Prodigal Son (Orphan X #6) - Gregg Andrew Hurwitz Page 0,141

staring down at the dog, her arms crossed. She caught him looking. “What?”

“You don’t have to pretend you don’t like him.”

“I don’t like him.”

“Jack had a joke he used to tell.”

“Oh, great. The only thing worse than Jack telling a joke is you retelling a joke Jack used to tell. It’s like dad humor on steroids.”

“If you lock your wife and your dog in the trunk of your car for twenty-four hours, when you open it, which one’s happy to see you?”

A laugh escaped Joey. She covered her mouth with her fingers. “That’s awful. And, like, super sexist.”

“Same holds for husbands.”

“Fair enough.” She stared down at Dog, her expression softening. Then she sprawled out on top of him. At a hundred-plus pounds, the ridgeback was sturdy enough to take her weight. His tail thwacked the floor a few times. Joey rose and fell with his ribs.

“If you lie on him, he growls real low,” she said. “Like a purr.”

Wincing against his sore muscles, Evan sat down next to them with his back to the wall and listened.

Sure enough there it was, the faintest purr accompanying each exhalation.

For a time he and Joey stayed like that, listening to the big boy growl gently with contentment.

Finally Joey flopped off Dog and rolled to sit next to Evan. Side by side they stared at her little apartment.

“That’s why you got him for me?” she said. “So I’ll always have someone who’s happy to see me when I come home?”

“Dogs are feedback loops for positive emotion,” Evan said. “They’re happy to see you, which makes you happy. Then you pet them and they’re even happier, which makes you even happier. They…”

She cocked her head. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s stupid.”

She banged a bony elbow into his sore ribs, and he tried to act like it didn’t hurt. “C’mon, X. Spill the tea.”

He cleared his throat. “They teach you the love you deserve.”

Her voice was open and curious now, like that of a girl or a young woman—none of the usual teenage testiness. “Why?” she asked.

“So maybe you can learn how to give that love back,” Evan said. “I’d like you to learn that. I never did. Not the right way.”

Joey leaned her head on his shoulder.

“You do okay,” she said.

70

Dark Road

Evan paused on the quaint footbridge, taking a moment to gather himself.

Veronica had reached him earlier in the afternoon on his cracked-to-hell RoamZone and told him he’d better get to the Bel Air house. She’d beckoned Andre as well.

She said she wasn’t sure she had much time.

Barry the movie producer didn’t come home from location, but he’d had the decency to lend her the house for her final stretch. Matías didn’t make the trek either, but he’d sprung for a hospice nurse, a skeletal Hispanic woman who answered the door now. She offered a warm hand, and they shook. “It’s good you’re here,” she said. “You have to understand how it is moving forward.”

“How is it moving forward?”

“Think of it this way. Every day her best day was yesterday.”

Andre was already there, sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the union of his folded hands and doing his best to ignore the rat dogs sniffing at his shoes. He looked good, well rested even, color returning to his face.

He seemed relieved to see Evan.

“She’s having a nap.” Andre nodded at the nurse, who was jotting on a medication schedule on the fridge, and lowered his voice. “I think she thinks I’m here to fix the dishwasher.”

The nurse turned to them. “I’ll take you back now.” She gave Evan a bright smile before turning a skeptical gaze to Andre.

Andre shook his head as they padded down the hall to the master.

The giant suite was bright and airy, with glass sliding doors that accordioned open to let onto a terrace. A garden and a swimming pool unfurled beyond, seeming to stretch to the horizon.

It was shocking how much more Veronica had deteriorated over the past few days. Oxygen tube beneath her nose, skin a sickly yellow, her collarbones and the points of her elbows pronounced.

Andre hesitated in the doorway, but Evan led him through. Her suitcase and purse rested on an upholstered bench at the foot of the bed, and it occurred to Evan that this was their final stop. A candle flickered in the bathroom, breathing sandalwood into the room. It smelled expensive. Beneath it the faintest trace of lilac.

The smell of his mother.

Veronica tried to lift her head but couldn’t, so she rolled it on the pillow