For a moment, frustration rolled through me. Every minute I spent trying to untangle this network meant a minute that Jack was left unprotected, and as the days turned into weeks, I was nowhere closer to answers. Still, when the operative turned to fight their way upstream, I followed. Because this time might be different. Because one of them, eventually, would tell me what I needed to know.

  I slipped between bodies, keeping my face down, my hat pulled low, slouching. My height and my skin made me stand out in the night market, so I did the best I could to minimize my exposure as I trailed the operative. We passed the da pai dong, the food stalls selling prawn dumplings and won ton. A cloud of steam enveloped me as a man seared scallops over a propane burner, garlic and chili oil prickling against my pores.

  When the operative turned down an alley, I hesitated. The narrow path between the buildings was lined with plastic tubs, where men and women sold live fish and eels. Following would be more difficult, and staying unnoticed would be close to impossible. It was the kind of location that invited a trap, like the one I had bumbled into in Seattle. But instead of continuing down the alley, the operative ducked through a narrow door. The faded characters painted on the frame said it was a teahouse.

  A minute passed. Then two. Perhaps the operative had given me the slip; perhaps they wanted a break, refreshment. Perhaps their work was done for the evening, and they were stopping to see a friend or lover.

  I bought myself fried prawns that were sweet and peppery, the toasted sesame oil rich on my tongue. I washed them down with a Coke. The caffeine didn’t do much; fatigue dragged at me, the days and nights and empty hours adding up now. After an hour, when the teahouse lights went off and a handful of patrons shuffled outside, when the night market’s vendors began to roll down security gates and fold up their offerings and lock up their stalls, I gave up. Either I had lost the operative, or they were staying the night in the teahouse—perhaps my guess about a friend or lover had been correct. I would begin again tomorrow. An endless parade of tomorrows stretched ahead of me.

  Because it was a special day, I broke the rules on the walk back to my hotel. It was not permitted. It was not safe. It was most certainly not wise. But I was, after all, only human. As my father took pleasure in pointing out.

  Dummy social media accounts were useful for many things—among them, for behavior Jack would have called creeping. In the photos, he looked healthy. Happy. He had gotten a chocolate cake this year. In one of the photos, the candles were still lit, and a smile stretched across his face as he readied himself to blow them out. In another, he was rocking back. The expression on his face was the moment before he laughed. Frosting smeared his lip. In the next frame, he would wipe it away with the back of his hand, or use his shirt without thinking about it, or his tongue would dart out and lick it away. In one photo, Glo and Emma and Rowe crowded together with him on the sofa. In the next, Jack and his father wrestled for control of something—the TV remote was my best guess. In the caption, Jack had written, Rowe taking pictures while my dad legit murders me. I refreshed the feed, but no new pictures appeared. Perhaps it hadn’t arrived yet. Or perhaps he had chosen not to take pictures of it, although one would think that Rowe or Emma or Glo would have documented—

  Too late, the silence registered. Too late, the empty streets that shouldn’t have been empty. Too late, the footstep behind me.

  I turned, and instead of taking me on the back of the head, the first blow caught my shoulder. The phone flew from my hand, and I stumbled. The next blow caught me on the side, connecting with the gunshot wound. I screamed. The pain rocketed through me, a white rush of light and heat that left me insensible to anything else.

  When my vision cleared, I was on the ground, the pavement cold and hard. Three of them loomed over me, all in black, all masked. One of them held cuffs that glinted under the streetlights.

  A small, compressed sound broke the stillness, and one of the men dropped. It took a moment for my brain to process the noise as a gunshot. The two remaining men turned, one of them reaching for a sidearm, the other fumbling with the cuffs. Two more shots cracked the air. The men dropped. Silently. No kicking. No gurgling. They hit the ground and were still.

  I pushed myself up, trying to find a weapon. A shadowed figure approached, backlit by the distant glow of the streetlights. Broad shoulders and the way he moved suggested a man. He stooped to recover my phone and straightened again. In his other hand, the silhouette suggested a handgun fitted with a suppressor.

  “You dropped this, luv,” Paxton Adler said, crouching and holding out my phone. “All right? They moved faster than I figured.”

  I stared at him. Then, taking the phone, I nodded.

  “Let’s get you—” Paxton hissed and tugged at my coat. I tried to bat his hand away, but I was still disoriented from the blows, and he was, after all, holding a gun. “Christ, Hol. What’d they do to you?”

  Blood stained my oxford where the stitches had broken. I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”

  “Definitely something, mate.”

  The whole thing was surreal, and in spite of myself, a tiny, amused breath escaped me. Paxton’s thick eyebrows went up, and his perpetual pout eased into a smirk.

  “Let’s get you back to your place,” Paxton said, holding out a hand, “and I’ll take a proper look at that.”

  I should have said no. I should have said never. Because we had done this once, and I had given him everything, and he had left when he didn’t need me anymore.

  But he was here, and the warmth of his body was like a signal flare in the cold, empty night.

  I gave him my hand, and he helped me up. I gasped, but he steadied me, an arm around my waist, and after a minute, we started off toward the hotel.

  “Spoze we get a takeaway,” Paxton said. “You up for a kebab?”

  5

  Jack

  In my bedroom, with the door shut, I didn’t have to smile anymore. I didn’t have to laugh. I didn’t have to mug for the camera while we ate dinner and blew out candles and opened presents. I didn’t have to laugh when Rowe sang off-key, and I didn’t have to say, Oh my God, thank you! when Emma and Glo produced yet another agonizingly thoughtful gift. It was like I’d been wearing one of those lead aprons at the dentist’s, maybe a lead suit. A lead suit that looked like a happy Jack Moreno. And now I could slither out of it and lie on my bed and be alone, in the dark, on my birthday.

  He hadn’t called. He hadn’t texted.

  Not that I’d thought he would, but it would be nice to be wrong every once in a while.

  When Holmes had left, he’d been too much of a coward to say anything to my face. He’d sent a notebook. I refused to read it. I refused to—to give him whatever he wanted: forgiveness, or understanding, or even acceptance. He had lied to me. He had gone on lying. So, yeah. I’d been mad. I hadn’t wanted to see him, not right then. But he could have tried. He could have fought for—for us, I guess, although that sounded weird. And instead, he’d sent me a fucking notebook and left. And now that notebook was under my pillow, and I lay there, the outline of it an inescapable reminder, and decided, for the hundredth time, that I was going to get rid of it. Throw it away. Burn it.

  “Jack,” Dad called from the front of the cottage.

  I thought about putting on that lead suit again and, instead, lay silent.

  “Jack.” His voice moved closer. “You still up?”

  I closed my eyes. Part of me wondered how that was supposed to help.

  The door creaked when it opened. A sliver of light fell across my face. “Buddy,” Dad whispered. “You awake?”

  “I am now,” I said.

  If the tone bothered Dad, he gave no sign of it. “Come here a minute. You’ve got one more birthday surprise.”

  I groaned.

  For some reason, Dad laughed. “Buddy, seriously, come on. You’re going to love it.”

  “I don’t want a birthday surprise. I don’t want a birthday. I don’t want anything except to go to sleep.”

  “You’re going to want this one.”

  Sometimes, with parents, you had to do a kind of calculus. Give in now, and get some peace later? Or hold your ground and, after a short struggle, be left the fuck alone?

  Since today was still technically my birthday, I didn’t think the second option was going to work.

  “It better not be new underwear.”

  “Give me a little credit.”

  Propping myself up on one elbow, I met Dad’s gaze. “Two years ago. Christmas. You and Mom got me all excited and half the stuff under the tree was underwear.”

  “You got one pair of underwear, kid. And it was two years ago. Give it a rest.”

  “It better not be a book.”

  “You like books.”

  “I don’t like books as presents. A book is a book. I can get one from the library whenever I want.”

  “When have you ever been to the library?”

  “You’re missing the point. If it’s a book, I’m going to burn this house down.” Ok, maybe I’d gotten a little fixated on burning Holmes’s notebook.

  Dad sighed. “It’s not a book.”

  “It better not be a grilled cheese shaped like my head.”

  After a beat: “What?”

  “That’s your thing on holidays. I don’t want anything shaped like my head. Or my face. Or my name. No pancakes that look like me. No waffles with strawberry slices that spell out my name. I don’t want to see my face in a grilled cheese sandwich.”

  “I’m not making anything that looks like anything. It’s not food. It’s not a book. It’s not socks. Will you just come on?”

  I got out of bed. I glared at Dad. I pulled on a sock and then, after shuffling around for a while, found another one.

  “Boy,” Dad said, “you are really on one, aren’t you?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “See you in the morning.”

  “Jack Sixsmith Moreno, get your butt out here.”

  So, I slumped along behind Dad, following him down the hall and out of the cottage. Then I stopped and stared.

  A black Ford F-150, shiny and new and fully loaded, was parked behind the Dodge. It had one of those huge red ribbons on the hood, like the kind you see in car commercials at Christmas. I did some quick math and figured the truck cost more than the cottage.

  Dad hung the keys from one finger. When I didn’t move, he gave them a little rattle.

  “How did you—” I tried again. “How much did this—”

  “Get in there,” Dad said, and he laughed as he gave me a shove toward the truck. When he tossed the keys, I caught them by sheer reflex. “Start it up.”

  “Dad, we can’t—”

  “Get in there before I kick your ass.”

  Grinning, my shock fading, I got in. I started it up. Lights came to life. The dash glowed. A media console—no ancient CD player like the Dodge—blazed with options.

  And a song began to play.

  Stone Temple Pilots. “Interstate Love Song.”

  For a moment, I couldn’t do anything. My hands were locked around the wheel. The hurt was like a dam breaking. Then I killed the engine and got out.

  “The man who dropped it off said it was a gift,” Dad said as I walked toward him. “Taxes paid, already registered and licensed. I don’t know how your friends can afford something like this—Jack?”

  I went into the cottage and found the baseball bat and carried it outside.

  “Hey, buddy, what—”

  On the first blow, the bat bounced off the windshield. It didn’t even crack it, which only made me angrier. The second swing left a nice dent in the hood. The third popped the side mirror out, and it clattered against the side of the truck as it fell.

  Dad grabbed the bat. “Jack, what in the world—”

  I was breathing hard. I could hear myself, the sound vast and whooshing. You selfish, conceited, spoiled piece of shit, I wanted to say. You arrogant, entitled, walking fuckstick. As if this could make things right. As if this were the same as saying sorry. And “Interstate Love Song,” of all songs? The song we’d listened to that first time we’d hung out in the truck, when we’d gotten In-N-Out? How dare you? How fucking dare you?

  But I couldn’t say any of it because my breath was a cyclone, my thoughts spinning in fragments.

  “Hey, buddy—”

  I let him take the bat, and then I pitched the keys at him. “Here,” I said as I headed for my bedroom. “I don’t want it.”

  The Return of Holloway Holmes

  This story takes place after the events of Where All Paths Meet.

  1

  Jack

  I slammed another cabinet door shut. “Where are the napkins?”

  Dad pulled his head out of the fridge. I thought there might be a look on his face. “Paper towels are right there, buddy.”

  “No, the napkins. The real napkins.”

  “Don’t have any,” Dad said as he went back to rummaging around in the fridge.

  “What do you mean we don’t have any?”

  Dad emerged more slowly from the fridge this time.

  “The ones that are made out of—” I had to pause. “Like, clothes are made out of it. Cloth! The ones that are made out of cloth.”

  There was definitely a look on his face. “Holloway’s not going to mind if we use paper towels.”

  “I mind!”

  “Lower your voice, please.”

  “We used to have napkins, and I’m asking where the napkins are, and somehow, we don’t have them anymore.”

  “Tell you what,” Dad said. I was distantly aware that it was the way he had talked to that guy who came up to him in Pioneer Park and wanted to tell us about how dogs were secretly controlling our brains with microchips. “How about I set the table?”

  “Then who’s going to make dinner?”

  “Dinner’s going to take five minutes.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  Dad seemed to consider his mistake. “I mean—”

  “What are we having for dinner?”

  “You know what you could do? You could go fix your hair. Holloway will be here any minute.”

  My hand rose automatically—half-protective, half-checking. But I wasn’t so easily distracted. “What are you fixing—” I took a deep breath. “—for the first dinner—”

  “Now hold on. Holloway has eaten dinner with us before—”

  “For the first dinner,” I said over him, “the first official dinner with my boyfriend.”

  Dad’s mouth opened. He closed it again and held out empty hands. “Jack, I didn’t know. I thought it was just—I mean, he’s eaten here so many times.”

  “But now he’s my boyfriend!” I took deep, calming breaths. I thought about all the brave, noble, pushed-beyond-any-reasonable-limits sons who had murdered their fathers in the past. It was centering; I centered myself. “What,” I said again, “are you making for dinner?”

  “I was going to grill some hot dogs,” Dad said.

  I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes.

  “Jack, calm down—”

  “I’m done. Finished. Dead. I had a boyfriend for, like, one day, and now it’s over.”

  When I looked again, Dad had crossed his arms, and it looked—strangely—like he was trying not to smile. “Holloway’s not going to care about any of that. He’ll be happy to be here with you, and it’s not like he’s never been here before. He knows who we are, what our house is like, how we live. He cares about you, Jack; the rest of it doesn’t matter to him.”

  All I could manage was, “Hot dogs?”

  Dad rubbed his jaw. “Would you feel better if I called it a wienie roast?”

  My jaw dropped. Literally.

  “In support of your new lifestyle?”

  The voices on the TV ran together in the background.

  “What is wrong with you?”

  It should have been called a scream, only it was probably too hysterical.

  “Sorry, that was a bad joke,” Dad began.

  I stalked down the hall and slammed the bathroom door behind me.

  I tried to fix my hair. It was going all droopy over one eye, so I worked on that for a while, but as soon as I got that fixed, then there was this one tuft sticking up in back, and when I got that to lie flat, there was the simple problem that I looked totally stupid and my hair was stupid and this night was ruined.

  I was considering getting out the clippers and just buzzing my head the way Dad did when I caught the murmur of voices from the front of the cottage and hurried out there.

  “—run into town and pick something up,” Dad was saying, and his keys jangled. “Jack will be out in a minute; sorry we’re running late.”

  “Please don’t apologize,” Holmes said. He spotted me, and for a moment, that wobbly smile appeared. Then it was gone again as he turned back to Dad. “Mr. Moreno, I don’t understand. There’s charcoal going in the grill.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Dad said. “You guys keep each other company. Holloway, don’t let him touch my beer.”

  “Of course not,” Holmes said traitorously, “but Mr. Moreno—”

  “No, Dad—” I said as I came down the hall.

  He gave me a smile. “It’ll take half an hour, buddy. Holloway, what sounds good to you? Italian? Do you like Carrabba’s? Or there’s always Café Rio.”

  Holmes’s face betrayed, for a moment, his intense love for enchilada-style burritos. His normal response to food was to ignore it, and, if that wasn’t an option (usually because I was forcing him to eat), to tolerate it. But Café Rio was the exception.

  Instead of asking for a sweet pork burrito, and could they use an extra tortilla, and could they put extra cheese on it, and could they make sure the cheese was evenly melted—instead of his usual order, in other words—Holmes cocked his head and said, “Is there somewhere we could get hot dogs?”

 

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