Page 128 of Into the Fire

“Yes,” Evan said. “Wait. What deal?”

Clark just looked at him. Then headed out. “Have a good day, Mr.…”

Evan let the ellipses ride.

Clark high-stomped across the muddy front yard, removed his shoes, and put them in the trunk of his Jaguar. As he got in the driver’s seat, Evan tugged open the passenger door and sat beside him.

“I beg your pardon—”

Evan said, “Talk.”

Clark pulled back his head, clearly unaccustomed to receiving a directive. He started to object, then seemed to notice something in Evan’s stare. Something unsettling.

“Do you have a daughter?” Clark asked.

Evan thought of Joey sitting next to him in the car, spinning through radio stations at warp speed in search of a favorite song. Her endearing aggravation over fine points of arcane hacker etiquette or the incivility of texting “kay” with a lowercase k. How she’d wept against him once when a dam of memories had broken loose, her frail body shuddering as if trying to come apart. The smell of her soap, lilac and vanilla. She owned a piece of Evan as Evan owned a piece of her, and there was no undoing that, not now or ever.

He said, “No.”

“If you did, what would you be willing to do for her? To protect her?”

Evan pictured the faulty latch on the flimsy, single-pane window at Joey’s apartment. The broken light above the call box downstairs. The loose guard plate on the front door. The feeling it engendered inside him, an unease inching up his spinal cord toward imagined scenarios.

“This doesn’t interest me,” Evan said.

“Then I’ll tell you,” Clark said. “You’d do anything. If you thought something wasn’t right for your daughter, that she was going down the wrong path.” He wet his lips, his eyes glassy with some memory. “She was failing. My baby girl. And if you had resources, you’d do anything to—” He caught himself.

“To what?”

“To get her the help she needed. To save her.” Clark’s shoulders broadened with self-righteousness. “With this guy. Max. He could hardly … I mean, just look what happened.”

“Have you ever lost a child?” Evan said.

Clark pulled at his mouth with the cup of his hand. “No.”

Evan’s head throbbed, and he was tired and nauseous and had been in jail not eight hours ago. He wondered why he cared to have this argument, and then an image flickered through his mind—Mia with her bulging satchel briefcase, Batman lunch box, and her travel coffee mug. Her wild hair and the insistent sharpness behind her eyes. Peter at her side, vibrating with energy and the undying optimism of youth, because every moment held an adventure if you weren’t old enough to look past it.

Because of who Evan was, there was so much he’d never have, but that didn’t mean that Max couldn’t have it. Or Violet.

“He was a hardworking guy,” Evan said. “And he saw something in your daughter. Who he wanted to be for her. Something better. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to see in each other?”

“He saw money.” At this, Clark’s lips tightened in a snarl.

“When he agreed to your terms, did you offer a payout?”

“Of course. Of course we did.”

“Did he take it?”

Clark didn’t answer.

“Does your daughter know?” Evan asked. “Or did you not show her that respect?”

Clark pawed his mouth once more and gazed through the windshield at the sagging garage door ahead. “Her mother was adamant,” he said.

“You mean your wife.”

“Yes.”