Page 28 of Into the Fire

Evan said, “His life is at risk.”

“Yeah? So was mine.”

Max stared at the porch, at the tops of his shoes. Evan could feel the heat from her glare, and he was certain Max could, too.

“I can’t believe you’d show your face here,” Violet said.

Max nodded and faded back off the porch, never lifting his gaze. He waited in the grass, a salesman afraid to approach.

Violet looked at Evan, and he could see the strength in her. She was breathing hard, her neck flushed, her clavicles pronounced on the inhalations.

Evan said, “He did a favor for someone, and now a crew of hit men are after him.”

Violet’s focus moved past Evan’s shoulder to Max. Her blink rate had picked up. She pressed her lips together. Unrolled them. “I’ll give you this, Max. At least you don’t make the same mistake twice. You find yourself a whole new one.”

Her voice now was steady. Not a tremor. This is what pain looks like when stoked to a bright light, Evan thought. It gets cold.

“If I don’t get him off the street and hide him,” Evan said, “he will be killed. He said your parents are—” He almost said “slumlords,” corrected course. “Real-estate kingpins. With thousands of holdings in questionable neighborhoods. He said you work for them now.”

“Yes,” she said, each word diamond-hard. “I do. Now. It was the best option, and I took it.” She was going for a wounded kind of pride, but her misery at the admission was evident.

Evan asked, “Can you find a place that’s between tenants in a”—shitty part of town—“lower-income area?”

“For what?”

“To hide him. To save his life.”

“Why should I put myself at risk for him?”

“You’re nearly three years divorced. And it wasn’t amicable. It’s incredibly doubtful anyone would think Max would come to you—”

“You can count me in that group,” she cut in.

“—and be able to connect the dots from you to the business of your parents—who dislike him—and then to one of countless places they own around Los Angeles.” Evan paused. “Let’s just say it’s beyond a long shot.”

“You misunderstood my question,” she said. “I didn’t ask if I’d be at risk for him. I asked why I should put myself at risk for him.”

A patch of roses breathed a lovely scent that seemed out of place amid all the bitterness.

Evan said, “I can’t answer that.”

She said, “Who are you?”

“Someone who’s helping him?”

“Out of the goodness of your heart?”

Evan considered this. “Out of the badness of my heart, I suppose.”

She seemed to appreciate his candor. “It’s really life-or-death?”

“It is.”

“Fine. I’ll find somewhere. Somewhere really crappy. On one condition. Ask him what he did to me. You make him tell you. You should know who you’re helping.”

The breeze from the rose garden now smelled saccharine, a sickly indulgence.

Evan said, “I will.”