Still cool from the shower, Evan stood before his dresser in his boxer briefs. He opened the top drawer. Identical dark Levi’s 501s on one side and on the other, tactical-discreet cargo pants. They were sharply folded, stacked so neatly they looked machine-cut. He pulled on a pair of cargo pants and snugged the Kydex high-guard holster on the waistband, relieved to be wearing a normal-size pistol again. Then he slid two backup magazines into the streamlined inner pockets. They gave no bulge.
The next drawer down housed ten unworn gray V-neck T-shirts. He put one on, tucked it behind his hip holster. In the closet he grabbed the top shoe box from a tiered tower in the corner. He changed out his Original S.W.A.T. boots regularly, ensuring that he couldn’t be tracked by microfibers or soil residue trapped in the tread. Nine Woolrich shirts hung in parallel, magnetic buttons clamped. They were straight from the shipping package, though he’d cut off the price tags and ironed out the wrinkles before hanging them. As he donned the nearest shirt and snapped the buttons shut, he thought about what he was planning to do just a few hours from now.
He was going to walk into the den of the world’s most dangerous gang.
Innumerable variables, a risk level too high to assess. That was why he needed every other facet to be locked down, predictable, second-nature. He knew each contour, thread, and operation spec of his gear. Every magazine had been painstakingly validated on a desert range, tested to ensure that it dropped from the well without the slightest hitch.
A passel of fresh Victorinox watch fobs waited in a hinged wooden box. He’d just clipped one to the first belt loop on the left side when it occurred to him that he’d dressed for the mission and not for the preceding dinner at Mia’s. He was due downstairs in twenty-three minutes.
Showing up to a DA’s condo with illegally concealed firearms didn’t strike him as the most prudent idea.
He went back into the bedroom, took off the hip holster, and then removed the magazines from his hidden pockets. The Victorinox fob seemed vaguely militaristic, so he unclipped it and set it aside. The cargo pants and S.W.A.T. boots were low-profile enough, but a wary eye might find them aggressive. He kicked them off, stood there in his boxer briefs and Woolrich button-up.
Now he was questioning the shirt. Tactical magnetic buttons—Mia couldn’t possibly notice those. Could she?
He took the shirt off. Then the one under that.
Down to boxer briefs.
This wasn’t going well.
There was a knock on his door. Joey called through, “Wanna try that meditating stuff before you go?”
Evan said, “Yes, please.”
* * *
Evan and Joey sat facing each other in the loft. After Operation Getting Dressed for Dinner, he figured he needed to meditate more than she did. He’d thrown his clothes back on hastily and headed up to meet her in the loft.
She assumed an erect yogi’s posture. “Back in Richmond you told David Smith, ‘You can’t help people more than they want to help themselves.’”
Evan said, “Yes.”
He could see that it was taking everything she had to get the words out.
“I want to help myself,” she said. “I want to wind up better.”
“Okay.”
“Clearly I suck at meditation.”
“That’s not clear. It might be doing exactly what it should be doing.”
“Walk me through how to do it again?”
Jack had taught Evan proper procedures for everything from fieldstripping a pistol to readying for meditation. He started to haul out the directives now when he caught himself and thought of the new Commandment he’d invented for himself—and for Joey.
Don’t fall in love with Plan A.
She was waiting on him, puzzled by his delay.
“You know what?” he said. “Maybe we’ve been approaching this wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sit however’s comfortable. However makes you feel safe.”
She gave a nervous laugh. “I don’t know.”
“Then figure it out.”
She looked around. Then she rolled her shoulders. Cracked her jaw. She crossed her legs and uncrossed them. “Can I go to my couch?”
“You can do anything you want.”
She got up on the couch, hugged her pillow, pulled her knees in to her chest. She took a cushion and pressed it against her shins. She put another against her exposed side, building a burrow. “Is this weird?”
“There’s no such thing as weird.”
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
“Does that feel all right?”
She nodded, two quick jerks of her head.
“Just focus on your breath now, and let your body talk to you.”
He closed his eyes. As the first minute passed, he acquainted himself with the silence. He barely had time to narrow his focus when she broke. The first shuddering breath and then the storm.
She stayed hugging her knees, curled into herself, sobbing. He waited for her to get up and stomp out like before. She didn’t. She rocked herself and cried until the pillow was dark with tears, until her hair stuck to her face, until he thought she’d never stop.
He sat still, being with her without being with her. After a time it occurred to him that might not be enough.
He said, “May I sit by you?”
She shoved tears off her cheeks with the heels of her hands, gave a nod.
He took a seat on the couch at a respectful distance, but she nudged the cushion aside and leaned into him.
He was surprised, caught off guard, unsure of what was expected of him.
At first his arms floated above her stiffly. She was shuddering, hands curled beneath her chin. He thought about what Jack might do and then realized that Jack might never have found himself in a situation like this.
So instead Evan asked himself what he might do.
He lowered his arms to comfort her.
He wasn’t sure if his touch would elicit anger or flight, but she stayed there, her face buried in his chest.
She felt like an anchor to him, not dragging him down but mooring him to this spot, to this moment, locking his location for once on the grid. For the first time in his life, he felt the tug as something not unpleasant but precious.
Her legs flexed, jogging her back and forth ever so slightly. He held her, rocking her, as she wept. He brushed her hair from his mouth. Cleared his throat.
“You’re okay,” he said.
“You’re gonna be fine,” he said.
“You’re worth it,” he said.
* * *
Downstairs in his bedroom, he called Mia. When she answered, he took a deep breath.
“Hi, Mia. It’s Evan. I know I was supposed to be there twenty minutes ago. But I can’t come over for dinner with you and Peter. I’m sorry.”
Joey had finally pried herself off the couch to wash her face, and Evan had told her he’d be right back up. He had to head to Pico-Union in an hour and change, and he wasn’t willing to leave her alone until he had to. The imperative was as much for him as for her, the protective impulse spilling over into something more intimate, paternal.
It felt threatening and out of control, and he could afford neither at the moment. But he knew that if he left that sixteen-year-old girl alone after what she’d just gone through, he wouldn’t forgive himself for it.
There was a brief, surprised silence. And then Mia said, “Okay. Can I ask why?”
He was torn between what he owed Mia and what he owed Joey. “Something personal came up.”
“And you couldn’t call to let us know? I mean, before?”
“I really couldn’t. I’m sorry.”
“Peter made place cards and set the table an hour ago. Wait—scratch that.” Her breaths came across the receiver. “Sorry. I don’t mean to guilt-trip you. And I don’t mind that he learns to handle disappointment. That’s part of life. But I guess I’m not sure how to handle stuff about you with him when I don’t even have any answers. And that seems to come up more and more. No answers, I mean. Which I’m not sure is gonna work, Evan. I thought it might. But I don’t think it will.”
Something inside him crumbled away, brittle and dead. He thought about the dishes stacked on her counter, the smell of laundry, the instructive Post-its, and how they’d always seemed to be from some other life better than he deserved. Nine floors separated Evan from Mia and Peter, and yet they were out of reach. They always had been. But for a brief time, it had been lovely to pretend otherwise.
He said, “I understand.”
“You understand.” She made an unamused sound of amusement. “You know, I’ve never seen you upset. Never seen you get mad, flustered, lose it. At first I thought it was a kind of strength. But then I realized it’s just a kind of … nothing.”
Her words weren’t just true. They were profoundly true. They landed on him with the tonnage of decades.
“Look,” she said. “Even if this is our last conversation, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to play the role of the one who cares. And you get to play the role of the wanted asset. We can’t figure it out, whatever ‘it’ is. That’s fine. We’re both adults with complicated lives. But I wish you at least had the spine to say that you cared, too.”
It exploded out from the core of him, a blinding heat, escaping before he could trap it. “You think I’m pretending, Mia? That this is some game to me? You think I don’t want to just cook linguine and chat over dinner and be with you? I don’t have the same choices you do. I lost someone very close to me, and I need to set that right, whether I’m stuck with some kid I don’t know what to do with, whether I have other jobs I have to see through, whether you want me to come to dinner. It’s what I have to do.”
His head hummed. His vision felt loose, as if he’d had a drink. He wondered if he’d actually said the words out loud. It seemed improbable that he had.
“Okay,” Mia said. “That’s a start. Thank you.”
There was not a trace of sarcasm in her voice. He was as stupefied by her reaction as he was by his outburst. He had no slot for any of this, no bearings to guide him into familiar shore.
Across the penthouse he heard the slam of his front door.
His pistol was already drawn, aimed at the open bedroom door, a familiar calm descending over him like a drape. He welcomed it.
“I have to go,” he said, and cut the call.
He moved out into the hall, noted a crumpled piece of paper halfway to the great room. He eased past and emerged onto the concrete plain, swinging wide for the best vantage on the closed front door. The elaborate internal locks were unbolted.
Which meant it had been opened from inside.
He holstered the pistol, stuck his head out into the corridor. The elevator had already reached the lobby. He reversed and hustled across to the spiral staircase and up, confirming that, yes, the loft was empty. Joey’s rucksack was still there, her treasured shoe box out on the sofa.
That was good. She’d have to come back for those.
With increasing chagrin he padded downstairs, walked to the end of the hall, and stared at the ball of paper ten yards from his open bedroom door. From this position his words to Mia would have been clear and crisp: I’m stuck with some kid I don’t know what to do with.
He moved forward on numb legs. Crouching over the paper, he uncrumpled it. Fragile pieces of blue and yellow fell out—the remains of a pressed iris from Joey’s maunt.
Joey had written a note of her own on the paper.
Thanks for being there for me. I know I’m not easy.
L, J.