Into the Fire(116)
The coffee was cold now, the mug cool within his hands.
He’d known what he was going to do all along. He’d just been pretending that he didn’t. And he knew he had to do it before Gwenny’s alarm roused her for her morning yoga in the back garden.
He picked up the phone and dialed. It wasn’t as hard as he thought it might be. After all, he’d practiced countless times over the past two years and seven months.
When Violet picked up, her voice hoarse with sleep, a surge of emotion ambushed him. “Hullo?” she said.
“Sweet girl.” He had to fight out the words. “I have to tell you something.”
And then he’d lowered his eyes into his hand and wept.
* * *
Parking tickets sheeted the windshield of Max’s TrailBlazer. It felt like a lifetime ago when Evan had directed him to meet here in the lot by Universal Studios.
One problem had led to the second, the third to a fourth and then a fifth. When Evan had blown out Stella Hardwick’s conference room and everyone inside, he’d put down the sixth and final problem.
Now there was nothing left to do but watch the shrapnel settle.
Evan had given Max a thousand dollars to get back on his feet, along with Grant’s thumb drive and a cover story that they’d worked and reworked until it was more real to Max than what had really gone down.
Max was ready to walk into a police station and lay out a version of events that protected him fully and disclosed nothing about his relationship with Evan. Max had simply been a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like most successful fabrications, this was an extension of the truth. The criminal networks Stella Hardwick had assembled around her scheme had collapsed due to internecine warfare, or so the story would go. Greed and turf disputes had turned the parties against one another until they’d brought themselves down, sinking into a morass of blood.
Max hesitated by his TrailBlazer, keys in hand, and looked back at Evan. There was always this moment when they tried to say the unsayable. The bond forged over the course of a mission was unlike anything else.
Evan wondered how much he’d miss it.
This was the part where Evan empowered them to find the next client. To pass on his phone number and, in doing so, to help them move from victim to savior.
Evan cleared his throat. “Good-bye, then.”
“Okay.” Max bobbed his head. “Okay.” He tugged open his door.
“Write your own story,” Evan said. “Or someone else’ll write it for you.”
Max looked down at his shoes and smiled shyly. “I like that.”
“And one more thing,” Evan said. “Pick your damn head up.”
* * *
The past twelve hours had been among the most exhausting of Max’s life. He’d been interrogated by rotating sets of detectives, DAs, and even briefly by the district attorney, until he’d literally fallen asleep in the chair. But he hadn’t cracked and he hadn’t slipped up. The past week—and his time with the Nowhere Man—had introduced him to a new part of himself.
He drove straight from the police station to a 7-Eleven, where he bought a disposable razor and shaved in the restroom. After he splashed cold water on his face, he stared at himself in the rust-spotted mirror. It took a moment, like an image slowly pulling into focus, but he recognized himself again.
Next stop was the big Spanish-style house in Beverly Hills, the site of the Merriweather clan’s Taco Tuesdays. News of Grant’s corruption had leaked to Jill already—he’d gleaned as much from his time at the station—and he felt a need to show his face. He wanted them to know what Golden Boy Grant had done to him and what Max had gone through to protect them all. He pictured Grant with his overpriced suit and that easy, swallowed-the-canary grin. C’mon, Mighty Max. For once in your life, maybe step up, shoulder some responsibility.
A member of the staff let Max in, and he found the family in the kitchen, the trays of carne asada and al pastor sitting untouched. Jill’s face was pink from sobbing, the rest of the family fanned out around her in support or deference.
All eyes shifted to him.
He felt an overpowering urge to do what he always did—to slink away and nurse his self-loathing. But this time he didn’t. He stood his ground.
For a moment he didn’t know which way it would go.
The chef came in wielding a tray of corn tortillas and read the mood of the kitchen. “Maybe this isn’t the best time, sir,” he said to Max.
Jill wiped at her eyes. The family was silent. And then Max’s father found his feet. “It’s not the best time,” he said. “Which is why we should all be together.”
He pulled out an empty chair for his son, and Max blinked at it.
“Thanks,” he said. “But I can’t stay. I just finished at the police station.”
Jill rose, crumpling a tissue in her hand, her swollen face heavy with remorse.
The words were right there at the back of his throat, a lifetime of resentment and vitriol fired with newfound righteousness. He was ready to unleash, to set her straight.
But instead he heard himself say, “I’m so sorry, Jill. I wish it wasn’t true.”
She collapsed into him, sobbing against his chest. And he held her.
Michelle came in from the backyard with a plate of food and hugged them both from the side. Then she took Max’s hand and moved to press it to her stomach. He hesitated.