Into the Fire(101)

“To what?”

“To get her the help she needed. To save her.” Clark’s shoulders broadened with self-righteousness. “With this guy. Max. He could hardly … I mean, just look what happened.”

“Have you ever lost a child?” Evan said.

Clark pulled at his mouth with the cup of his hand. “No.”

Evan’s head throbbed, and he was tired and nauseous and had been in jail not eight hours ago. He wondered why he cared to have this argument, and then an image flickered through his mind—Mia with her bulging satchel briefcase, Batman lunch box, and her travel coffee mug. Her wild hair and the insistent sharpness behind her eyes. Peter at her side, vibrating with energy and the undying optimism of youth, because every moment held an adventure if you weren’t old enough to look past it.

Because of who Evan was, there was so much he’d never have, but that didn’t mean that Max couldn’t have it. Or Violet.

“He was a hardworking guy,” Evan said. “And he saw something in your daughter. Who he wanted to be for her. Something better. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to see in each other?”

“He saw money.” At this, Clark’s lips tightened in a snarl.

“When he agreed to your terms, did you offer a payout?”

“Of course. Of course we did.”

“Did he take it?”

Clark didn’t answer.

“Does your daughter know?” Evan asked. “Or did you not show her that respect?”

Clark pawed his mouth once more and gazed through the windshield at the sagging garage door ahead. “Her mother was adamant,” he said.

“You mean your wife.”

“Yes.”

“That absolves you of the decision?”

“Of course not,” Clark snapped. “That’s not what I’m implying.”

“People who proselytize about accountability are usually blind to the circumstances that exempt them from it.”

“So you don’t believe in accountability.”

From beneath his thumbnail, Evan dug out a fleck of ash remaining from the jailhouse fire. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

“You might think your friend is some kind of saint—”

“I don’t think anyone’s a saint,” Evan said. “But I’ve seen his apartment. I’ve seen how he was willing to live to see that she got whatever the hell you could offer her. Maybe you need to rethink your assumptions.”

Clark set his hands on the padded leather steering wheel. A $120,000 car going nowhere. “This is why I prefer business,” he said. “It’s so … transactional.” For a moment he looked unguarded, even vulnerable. His blue eyes watery, his clean-shaven cheeks chapped. “Relationships—real relationships—are a goddamned mess. What you want. What they want. What you want for them. What you want them to see.”

“What’s right,” Evan said.

Clark laughed.

“What?” Evan said.

“It’s cute,” Clark said. “That you think that’s a thing.”

Evan took his money clip from his pocket, peeled off a hundred, and dropped it in Clark’s lap. “For the water bill,” he said. “You can keep the change.”

He left Clark behind the wheel staring at the wrecked house.





52



Last Resort





First thing in the morning and here Fitz was, sitting in his Lexus in a school parking lot, sipping coffee laced with Jack Daniel’s. He didn’t like to drink this early, but he needed something to work up his nerve.

What had the Steel Woman called it? Contingency plans to our contingency plans.

Just a last resort. Theoretical groundwork.

Stella Hardwick deserved her nickname, that was for sure. She was more like a robot than a woman. The bitch probably skipped breakfast every morning, poured motor oil in her ear instead.

A few parent volunteers in orange reflective vests worked the drop-off line, waving the vehicles in, unclogging the lanes, shepherding the children from car to curb. The kids streamed into the elementary school with their massive backpacks. Kindergartners held hands with their mommies and the occasional stubbled dad in a hoodie. Boys threw footballs and jumped from benches, doing their best to show off. The girls paid them no mind, clustered in groups, bent over their iPhone screens.

He thought of Jimmy and Danica, now lost to college and grad school, respectively. When they were young, their mother usually drove them to school, but he’d made a point of dropping them off once a week, even early in his career when he was still working his way up.

What would his young self—fit, trim, and fresh out of the academy—think of him now? Slouched over his expanding gut in the front seat, slurping coffee-flavored bourbon, the air-conditioning on high to blow the panic sweat off his forehead. Preparing to—

To nothing, he reminded himself, taking another long pull.

Last resort.

Theoretical groundwork.

The first contingency plan was in full effect already, and if that worked, there’d be no need for this. No one would ever have to know that he’d considered it. Maybe after a time, even he could forget.

He climbed out, nodding affably at the parents as he passed. There were plenty of older dads around, so he fit right in.