Shockwave (31 page)

“But he said I should keep—”

“Sure. Keep watching. You’re an expert at it. But you don’t have to be watching for the same reasons.”

“How do you know anything about …?”

“Am I wrong?” Mack said, almost too soft for me to catch.

W
hen we drove away that night, Conrad was still breathing.

Maybe not the safest possible move, but I wasn’t living that life anymore.

Mack dropped me off. I was pretty sure I knew his next stop.

W
hen I slipped in the back door, my wife was waiting.

“I’ll never get you involved in anything like that, Dell. Not ever again.”

“You didn’t—”

“You know I did,” my wife said. Very, very softly.

And then it was just the two of us.

Andrew Vachss is a lawyer who represents children and youths exclusively. His many works include the Burke, Cross, and Aftershock series, numerous standalone novels, and three collections of short stories. His works have been translated into twenty languages and have appeared in
Parade
,
Antaeus
,
Esquire
,
Playboy
, and
The New York Times
, among other publications.

The dedicated website for Andrew Vachss and his work is
www.vachss.com
.