You're Next

Chapter 17

Mike raced home, running red lights and stop signs, dialing and redialing the home line. Finally Annabel picked up. ‘Hi, babe,’ she said. ‘I just walked in, and that kitchen sink’s getting worse. I know, shoemaker’s kids and all that, but-’

He cut her off. ‘Did you text me?’

‘When have I ever texted you? I’m not fourteen.’

‘Where’s your cell phone?’

‘I’ve been looking for it all morning. I think I left it at school.’

He took a moment to level out his breathing, then said, ‘They stole it. I got a text from your cell asking me where the safe-deposit key was.’

‘In the tissue box in your nightstand. I wouldn’t ask that.’

He told her quickly about the message, William’s coming by the job site, and the break-in at the office. A dreary silence as she tried to catch up to the information. ‘Okay… so they want into the safe-deposit box because that’s where people keep private stuff they don’t want to hide in the house.’ Her voice trembled a bit. ‘Which means they’ve searched the house.’

‘They searched my office.’ He turned onto their street. ‘I’m here.’

Now, anger. ‘How would they even know we have a safe-deposit box? It’s not like everyone has one. Plus, bank records are confid-’ She stopped. He could hear her breathing harder with the realization.

‘The deputies,’ he said. ‘Law enforcement could get clearance to see those records, to know there’s a safe-deposit box at our bank in my name.’

She was at the front door, walking the key out to him as he pulled in the driveway. He could see her mouth moving an instant ahead of the words in his ear. ‘You think they’re working together? These guys and the deputies?’

‘Someone’s prying around at a higher level, either officially or unofficially.’ He was still talking into the phone, though she was now a few steps away.

He rolled down his window, and she leaned in, dropped the safe-deposit key in his lap, and kissed him firmly on the mouth.

When she pulled back, her gaze was tense, scared. ‘Whatever this is, how do we get free of it?’

‘Depends what they want,’ he said.

‘Seems like they want to know where you came from.’

He closed a fist around the key and put the truck in reverse. ‘Don’t we all.’

Walking past the gaze of his favorite prim-mouthed bank manager, Mike signed in and stepped into the privacy booth with his safe-deposit box. A deep breath before lifting the thin metal lid. A mess of pictures and documents greeted him. An abandoned child report. The county-issued form, three decades old, assigning him a new last name. Elementary-school transcripts. His old Social Security card. The Couch Mother’s obituary. A few tattered photos of him and the Shady Lane boys. That college acceptance letter he’d prized so. A probation report, documenting his sentence served.

A chronicle of the imperfect history of Mike Doe.

A flood of nostalgia almost choked him. Here, before him, was everything that remained of his former self.

He dug through the contents, his fingers striking something hard and buried. He lifted it carefully to the light. A Smith & Wesson.357. Straightforward and easy to handle, it was the only make of gun he’d ever been comfortable with. Shep had given it to him for home protection when Mike had first gotten his own place. Mike had kept it in his nightstand drawer for years, finally moving it here at Annabel’s behest when Kat was born. He’d never fired it away from a shooting range and hoped he never would. The heft of it in his hand felt familiar and dangerous.

He set it gently on the counter.

He pulled the empty plastic liner from the trash can beneath the counter and dumped the box’s contents into it. Bag slung over his shoulder, he stared down at the revolver for a beat.

He pocketed it on the way out.

Mike crouched in a deserted alley, the shadows stretching dusk-long, the whine of traffic thrumming off the brick walls. The door to his Ford stood open, casting a triangle of light onto the ground. He leaned forward, broken glass crunching beneath his shoes, and touched the end of a lit match to a corner of the trash bag. His eyes glassy, he watched the flames catch and flare, peeling away the plastic and eating through all those photographs and documents.

There is no past.

And yet, clearly, there was.

It ended with a sad little pile of ash, which he kicked to the dead air, scattering it. He stamped out the embers, climbed into his truck, and drove away.

Dinner preparation on pause, Annabel sat on the kitchen counter and stared down at the.357 clutched nervously in her lap.

‘It’s a revolver,’ Mike said. ‘Easy to handle.’

She spoke in a hushed voice so Kat, busy with homework in her room, wouldn’t hear. ‘I’m worried about having it around her.’

‘Let me show you how to use it.’ As the pasta water boiled, he positioned his wife’s slender hands around the grip, but she pulled back, leaving him with the revolver.

‘It makes me uncomfortable.’

‘We’re past comfort now.’

Kat trudged in, eyeing her workbook. ‘How annoying is long division? I mean, if they’re teaching us to be smart, wouldn’t smart people just use a calculat-’ She looked up, her eyes pronounced behind the red frames of her glasses. ‘Why do you have a gun? That’s a gun, right? I mean, a gun in our kitchen? Is something wrong? Have you ever shot it? Can I hold it?’

‘Go back to your room,’ Annabel managed. ‘Give us a moment here.’

Kat backed away, eyes on the Smith & Wesson.

Annabel turned to Mike. ‘And there you have it.’ She slid off the counter, turned down the stovetop heat, and eyed the lesson plan splayed in the cookbook stand, her feminine scrawl brightening the page margins. She was the only person he knew who could study and prep puttanesca simultaneously.

The phone rang. Mike snatched up the cordless.

Hank sounded burned out. ‘I can’t get anything on a Dodge or a William being at the award ceremony, but that’s to be expected.’ He cleared his throat, which turned into a coughing fit. ‘Now, listen, there’s something I gotta lay out for you here.’

Mike found the pause as unnerving as the tension in Hank’s voice. ‘What?’

Annabel turned, and he drew her toward him, turning the phone so they could both hear.

‘Well, I don’t know what,’ Hank said. ‘Yet. I called my hook at the sheriff’s, and it seems there’s some kind of alert out on you.’

‘Alert? What does that mean?’

‘Don’t know. But your name’s been flagged.’

‘Flagged for what?’ Mike’s voice was rising.

‘I already told you. I don’t have those answers.’ A deep rasp of a breath. ‘Look, this could be local, limited to L.A. County Sheriff’s. Or it could be some other agency that’s monitoring anything around your name, that wants to be informed if you have any run-ins.’

Mike thought of Elzey and Markovic’s hushed conversation in the back office after she’d gotten off the phone, and how they’d come back out gunning for him.

‘Like who? The FBI? CIA?’ Mike choked out a laugh. ‘How widespread is it? I mean, every station?’

‘I can’t get more just yet,’ Hank said. ‘Everyone’s being a bit coy. Obviously, it’s classified. I gotta massage this thing, nibble at the edges, come in at the right angle. Gimme a day or two.’

‘Is there any agency that doesn’t have me flagged?’ Mike asked.

‘I’m sure there are plenty. Agencies – and individual stations within agencies – are understaffed and overworked. So unless you went to sleepaway camp in the rugged northwest of Pakistan, it’s not like you’re at the top of morning roll call. We don’t know the extent of this thing, but there’s no reason to assume you’ve become public enemy numero uno.’

‘What if we need help?’

‘Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? Until we determine how widespread the alert is and who put it out, how can you know who to trust?’

Mike swallowed dryly. ‘And if Dodge and William make another move in the meantime?’

‘From what I can read at this point, I wouldn’t count on the authorities lending you a friendly ear.’

He signed off, and Mike and Annabel stared at each other.

Annabel reached down, took the revolver from Mike’s hand. She raised it clumsily, waiting, her gaze steady. He exhaled a heavy breath, moved forward, and shaped her hands properly around the grip.