You're Next (15 page)

Driving through his neighborhood, Mike was struck by its suburban genericness. This was not Hollywood of the palm trees and
starred sidewalks, Venice Beach of the hippie conspiracists and incense burners, Beverly Hills of the Sunday Bentley and nine-dollar
cupcake. Lost Hills was built, block after block, of ranch-style family homes, a community of gleaming mailboxes and bright
yellow play structures. It was for folks who craved Southern California’s endless summer, who could not afford Malibu real
estate but wanted to live a short drive from the Pacific, who didn’t need the paparazzi glare of Los Angeles but enjoyed the
bright-light glow from a distance. Neighborhood Watch signs, hammered into every third street corner and front lawn, served
as amulets against shadowy men with sinister hats and white slits for eyes. Bad things weren’t supposed to happen here.

He could not see Shep anywhere on the road, impressive given the Mustang’s conspicuousness. He got to the café five minutes
early and took an outside table, as planned. Sipping an orange juice, he waited, his nerves frayed. Two women in their fifties
dressed like they were in their twenties sashayed in, rat dogs peeping from their handbags. A well-dressed man carried on
a domestic dispute through a Bluetooth earpiece. Glancing around the parking lot and surrounding buildings, Mike looked for
some sign of Shep, but still nothing.

He turned at the clop of her heels. A middle-aged woman
approached, clutching a tatty leather briefcase and wearing a short-sleeved silk blouse and a bark-colored skirt. Librarian’s
spectacles with a beaded chain offset a soft, jowly face. Frizzy brown hair spilled to her shoulders. Her big arms had once
held muscle. Whatever Mike was expecting, it was not her.

‘Michael?’

‘Mike’s fine.’

She sat. ‘I’ll cut right to it, as I imagine you’re fairly eager after all these years to know what this is about.’

Her curt, businesslike manner was something you’d encounter at a customer-service desk.

‘I think you may have me confused with someone else,’ Mike said.

‘Your father passed a few years ago. John. John Trenley.’

Hearing the first name, he felt a flare of excitement. But
Trenley
? It meant nothing to him.

‘Your mother’s been gone about a decade now.’

That didn’t square with the blood on his father’s sleeve. But then again, with everything going on, he didn’t know what he
knew anymore.

Riverton unsnapped her briefcase and laid it open. ‘Danielle.’

Mike could see only the raised lid and the hinges of the briefcase.
His mind raced, but he kept his mouth pressed closed.
Danielle. My mother was named
Danielle.

‘I was appointed the executor of their estate.’ She smiled self-effacingly. ‘I’m a paralegal. I lived next door to you, was
close to your parents. I remember when your mother brought you home from the hospital. I was eleven. I fed you a bottle once.’

Mike’s throat was dry. ‘Your maiden name?’ he asked.

‘Gage.’

The name sailed through three decades to strike a cord, setting his insides on vibration. The Gages next door. Mint green
trim on a white house. Where the Doberman had bitten the Sears repairman.

He kept his face impassive, though she was still rustling through her paperwork and not looking at him. He reminded himself
that this had to be another play in the scheme they were running on him. Even so, the temptation to respond, inquire, react
burned in him like a calm rage.

‘There’s some money, a good amount of money, that’s due you. And, obviously, an explanation of epic proportion. But I need
to ascertain that you are who I think you are.’

And there it was.

Her arms wobbling, Riverton withdrew a file from her briefcase, ‘
Michael Trenley
’ written across the red tab. A few photographs fell free – crisp real-estate shots of a house. ‘Oh, sorry. We had to put
the house up, of course. It sold last year, but I can still take you by once we handle the logistics.’

He tried to still his hand but it reached of its own accord and plucked up the top photo. The steps were wider than he recalled
and the roof lower, but it tripped a memory.

His childhood house.

The first concrete evidence of his past life. He felt the blood leave his face, but fortunately she was still digging through
papers, focused on them. He struggled to show minimal interest, to choke back the horde of questions crowding his throat.

He dropped the photo casually on the café table as Riverton perused the folder. The waiter came by – ‘Hi, take your order?’
– and Mike said, ‘Give us a minute, please.’ He waited until the man had retreated, then said, ‘I’m confused. Why do you think
I’m related to these people?’

‘Well, you’ll see it was
prit
-ty obvious.’ Riverton laid the file open. A newspaper photograph of Mike from the PR shoot with the governor. The same one
that the
Los Angeles Times
had run, but the headline showed that this one had been clipped from the
Oregonian
. ‘And . . .’ She slid out from under it a grainy Kodak from the seventies.

Mike’s father as a young man.

Their faces were remarkably similar, right down to the pronounced Cupid’s bow of the upper lip. The family resemblance was
strong, if not undeniable.

The reality hit him, twisting his gut: The newspaper picture of him had shone like a flare on the horizon. It was how they
– whoever
they
were – had picked up his trail after all these years. It wasn’t the green houses that weren’t green that had led those men
to his door; it was his decision to swallow the truth, to play party to the fraud, to put his arm around the governor’s shoulders
and smile for the cameras.

Guilt seethed. Had he listened to Annabel and his own best instincts, this whole threat would have been avoided.

The woman studied him for a moment, then continued. ‘When your father was in the hospital at the end, he confessed to abandoning
you when you were four. He explained why he had to. That
is
your story, right? Abandoned at age four? Because if it’s not . . .’ She closed up the file and put it away.

Mike just looked at her, his jaw tensed, debating whether it was worth it to spill. That red-tabbed file was sitting there
just out of reach, tucked into her well-worn briefcase, temptation incarnate.
Could
she really be the estate executor? Was she trustworthy?

‘Look.’ She grasped his forearm across the table. ‘I understand the pain you’ve suffered over this. I mean, the loss, waiting
for a parent, searching for them your whole life, just wanting to know. I can only imagine. I have the answers for you. Your
parents’ estate is waiting for you. I only need to confirm the story of where you came from.’

His breath quickened, her words working on him. Shep was out there watching, but right now it felt as though it were only
the two of them, Mike Doe and Dana Riverton alone in the world. He wrestled himself back to calmness. He would not ask questions.
He would not appear curious. He would let Shep follow her home and get an address, and they would proceed slowly and with
caution.

He looked down, and she withdrew her hand swiftly and put it in her lap. But not before he saw, beneath the makeup foundation
she’d pancaked on, the tiny jail tattoo on her thumb webbing. A tombstone with a number
7
on it – the number of years she’d spent inside.

On the edge of his finger was a small flesh-colored streak where her foundation had rubbed off. His heart racing, he cupped
his hands so she wouldn’t see.

‘I’m afraid you have the wrong person.’ He rose, dropped a ten on the table, and walked away.

‘Don’t you need, like, camo sheets?’

‘No.’

‘Dad, doesn’t he look funny in there, I mean, with my pink sheets?’

‘Shep’s fine, honey.’

‘You knew Dad when he was a kid?’

‘Yup.’

‘I thought no one knew him as a kid. I thought maybe he never
was
a kid. What was he like?’

‘Opinionated.’

‘Did he drink? Like, beer and stuff?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Did he smoke?’

‘He tried.’

‘Dad smoked!’

‘Not really, honey. I didn’t always act—’

‘Did he have girlfriends?’ ‘Dozens.’

‘Really?’

‘No.’

Mike smirked and headed down the hall to get ready for bed, leaving Kat and Shep. Kat cocked her head, eyeing Shep as if readying
to paint his portrait. He looked ridiculous crammed into her bed.

‘So why are you here?’

‘I owe your dad.’

‘You do? For what?’

‘He saved my life.’

‘Like, pulled you out of a burning car?’

‘There are different ways you can save someone’s life.’

‘Like how?’

Shep blinked a few times wearily.

‘Ms C says there are no stupid questions.’

‘Ms C is wrong,’ Shep said.

‘Let him sleep!’ Annabel, passing in the hall, called out.

Kat waited for her mom’s footsteps to fade. ‘Like how?’ she repeated.

‘He expected more out of me than I expected out of myself.’

‘So you owe him forever?’

Shep laid back and stared at the ceiling.

‘I can do long division, you know.’

‘Is that so.’

‘And name the constellations. And the planets, in order. Except Pluto, which isn’t a planet anymore. How sad is that? One
day you’re a planet, the next oh, well, sorry.’

‘Pretty sad.’ Shep lifted his shirt, pulled a Colt .45 from the waist of his jeans, and rested it on his chest.

‘Wow. Just . . .
wow
. Can I touch it?’

‘Sure.’

She crossed tentatively, reached out a finger, and poked the steel barrel.

‘Kat, we need you in bed with us
now
. I’ve got practicum tomorrow, which I’m
already
flunking, and if—’ Annabel wheeled around the corner, Kat looking up at her, finger extended, red-faced. Annabel’s own face
tightened. ‘Please don’t let her handle that.’

Shep said, ‘Okay.’

Annabel pointed. Kat marched. Annabel followed. The master door closed, firmly. Raised voices hummed through the walls. A
few minutes later, Mike was in the doorway, forearm across the jamb.

‘Nice dust ruffle. Matches your personality.’ Mike came in, sat.

Shep moved up against the headboard, laid the Colt across
his lap. He nodded at the window. ‘Don’t worry. You can sleep tonight.’

‘I know.’ Mike took a deep breath, gestured through the wall at their bedroom, then at the pistol. ‘Sorry ’bout that. It’s
been a rough couple days. We’ve never dealt with something like this.’

‘
She
hasn’t, you mean.’

Mike moistened his lips. ‘You don’t like her,’ he said. ‘Annabel.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Technically.’

‘She loves you,’ Shep said. ‘That’s all I need to know.’

Mike looked at his feet. Shep stared at the seam where wall met ceiling.

‘Look,’ Mike finally said. ‘How things were left. I never—’

Shep waved a hand. ‘The past don’t interest me. You need me now. So here I am.’

‘I didn’t know how to handle things,’ Mike said. ‘How to reconcile . . .’ He sensed Shep’s disinterest and trailed off.

‘You’ve come a long way,’ Shep said.

‘And not so far, too.’ The stymied conversation left Mike feeling like he wanted to say something more, but he didn’t know
what. ‘We did some good work today.’

And they had. Shep had followed Dana Riverton back to an apartment in Northridge. From across the street, he’d watched her
enter a second-floor place. He’d found an elderly neighbor out walking her schnauzer, who’d told him that no Dana Riverton
lived in the complex. Mike had left the address, as well as the other bits of information or misinformation on Hank’s old-fashioned
answering machine at the office. In the afternoon Shep had applied his focus and Mike’s tools to the house, getting the locks
secure as only a safecracker could ensure.

Shep looked relieved at the turn in conversation. Back to logistics. Safer ground. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘I’m gonna go see
about tracking that cell-phone signal.’

‘How?’

‘I called a guy who knew a guy.’

‘Long shot?’

‘Yup.’ Shep tugged back on the pistol’s slide, and the round reared up its brass head. He released it again, put it back on
his chest. They were, it seemed, out of things to talk about. For once Shep broke the silence. ‘She’s a live wire, Kat.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, she is.’

‘What’s it like? Being a parent.’

The question, a bit vague for Shep, caught Mike off guard.

‘Besides the obvious stuff,’ Shep added.

‘They’re yours,’ Mike said. ‘All yours. And then you’re letting them go for the rest of your life. You move them out of your
bed. They walk on their own, don’t want to be held the same. You stop cutting their food for them. They go off to school.
Pretty soon some jackass in a car’ll be out front, wanting to take her to a concert.’

Shep said, ‘We were once that jackass.’

‘Let’s hope she does better than
that
.’

‘No shit, huh?’ Shep scratched his cheek with the pistol barrel. ‘I guess if you do your job well,’ he said, ‘you get to let
go of her again.’

All the smart stuff Shep ever said came packaged like that, wisdom smuggled in simplicity. Gratitude welled in Mike, and he
realized just how much he’d missed him. Again he found himself searching for words. ‘All this’ – his gesture encompassed the
room, the house, his family – ‘I got because of what you taught me.’ He looked around, his words echoing in his head –
all this
– and he realized with chagrin that it may have seemed as though he were bragging, a big shot. On one level – logistics,
security, shorthand – he and Shep had fallen right back into sync, but at the same time a part of Mike couldn’t seem to get
comfortable.

Shep said, ‘I didn’t teach you shit.’

‘Stamina.’ Mike couldn’t bring himself, just now, to list ‘loyalty’.

Shep’s eyes pulled to a photo on the bookshelf, Kat at three, hair in her eyes, blowing bubbles. ‘Nah, you were always smart
enough to know there’s more than that.’

‘But we needed it. Stamina.’

Shep said, ‘That’s because we didn’t have anything else.’

He closed his eyes, though Mike knew he was just resting, not asleep.

After a time Mike rose quietly and headed back to his family.

Two sleepless hours later, Annabel stood at the refrigerator getting water from the door dispenser, one thumb hooked inside
the cup to sense in the darkness when it was full. Turning, she froze at a man’s shape in the living-room doorway. Her hand
went white around the glass.

‘Shep?’ The word came out strangled.

‘Yuh.’

She shuddered. ‘You scared me.’

‘Didn’t mean to.’

They stood there, two faceless silhouettes.

‘You don’t want me here,’ he said.

She wet her lips. ‘Yeah, but I’m generally wrong half the time, so don’t pay me any mind.’ She cocked her head slightly and
seemed to consider him, up and alert at her footsteps, keeping watch. ‘You know what? I don’t know
what
I want right now. This has been so horrifying. And you’re here, aren’t you? In it with us.’

‘Sorry.’ He shifted on his feet, a rare show of discomfort.

Her face softened; his politeness, his out-of-placeness, seemed
to tug at her. ‘You and I have had our differences, but I want you to know that I’m grateful to you for coming.’

Shep said, ‘Okay.’

‘And it means the world to Mike. I’m worried about him. He’s been really . . . angry. I’ve never seen him like this.’

‘You don’t worry about Mike when he’s mad,’ Shep said. ‘You worry about him when he’s
quiet
.’