Into the Fire(62)

“I’m sorry.” The same two stupid words, but he said them with everything he had, and she must have sensed it in his voice, because for the first time it seemed she actually heard them.

For a few moments, they stood in the breeze, not knowing what to do. It was no longer dusk; night had happened all at once, the gathering inside vivid behind plate-glass windows and the two of them out here, invisible.

“It got so awful,” she said. “Between us. And we said awful shit. But I would’ve gone through it with you. I would’ve been awful with you. Until we weren’t.”

She was crying freely now, and there was no anger, only pain laid bare, and whether that was from the rawness of Grant’s death or the moment, he didn’t know.

“I understand,” she said. “Believe me, I understand. Maybe that’s why I’m so angry.”

“Understand?” Max said. “Understand what?”

“That I was…”—she had to fight out the word—“damaged.” Her voice was constricted, squeezed tight with grief. “You didn’t want to be with me because I couldn’t have kids anymore.”

The words cut through him like a scythe.

“What?” He fought to catch his breath. “No. No, no, never. Violet—never.”

“Why, then?” she said. “Why?”

He opened his mouth. It clutched, but nothing came out.

He couldn’t tell her.

He could never tell her.

She studied him an instant through glassy eyes and then turned and hurried away, arms crossed around her stomach to hold herself together.

He stayed rooted to the walkway, the faint melody of conversation and string instruments reaching him on the wind.

At some point he told his legs to carry him back to the taxi, and they obeyed. And then somehow he was in the backseat, bathed in the scent of the pine Little Tree freshener spinning from the rearview.

The cabdriver tilted the mirror and for once didn’t offer a smirky crack. “Where would you like to go?” he asked.

Max considered the question in a larger context and realized he had no fucking idea. He had to clear his throat twice before he could speak.

“Hollywood police station, please.”





33



Reduced





By the time Evan went to his safe house, traded out the Chevy Malibu for his Ford F-150, fought through clotted traffic on the 405, and reached Castle Heights, he was fit only for sleep and vodka.

He turned in to the porte cochere more briskly than usual and waved off the valet, who feigned annoyance as usual. It occurred to Evan that this was the closest thing to a domestic ritual he had.

The run-flat self-sealing tires screeched on the ramp as he veered down, powerful headlights raking the subterranean parking lot before landing on Mia Hall standing directly between the concrete pillars that defined his spot. Her glare was unrelenting, her arms crossed.

He was bent into the wheel from hitting the brakes abruptly, the grille steaming five feet from her, but she hadn’t budged an inch. She hadn’t even flinched. Leaving the truck running, he climbed out. Walked around. Stood in front of her. The dank space smelled acrid from the brake pads. Her mouth was set, her full lips compressed into a thin line of displeasure.

“Something on your mind?” he asked.

“His head was split open,” Mia said.

“Who?”

“Don’t fuck with me, Evan.” She jutted her jaw forward, stared over his shoulder at nothing, took a deep breath. “The guy who robbed Ida. He was terrified, confessed to everything. His forehead, split like a melon. He had bruises all down one cheek.”

“As I recall, so did Ida.”

“Eye for an eye? The law doesn’t work that way.”

“No,” Evan said. “The law shouldn’t. It can’t.”

She was radiating more than anger, something like thundering moral authority, and he understood how defendants must feel in the face of her righteousness—undressed, despite their courthouse suits. “I told you I was handling this,” she said. “I told you to stay away from it. And you lied to me.”

Her expression loosened for only a split second, but he saw what was beneath, how badly he’d hurt her. The betrayal she felt.

He wanted to tell her that he hadn’t lied, not precisely, but he couldn’t assemble the words. He didn’t have the faintest notion how to navigate a situation like this, but he did know that a semantic argument right now would be a colossal misfire.

And besides, he’d missed his opening.

“What is it you do, exactly?” What Mia’s voice lost in volume, it gained in sharpness.

“I help people,” Evan said. Or at least I used to.

“What does that mean?”

“I protect them.”

“Without limitation?” She grew frustrated at his silence. “You’ll go anywhere? Do anything?”

The garage whirled a little, and he rocked to regain his balance but recovered before she noticed. “Yes.”

“When you split Jerry Zabala’s head open, how were you protecting Ida Rosenbaum?”

“Allegedly.”

In the headlights her eyes had turned impenetrable, wishing-fountain dimes throwing back a midday glare. “Excuse me?”