After a roundabout trip home—an early-morning flight from D.C. into San Francisco, a commuter plane to Long Beach Airport, a vehicle switch at a long-term-parking lot and another at one of his many safe houses—Evan drove his Ford pickup through the Wilshire Corridor. The harsh midday sun glinted off the glass of the condo high-rises thrusting up on either side of the boulevard.
Evan turned in to the porte cochere of his own building, the pompously named Castle Heights Residential Tower.
Mia Hall sat on the bench by the front doors with her nine-year-old son, Peter. They were eating ice cream, though more of Peter’s seemed to be dripping over his fist than remained on the cone. He smiled a chocolaty clown smile and gave a wave that would have been visible several blocks away.
Evan slowed as he passed, the valet jumping at the chance to—for once—park Evan’s truck. Evan put a traffic-cop “stop” hand up at the valet, who sank dejectedly back into his chair, and then looked through the passenger window. It couldn’t roll down. The Kevlar armor that Evan had hung inside the door panels prevented the glass from retracting. That was one of a variety of hidden security measures with which he’d outfitted the F-150. At a glance it looked like a regular pickup.
Just as Evan looked like a regular guy.
Peter leapt up from the bench at the sight of him. “Evan Smoak!”
Evan opened his door and stepped up onto the runner so he was looking at Mia and Peter over the roof of the truck.
Mia was eating mint chip and doing an elegant job of it. Her wavy chestnut hair had been cut shorter, which accented her cheekbones and her wide-set eyes.
Not that he paid attention to things like that.
“I’ll park and come back around?” he said, realizing too late that he’d pulled the sentence up at the end like a question.
“Sure,” Mia said. “But don’t expect me to share my ice cream.”
Evan slid back into his seat. He tipped the valet a twenty, because it wasn’t the kid’s fault that Evan wouldn’t let him touch the war machine, and then he zipped down into the subterranean parking lot.
He came up the stairs, through the lobby, and out to the front of the building. Peter ran at him. “Catch me!”
The kid, sticky fingers and all, was airborne.
Evan barely had time to get his arms up before Peter koala-clamped onto him. Evan patted his back twice awkwardly and set him down. It took Evan a great effort not to scrutinize the chocolate finger marks left on his shirt.
“Where were you?” Peter asked in his raspy voice.
At the White House, plotting to execute the president.
“A boring work thing,” Evan said.
Mia paused from attending to her cone, her lips slightly pursed. Her gaze, which she’d cultivated as a Grade III district attorney, conveyed equal measures of incisiveness and skepticism. “No luggage, huh?”
He couldn’t tell if there was a suspicious edge in her voice or if he was reading into it.
Mia did not know what precisely Evan did professionally, but she knew that he was not an importer of industrial cleaning supplies as he claimed to be. Over the years she’d gleaned that his actual work fell outside the purview of what she or her office would find acceptable.
Or legal.
Evan mustered a smile, though he felt it sitting flatly on his face. “I travel light.”
“As one does. For boring work things.”
Peter was tugging at Evan’s chocolate-stained shirt. “Guess what happened to Ryan?”
“What happened to him?” Evan asked.
“No, not Boy Ryan. Girl Ryan.”
“What happened to Girl Ryan?”
“In Ms. Bracegirdle’s class—”
“Wait,” Evan said. “Stop right there. You do not have a teacher named Ms. Bracegirdle.”
“I swear to God I’m not lying,” Peter said.
“It’s true,” Mia said, rising from the bench at last, leaving her satchel briefcase behind. “It seems Roscomare Elementary went with a Dickensian motif this hiring season. I’m thinking if Peter fails out, he can become a chimney sweep.”
“So Girl Ryan?” Peter continued, undeterred by the sidebar. “Girl Ryan’s dad went on a trip, and, like, he always brings home presents, because, you know, that’s what dads do.”
Peter’s own father had died six years ago, and though the boy’s delivery was just-the-facts-ma’am impassive, Evan thought he might have detected a note of longing in his voice. Out of the corner of his eye, Evan saw a shift in Mia’s face, emotion flickering to the surface.
Peter steamrolled ahead. “And her dad got her…” He paused for dramatic effect, hands fanned like a magician before the prestige, charcoal eyes wide, his blond hair lank save for the perennial cowlick in the back that hinted at improper combing. “A Eiffel Tower kit. You built it with wood microbeams—”
“Microbeams,” Evan said.
“I know, right? And you cut ’em yourself and glue ’em, and then when you’re done, the whole thing lights up, and she brought it into class. But during nutrition break, Jesse M. played with it and it caught fire .”
“So what’d Ms. Peerybingle do?”
“Bracegirdle,” Peter said. “She got really mad and turned all red. Which looks even funnier since she has orange hair that sticks out and sorta a mustache. She looks like the Lorax.”
“Who’s the Lorax?”
“You know, the guy who saved the trees and flew away. And so Ms. Bracegirdle stomped out the Eiffel Tower, but she wears these hippie skirts, and, you know.”
“First-degree burns,” Mia said. “Class canceled.”
“So that’s why you’re eating ice cream?” Evan asked. “Celebrating the injury of Ms. Flintwitch?”
“We are celebrating a half day off school,” Mia said as Peter ran into the lobby to throw out his ice-cream wrapper. “And. The successful conclusion of a particularly important case of mine.”
“Which was?”
“Stalking, criminal threats, forcible rape, three counts of injuring a spouse, dissuading a witness—who happens to be the defendant’s four-year-old daughter—from reporting a crime. Seven felony counts. It was tough for a rat’s nest of reasons I won’t bore you with. But. I went seven for seven. That’s what happens when I get mad. And then? I eat mint chip ice cream.”
Mia popped the end of the cone into her mouth and came closer. She wore what he’d grown to recognize as her court outfit—shadow-striped slacks and jacket with a sleek silhouette, fitted blouse, no jewelry. Freckles were scattered across her nose in an undisciplined fashion, which he found unbearably charming. Her wavy hair was unbound and by all conventional standards should have been considered a mess but instead looked amazing.
“This was one of the ones that keeps you up nights,” she said. “I mean, the domestic-abuse photos alone.” She paused. “I interviewed the four-year-old. Dirty clothes, tangled hair, and she had this untreated rash covering one whole side of her torso. When the social worker asked her what her name was…” She shook her head, her eyes misting. “This beautiful little girl said it was ‘Idiot.’” She looked away, squinted the incipient tears into submission, took in an uneven breath. “Worst thing I ever saw.”
Evan gave her a moment. Then he said, “I’m glad it was you who caught the case. And that you’re good at what you do.”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “There’s always the next one. And the next one. Guys like that piece of shit, they think they’re above the law. You know what I mean?” She caught herself, smirked darkly. “Don’t answer that.”
She held out her arms, and he hugged her, and she leaned into him. He could feel her stomach against his, and it was the best thing he’d felt in a month and change.
There had been a time when their chemistry had quickened to the point that it seemed they might be on the verge of an actual relationship, whatever that was, but the conflict between her profession and what she knew of his made it impossible. There were whole swaths of his life about which she could make no inquiries, and if she had, he could offer no answers. If she learned anything about it, she’d be obligated to prosecute him. And she also thought correctly that if they were together, the dark underworld in which Evan operated—even the tiny bit she knew of it—could pose a threat to Peter. On that front Evan also agreed.
So they were stuck in the same residential tower, nine floors apart, making a continuous effort to fight off an attraction.
He could feel her breath on the side of his neck as he took in the delightful smell of her. He noted a different fragrance—not lemongrass but lavender.
“You changed your lotion,” he said.
She pulled back and looked at him.
Embarrassment swept through him, a hot tide.
To cover he gave an uncharacteristic one-shoulder shrug. “I notice everything.”
She kept a straight face, but amusement filled her eyes. “Oh, do you? Like what?”
Like the birthmark by your left temple. Like that you chew your left cheek when you’re concentrating. Like that your eye color changes depending on the color of your shirt.
He stepped back from her.
“Like the seven security cameras on this side of the building,” he said. “Like your briefcase is unsnapped, showing the file tab inside, Oscar Esposito, case number PA338724. Like the make and model of the past dozen cars that have driven past.”
At the last she raised her eyebrows.
“Reflection off the door,” he said.
She nodded, still amused. “So lemongrass to lavender might as well be a blinking neon sign. I’m surprised you could focus with your senses being assailed like that.”
The front door opened now, and Peter flew back out. “Mom, Mom —can I use the mail key?”
Evan took advantage of the distraction to slip away before Mia could continue her cross-examination.