Into the Fire(22)

“What?” Evan said.

“I just … I could use a win, you know?”

His voice had grown husky, and for a moment Evan thought he might actually break down under the strain of it all. But then he seemed to shake off the thoughts and reset himself. “The other options,” he said. “What are they?”

Evan gave a nod, glad to move on. “You have anywhere you can go? Anywhere safe?”

“Not really,” Max said. “I mean, my dad’s still around, but my family’s not really … Like I said, we’re not really close.”

“Family’s not an option,” Evan said. “We can’t put them at risk.”

“Not that we have to worry about that,” Max said. “Them sticking out their neck for me, I mean.”

Evan said, “Okay.”

Max pressed his palm to his forehead. “Shit,” he said. “There is one— No, never mind. Shit. Okay. There might be one option but it’s…”

“It’s what?”

“Hard.”

Evan stepped on a cushion on the floor, the knife slash gaping. “Harder than this?”

Max swallowed. The last bit of color had drained from his face.

“Yes,” he said.





13



The Badness of My Heart





The cottage in the gently rolling hills of South Pasadena was tucked behind an ivy-covered brick wall. The streets were wide here, the sunshine plentiful even in the late afternoon, even in November. Polished fenders, moist green lawns, spit-shined windows—it all had a big-ticket gleam.

Evan had taken every precaution approaching the residence, but it was evident that there was nothing on this patch of neighborhood but an excess of money. Beside him Max shuffled from foot to foot.

The doorbell gave a resonant chime that belied an interior far deeper than what the cutesy stone-and-stucco fa?ade implied. Evan felt the key chain—and the thumb drive it hid—pressing against his thigh through the tactical-discreet pocket of his cargo pants, right beneath one of his backup magazines.

Footsteps sounded.

Max said, “Maybe I should just wait in the—”

Violet opened the door.

She was as striking as Max had described. Glossy black hair lay pronounced against her pale skin, a single forties wave peekabooing one eye. Bloody red lipstick. Sharp, intelligent irises the color of espresso.

She wore leggings and a gauzy loose sweater over a fitted midnight-blue shirt. Instinctively she tugged at her cuffs, covering her wrists with her sleeves, but not before Evan saw the telltale marks. Thin raised scars, white as milk, like the branches of a dead tree.

Her eyes sharpened further, her brow twisting. For an instant her face wore a bare expression of unadulterated hurt, and then it hardened, locking down the softer emotion.

“Get him off my property,” she said.

Evan said, “His life is at risk.”

“Yeah? So was mine.”

Max stared at the porch, at the tops of his shoes. Evan could feel the heat from her glare, and he was certain Max could, too.

“I can’t believe you’d show your face here,” Violet said.

Max nodded and faded back off the porch, never lifting his gaze. He waited in the grass, a salesman afraid to approach.

Violet looked at Evan, and he could see the strength in her. She was breathing hard, her neck flushed, her clavicles pronounced on the inhalations.

Evan said, “He did a favor for someone, and now a crew of hit men are after him.”

Violet’s focus moved past Evan’s shoulder to Max. Her blink rate had picked up. She pressed her lips together. Unrolled them. “I’ll give you this, Max. At least you don’t make the same mistake twice. You find yourself a whole new one.”

Her voice now was steady. Not a tremor. This is what pain looks like when stoked to a bright light, Evan thought. It gets cold.

“If I don’t get him off the street and hide him,” Evan said, “he will be killed. He said your parents are—” He almost said “slumlords,” corrected course. “Real-estate kingpins. With thousands of holdings in questionable neighborhoods. He said you work for them now.”

“Yes,” she said, each word diamond-hard. “I do. Now. It was the best option, and I took it.” She was going for a wounded kind of pride, but her misery at the admission was evident.

Evan asked, “Can you find a place that’s between tenants in a”—shitty part of town—“lower-income area?”

“For what?”

“To hide him. To save his life.”

“Why should I put myself at risk for him?”

“You’re nearly three years divorced. And it wasn’t amicable. It’s incredibly doubtful anyone would think Max would come to you—”

“You can count me in that group,” she cut in.

“—and be able to connect the dots from you to the business of your parents—who dislike him—and then to one of countless places they own around Los Angeles.” Evan paused. “Let’s just say it’s beyond a long shot.”

“You misunderstood my question,” she said. “I didn’t ask if I’d be at risk for him. I asked why I should put myself at risk for him.”