Into the Fire(21)
The only thing harder than postpartum depression, they were informed by the well-intentioned ob-gyn, was postpartum depression after a failed pregnancy. And the only thing harder than that was simultaneously grappling with the knowledge that their hope for future children had been excised as surgically as her ruptured fallopian tube.
Violet was wrecked, relentlessly battered by a confusion of hormones. And he was barely functioning, hollowed out with grief. They started fighting daily. By being born, he’d lost a mother. By losing a child, he feared he’d lose his marriage. He buried himself in work and overtime and night school. Violet grew sluggish, her broken heart a millstone at her core. She said she wanted to die. That she didn’t see the point of going on. How could she go back to work and spend her days surrounded by throngs of adorable kindergartners?
It was just talk, of course. The kinds of things you say when you’re trying to give shape to god-awful emotions roiling inside you, when you’re trying to process and vent and purge. He thought they’d figure it out. He thought they’d move on. He thought they would be fine right up until he came home from an evening class to find her in the bathtub, the cooling water the color of merlot, her floating arms etched from the razor.
* * *
Evan parked several blocks away and scouted Max’s apartment to make sure no one was watching it. Then he went back and retrieved Max, the two of them making a quick approach through the parking lot, skirting the building manager’s trusty Buick in the front spot. On the second floor, they ducked the manager’s window and eased into Max’s place, closing the door silently behind them.
Standing in the apartment, Evan noted how bare it was. It was a mess now, certainly, after the Terror had taken a tour through all of Max’s belongings and the drywall, but there hadn’t been much to begin with. Sawed-open couch, shattered TV on the floor, toppled coffee table. A few plates—now shattered—and some silverware dashed on the chipped linoleum in what passed for a kitchen nook. A bureau’s worth of clothes hurled around the bedroom. A few empty packing boxes piled in the corner.
From what Max had told him, it had been about two and a half years since he’d rented this place after Violet, and yet it seemed he’d never really moved in.
Maybe he didn’t want to.
Maybe moving in meant acknowledging that she was gone.
While Evan stood watch at the big front window, Max scurried around his bedroom grabbing personal items—clothes, toothbrush, and whatever else reasonable people considered to be necessities.
The second-floor corridor was empty, the street quiet. Evan cast another glance across the sparse apartment.
The habitat of a man who had figured out how to exist but not really live.
Evan wondered if his own place was merely a dressed-up version of the same. He had the thumb drive out, tapping it against his palm. He was eager to get to a secure location, plug it into his laptop, and see what the hell had started this ball rolling.
Max finally emerged from the bedroom, a bag slung over his shoulder. “Now what?”
“Now we tuck you away somewhere safe.”
“Like where?”
Evan considered. From what he’d heard of the Terror and seen of the shooter at Grant’s office, he figured these were street-level guys. Dangerous men, sure, but he doubted they had access to classified databases. Even so, he was reluctant to put Max on an airplane or check him in to a hotel.
Evan kept a number of safe houses scattered around Los Angeles, equipped with load-out gear and alternate vehicles. The locations were, like Evan’s financial holdings, fully off the books, buried beneath an avalanche of shell corps and offshore holding companies. Because all transactions around the safe houses had to be double-blind, they took a hefty investment of resources to acquire and maintain.
The instant a client entered a safe house, it was blown forever. He’d use one if absolutely necessary but preferred not to.
“We have a few options,” Evan said. “Number one: I give you a bundle of cash and a burner phone, you get in the Chevy Malibu and drive away. Then you keep on driving. You find a hotel five states away, pay cash for everything, and I contact you when it’s over.”
Max said, “No.”
“Why no?”
“Because,” Max said, “I gave my word.” He looked like he needed to sleep for a month. “I’m not just gonna run away. I may not be much help, but I have to be around in case you need me. Until it’s … you know, settled. And everyone else is safe.”
Evan gestured at the tufts of stuffing stripped from the gutted couch. “You didn’t give your word for this.”
“I told Grant I’d take care of it for him. That I’d keep it away from his wife and kids. That I’d see it through for him. So I have to do that.” Max swayed a bit on his feet and then said again, “I gave my word.”
“You don’t have to prove anything,” Evan said. “Not anymore.”
Max gave a hoarse laugh edged with self-loathing. His gaze was loose, unfocused.
“So what?” Evan said. “If you do this thing for Grant, it’ll prove you’re a good person?”
“No,” Max said. “It’ll prove I’m worth something.” His eyes moistened, and he looked quickly away. “I thought, just one time, it might be nice not to let anyone down, that’s all. It sounds so fucking juvenile, but…”