Prodigal Son (Orphan X #6) - Gregg Andrew Hurwitz Page 0,34

his own features in hers. The way she’d rested her hands on his shoulders. Maternally.

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “No.”

In the background, even over the tumbao rhythm, he could hear Hugh Walters holding forth about his perplexing new symptoms of gastrointestinal distress.

It was difficult to fathom that hours ago Evan had flung himself into a dumpster to avoid disintegration by Hellfire missile.

“I know it’s different, but maybe you could talk to him about whatever he’s working through,” Mia said. “Whether it’s about where he came from or Roger’s death or whatever.”

Hugh’s voice rose again above the music. “And tuna,” he said. “It just moves right through me.”

Lorilee had stopped dancing to refill her drink. She paused over by the table, arms crossed, one hand cupping the opposite elbow, staring at nothing. She looked suddenly lost. Despite the work she’d had done, Evan could see the worry lines beneath her eyes. He wondered what would drive her to alter her body continuously and drastically, to fight against time, against who she was.

She looked lonely, so lonely, as if the veil had dropped and he was seeing her true self. He felt a pang of empathy. And it struck him that since looking into Veronica’s face, he’d felt more adrift. It wasn’t a feeling of homecoming but a reminder of what he’d never had.

Lorilee was now studying the big going-away banner—that cartoon cowgirl riding off into a better tomorrow—with wistfulness. And fear. Johnny touched her arm, an invitation to dance, and she suddenly snapped back into form, an openmouthed smile and a whoop as she allowed herself to be spun.

How unmoored they all were, how helpless, how courageous. Lorilee struggling to present her best face to an unsure world. Peter struggling to know a father who’d died before he could solidify into memory. Mia struggling to help her son.

And Evan.

Mia had said something. “Well?”

“What?”

“Will you talk to him?”

Evan felt the slightest pressure behind his face. “Sure.”

She reached out gently and touched his cheek. “What happened here? You look scraped up.” This was the plausible-deniability dance they always did, former assassin and district attorney skirting the edge of the truth. He started to answer, but she cut him off. “I know, I know. You fell down the stairs, walked into a door—”

“—dodged an air-to-surface missile.”

She laughed. “Okay, Mr. Danger.”

Johnny spun Lorilee, and she let go of his hand, allowing herself to accidentally brush Mia aside and fall into Evan, her breasts hard and synthetic against his chest. Her perfume had been applied with biblical intensity.

Lorilee beamed into Evan’s face. “Who’s a single Pringle ready to mingle?”

She grabbed Evan’s hand and spun back to dance-point at Johnny and jiggle her hips.

At Evan’s side Mia covered her mouth in a poor attempt to hide her schadenfreude. Evan had an instant to say, “Kill me,” before Lorilee yanked him into a cha-cha.

18

Picking a Fight with Vodka

Upstairs, Evan stripped naked and burned his clothes and boots in the freestanding fireplace that sprouted from the expanse of the gunmetal-gray concrete floor, its flue a sleek metal trunk. Despite the fact that he’d already changed outfits once at the safe house, habit was habit. As the Second Commandment decreed, How you do anything is how you do everything.

He clipped his nails, taking them to the quick, and used a toothpick to scrape out the last remnants of ash. Then he took another shower, scouring with a silicone scrubber. There was virtually no chance that trace evidence remained on his skin, but he found the cleansing ritual calming; it soothed the OCD compulsions coiling around his brain, squeezing like a python.

He had plenty to be stressed about. He had met the woman who’d given birth to him and been asked to help a man who was either a murderer or a murder witness. He had been set upon by a crew of bodyguards and half the Argentine police force. He had survived a drone attack and a cha-cha with Lorilee Smithson.

He required vodka.

First he dressed, pulling his usual items from the dresser. He kept ten of each piece of clothing, all identical, folded with razor-sharp precision. From the top of each stack, he peeled one fresh item—boxer briefs, gray V-necked T-shirt, dark jeans. A new pair of Original S.W.A.T. boots from the tower of boxes in the closet. A Victorinox watch fob.

Then on to the kitchen.

He entered the freezer room, a cool waft finding his singed cheeks. The door sucked shut behind him, the rubber seals whispering an airtight foomp.