing away with his body language or facial expressions, they’d monitored everything down to his blink rate. And yet today emotion had left him loose and vulnerable. He felt as if Mia were looking right through his fa?ade. He stood there, exposed.

“Whatever happened this time,” she said, “it hurt you.”

Evan locked down his face, held a steady gaze.

She gave a concerned nod. “Be careful.”

As he walked past, she caught him around the waist. She hauled him in and hugged him, and he felt himself tense. Her cheek was against his chest, her arms wrapped tight around the small of his back. He breathed her scent—lemongrass lotion, shampoo, a hint of perfume redolent of rain. He wanted to relax into her, but when he closed his eyes, all he could see was a Black Hawk spiraling out of control against a backdrop of stars.

He tore himself away and headed to his truck.





6

The Brink of Visibility

His tasks for the day completed, Evan sat at his kitchen island before a plate of steaming mahimahi, seasoned with thyme from his living wall. The plate was centered precisely between knife and fork. Offset symmetrically beyond the plate were two bowls, one filled with fresh pomegranate seeds, the other with cherry tomatoes, also plucked from the vertical rise of vegetation. His vodka tonight, shaken until bruised and served up, was 666 Pure Tasmanian, fermented in barley, single-batch-distilled in copper pots, and filtered through highest-grade activated charcoal. Ice crystals glassed the top.

He’d prepared the meal with focus.

And he didn’t want any of it.

He wondered what Mia and Peter were eating in their condo nine floors below. Their colorful home with action figures on the floor, dishes in the sink, messy crayon drawings magneted to the refrigerator. When he’d first visited them, the disorder had made him uncomfortable. But he’d learned to understand it differently, as an affirmation of lives being fully lived.