Page 86 of Keep

Evan McDonough stepped into the light. He looked different. Still too thin, still wearing clothes that had seen better days, but his eyes were clearer. His hands, when he raised them, were steady.

“I’m not here to cause trouble,” Mac said. “I just—” he stopped. Swallowed. Tried again. “I’ve been getting clean. There’s a shelter on L Street. Eighteen days.”

“That’s good, Mac. That’s really good.”

“It’s eighteen days.” Mac’s mouth twitched—not quite a smile. “I wanted to say—I was an asshole. Before. All of it. I know I was.” He shook his head. “I’m not asking for anything. I just needed to say it.”

Chad reached into his back pocket and found the card that had been in his wallet for weeks. Roy Bathum’s program. Hank had given it to him back when the world still made sense.

“Here.” He held it out. “Jobs, housing, support. This guy works with the Park Service. Call the number, tell him Hank Fortner sent you.”

Mac stared at the card. Took it. Turned it over in his fingers.

“Why?” he said quietly.

“Because you showed up. That’s more than I’ve managed lately.”

Mac nodded, tucking the card into his jacket pocket with a care that made Chad’s chest ache. Then he turned and walked back into the dark, and Chad stood in the mist for a long moment, letting the alley be quiet around him.

He’d spent nine days hiding. Telling himself that it was noble. Telling himself that the silence was a gift.

It wasn’t a gift. It was fear, and you know it.

He went back inside.

Blake was counting the cash register. The bar hummed with the sound of coolers and nothing else. On the corner monitor, the silent edit looped—the punch, the teeth, the gospel choir, the little girl’s perfect O, the punch.

Chad pulled out his phone.

He stared at the screen for a long time. Seventeen unread messages from a man who’d stopped trying three days ago and then threw a punch heard around the world.

Just send it. Stop being a coward and send it.

He typed. Deleted. Typed again. Deleted.

Finally:

I saw. I’m sorry. Can I come over?

He hit send before he could delete it again. Then he stood there, phone in hand, not breathing, watching the screen like it might detonate.

The reply came in eleven seconds.

Please.

One word. Chad stared at it until the screen blurred.

Then he grabbed his jacket and walked out the door.

CHAPTER 16

The peas were melted.

Hank knew he should get up, walk the twelve steps to the freezer, and swap it for another bag of something frozen. His hand was throbbing in time with his heartbeat, the knuckles swollen and darkening toward purple.

Please.

One word. He’d sent it fifteen minutes ago. Sixteen now. The drive from Dupont Circle was twenty minutes in good traffic, longer in the rain.