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  Once the coroner released the body, Sam was going to use what was left in her emaciated checking account to pay for a burial. A funeral-home bill wasn’t the parting gift she’d hoped for, but Danika was still her mom and she deserved a resting place.

  Sam paused outside the financial-aid office, late notices fluttering in the breeze. So this was how it ended, not with a bang but a whimper on a cold-ass December morning.

  She entered, stepping into a rush of warmth and the smell of pine. No one was working reception, of course, not today, but Geraldine’s door was open, and she called Sam back.

  Sam entered the office, and Geraldine glanced up with those sympathetic eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  Geraldine gestured to the chair before her desk. “Why don’t you sit down?”

  “Look, I get it,” Sam said. “I have to withdraw. Just give me some time to line out a real job, and I’ll start—”

  “Sam,” Geraldine said. “Sit down.”

  Sam flopped into the chair.

  “It seems your loans have been repaid.”

  “It’s been a long couple days, Geraldine. This isn’t funny.”

  “I was contacted by an estate lawyer for your mother. It appears that she’d been paying into some sort of education fund for you.”

  “A fund? What fund? From where?”

  “Out of the Balearic Islands of all places.”

  Sam felt a rush of heat behind her face, and she was worried she’d start crying and that Geraldine would think it was because of the money.

  She swallowed. Bit her lower lip. “She did?”

  “There’s enough left over to cover your final two years of tuition,” Geraldine said. “You’ll still have to work to pay for housing.”

  Unable to find her voice, Sam nodded. She had to get out of there or she was going to start bawling like some reality-show moron who’d had a surprise family reunion sprung on her. She stood up quickly, and across the desk Geraldine matched her.

  Geraldine offered her cool, slim hand above her blotter.

  “Merry Christmas,” she said.

  59

  Next Time

  Evan woke up with a sense of peace for the first time in months. It had been eight days since Danika’s body had been discovered in the park, nearly six miles from where she’d been shot. The L.A. Times had reported on a gas explosion in the Downtown building, but there’d been no mention of a body—Danika White’s or Charles Van Sciver’s.

  Someone had cleaned the location.

  Either Van Sciver himself or, if he had in fact been killed, others in his orbit. They’d be searching for Evan.

  And he’d be searching for them.

  As he’d done first thing every morning and last thing every night, he reached for Slatcher’s slender silver case and put on the contact lens and fingernails.

  He powered up the system and watched the cursor blink red, red, red.

  No sign of Van Sciver.

  After a full minute, moderately reassured, Evan put it away.

  As he dressed, he thought about what was next. His missions as the Nowhere Man would certainly continue, but there were some complications he’d need to sidestep. His connection to Memo Vasquez was known, just like his connection to Morena Aguilar. The best thing he could do for them now was to never go near them again. Because of that, Evan would be identifying his next client himself.

  But first perhaps he’d take a little break.

  He drove to the hardware store and bought a few lengths of premium red oak, wood putty, and paint. Back in the Vault, he watched Castle Heights’ internal surveillance cameras, waiting for Ida Rosenbaum to emerge for her post-breakfast walk. Then he headed down to Condo 6G.

  Once he’d finished, he spent the rest of his morning driving his circuit of safe houses, altering the autolighting schedule, clearing junk mail, checking the upkeep of his stashed backup vehicles.

  The southbound 405 looked like a parking lot, so he detoured to take a canyon route back over the hill. Twenty minutes later he was inside Wally’s Wine & Spirits, perusing the offerings. A single bottle of Kauffman Luxury Vintage vodka remained.

  A point-of-purchase spin rack on the counter held reading glasses, corkscrews, and bottle openers. Waiting to be rung up, Evan gave it a little twirl. Coming into view, a pack of Muppets-themed Band-Aids.

  “Sir? Sir? Sir?”

  He looked up.

  Peering over her spectacles, the clerk pointed at the bottle. “Will that be all?”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s all.”

  When he got home, he pulled in to the porte cochere. “Wow, Mr. Smoak,” the valet said, eagerly scrambling for the keys. “You’re actually gonna let me park your truck?”

  “Just don’t run anyone over,” Evan said, and the kid grinned.

  Inside, Hugh Walters, crowned with a Santa hat, finished trimming the lobby tree. From his high ladder perch, he lowered a bagel on top in place of an angel. Seeing Evan, he shrugged. “It is L.A.,” he remarked.

  Over at the bank of mailboxes, Johnny Middleton turned to offer a too-vigorous high five. Ever since they’d faced down the brothers together, his attempts at bonding had intensified. Feeling vaguely foolish, Evan returned the high five and checked his mail.

  Inside, a rectangular box from GenYouration Labs.

  He’d been waiting on it.

  He opened the package and read a bit as he strolled to the elevator. “Twenty-first floor, please,” he called out to the security desk.

  “Yes, Mr. Smoak.”

  Evan paused. “And happy holidays, Joaquin.”

  “You, too.”

  Evan climbed in. As the doors slid shut, a wizened hand slithered through the gap and clicked the bumpers, knocking them apart. Mrs. Rosenbaum got in. Leaning back, she studied him.

  “Healing up from your motorcycle accident, I see.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “My Herb, may he rest in peace, always said he’d lock our children up in the basement before he’d let them get on a motorcycle.”

  “Your kids were lucky to have you.”

  She made a muffled sound of agreement. They rode up a few floors in silence.

  “That good-for-nothing manager finally got around to fixing my doorframe this morning. Can you believe it?”

  “That must make you happy.”

  “I suppose he just wanted to get it out of the way so he could tell everyone he did it this year.” They reached the sixth floor, and she plodded out. “Well, good-bye, then.”

  At the twelfth floor, Evan exited and headed down the corridor. As he passed 12F, he sensed an eavesdropping eye at the peephole. “Afternoon, Your Honor.”

  Pat Johnson’s muffled voice came through the door. “Afternoon.”

  Evan paused outside the last door in the hall. From inside he could hear raised voices: “You gotta let me stay up till midnight. We have to watch the thingy in New York.”

  “That’s on at nine here.”

  “They rerun it! And I wanna see fireworks. How ’bout we watch half?”

  “I don’t negotiate with terrorists!”

  Evan knocked.

  A few footsteps, and then Mia’s face appeared, split by the security chain. She drew her head back slightly. “Evan?”

  “I have a late Christmas gift for Peter. Or, I guess, a good-bye gift. Like we discussed, I won’t come by anymore after this.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

  The door closed, the chain lifted, and then she stepped back and let him in.

  “Your eye,” she said. “What h—” Her hands came up, palms out. “Wait. Never mind. Nothing.”

  He smiled. Given even the little she knew about him, he should have packed up and left Castle Heights by now. But he hadn’t. By staying put he had accepted back into his life the faintest sliver of trust.

  From over on the couch, Peter waved, and Evan walked toward him. Mia returned to the kit
chen, giving them some space.

  Evan crouched before him, and Peter clicked off the TV. Evan held up the thick folder from GenYouration Labs. “Do you know what this is?”

  “Dinosaur DNA?”

  “Close. It’s your DNA.” Evan opened the printed report. “You’re fifty-eight percent Mediterranean, thirty-one percent Northern European, and eleven percent Southwest Asian.”

  “Asian!”

  “Yeah. Look here.”

  Peter sat at the edge of the cushion, captivated. “Cool.”

  “Very cool. Your earliest ancestor migrated out of Africa sixty-five thousand years ago, crossing the Red Sea into the Arabian Peninsula. His people were nomadic hunters, with tools and weapons. Unafraid to face new lands and challenges.” Evan turned the page. “When drought hit, your ancestors chased herds of wild game through modern-day Iran to the steppes of Central Asia.”

  “What’s a steppe?”

  “Big flat grasslands,” Evan said. “They’re beautiful.” He turned the paper sideways. “Look at this map here. See how your people migrated up through Europe? They were big-game hunters.”

  “Whoa.”

  “Whoa is right.” Evan flipped through the colored pages. “Then there’s an Ice Age and more migrations, and you have a strain in you from agriculturalists of the Fertile Crescent. But you can read all this yourself.” He handed over the report. “You said you wanted to know where you came from.”

  “Thanks. I love it. Mom said you’re not gonna be around much.”

  The sentences, strung together as if they were of a piece. Maybe they were.

  “That’s right,” Evan said.

  “She said I won’t understand till I’m older, but I think that’s just what grown-ups say when they don’t know what to do.”

  “Grown-ups don’t know what to do more often than you might think.”

  “That sucks,” he said. “It gets lonely sometimes. Being the only kid.”

  Evan considered this. Then he said, “Someone very close to me taught me to build a space in my head. You can put whatever you want in there. You don’t have to let in anyone you don’t want to. But you can let in anyone you want.”

  “Like Batman. Or Captain Jack Sparrow.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Or you.”

  Evan nodded. “Or me.”

  “Bye, Evan Smoak.”

  “Bye, Peter Hall.”

  Peter flipped to the beginning of his DNA report and started reading.

  Evan stood and started for the door. Mia ducked down and peered out the pass-through at the paper bag in his hand. “Finally got that vodka, huh?”

  “I did.”

  “Ready to celebrate tonight?”

  “A version of that.”

  “Made your resolutions yet?” she asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “You don’t have much time.”

  “No,” he said. “Guess not.” He paused. “Happy New Year, Mia.”

  She brushed back her hair, bit her lip. “Happy New Year.”

  That Post-it remained, stuck to the side of the pass-through right in front of him. “Treat yourself as if you were someone you are responsible for helping.”

  Evan wondered if maybe now he had an inkling of what that meant.

  Once he got back upstairs, he worked out hard, then cleaned around his sutures. He took a hot shower and read for a while. Sometime before midnight he poured a few fingers of the Kauffman over ice. Standing behind the sunscreens, he let the vodka warm his mouth, his throat. Silky texture, clean aftertaste.

  Sporadic fireworks ushered in the New Year, distant bursts on the horizon. Sipping his vodka, he watched the splendid cascades of fire and light. When nothing remained but the clinking of cubes, he rinsed out his glass in the kitchen sink.

  A flash from the fireworks illuminated a child-size palm mark on the Sub-Zero. He pictured Peter the last time he was here, leaning against the fridge and huffing his breath to fog the stainless steel. Evan stepped to the side, bringing the handprint into relief.

  He decided to leave it there.

  He walked down the long hall, past the blank spot where the katana used to hang. After getting ready for bed, he sat on the edge of the Maglev platform and donned the high-def contact lens and radio-frequency-identification-tagged fingernails as he had each of the past nine nights.

  The cursor blinked red, red, red.

  Relieved, he peeled off the gear and put it in its silver case for the morning.

  Turning off the light, he lay floating in the dark, detached from others, from the world, from the very floor beneath him. Adrift in the possibilities of a fresh year, he closed his eyes.

  He counted down from ten and had just dozed off when a distinctive alarm sounded. Wearing a faint smile, he opened his eyes. Reaching across to the remote on his nightstand, he silenced the alarm. There was no need to check the monitors.

  Rising, he clicked on the light and crossed to his window. Against the pane a balloon floated, bearing two words messily Magic Markered in a child’s hand.

  NEXT TIME.

  He opened the window, corralled the balloon inside, and cut the kite string with a replacement Strider knife, one that hadn’t yet been used to stab him. Letting the balloon bump along the ceiling, he got back into bed. Reaching to turn on the lights, he paused. His hand hovered over the silver case.

  One more try.

  He donned the gear again. The cursor appeared in its virtual float a few feet off his face. It blinked red, red—

  Green.

  Evan stared at the live connection for a few moments, his heart making itself known in his chest. He made no move to type, and no text appeared. Ten seconds passed, then thirty. Finally, with careful movements, he powered down the device. He removed the nails and the lens.

  Carrying the silver case as gingerly as an explosive, he entombed it in the Vault and went to bed.

  EPILOGUE

  Loss

  In a desolate stretch of the snowy Allegheny Mountains, a fire burns in a cabin, smoke spiraling from the chimney. Through the single-pane windows carries the sound of grunting. Inside, a three-hundred-pound water-filled heavy bag hangs from a ceiling joist. A scrappy twelve-year-old boy beats at it with all his might—fists, forearms, knees. A stocky man stands behind him, holding a stopwatch.

  The boy’s blows become weak and infrequent, and finally the man clicks the stopwatch. The boy keeps his feet, panting.

  “Albuquerque, molecular, thirty-seven, Henry Clay, grand slam, X-ray, loss, nineteen, Monaco, denoted,” the man says. “What is item nine?”

  The boy’s thin chest heaves. “Monaco.”

  “Item two?”

  “Molecular.”

  “The sum of items three and eight?”

  “Fifty-six.”

  A series of low beeps draws the man’s attention. He walks over to the counter where a blocky satphone rests. He ratchets up the stubby antenna, pointing it through the roof, and clicks to pick up.

  “Jack Johns,” he says.

  The voice comes through, scratchy with static. “He’s in the wind again.”

  “Safe?”

  “Yes. For now.”

  Jack closes his eyes, lowers his head, exhales. Reaching over the top buttons of his flannel shirt, he scratches at the silver dollar of taut, shiny skin near his shoulder. This many years later and still it itches like sin in the winter.

  The voice squawks through again. “You copy?”

  “Copy,” Jack says.

  He removes the battery, then tosses the phone into the fireplace.

  The boy is at his side, sensing the shift in emotion.

  “Did I say to stop?” Jack asks.

  “No, sir.” The boy returns to his post by the heavy bag behind Jack.

  On top of the burning logs, the phone blackens and melts. Jack keeps his eyes on the dancing flames. He has to clear his throat twice before he can continue the test. “Item seven?” he asks.

 
; “Loss,” the boy answers.

  Acknowledgments

  It takes a village to launch a book. To launch a new series, it takes a small municipality. Given that, I’d like to acknowledge:

  —Sensei Brian Shiers, for teaching me mixed martial arts. I attained much wisdom on the receiving end of his various choke holds, eye jabs, and leg sweeps. My primary-care physician and I thank you.

  —Billy S____, shadow serviceman and master armorer. If ever there’s a man who fills the combat boots, it’s you. Thanks for lending me your brain and your weapons.

  —Jeff Polacheck and the delightful Pearl Polacheck, for giving me a behind-the-scenes look at high-altitude living on the Wilshire Corridor. Thanks for braving my questions as I poked around back halls and crawl spaces, figuring out how to build Evan his Fortress of Solitude.

  —Geoffrey Baehr, Knower of Arcane and Invasive Technologies. Thanks for teaching Evan how to creep unnoticed through the virtual universe.

  —Professor Jordan Peterson of the quoted proverbs. Thanks for giving Mia a road map for how to raise her son and for giving me a road map for how to raise myself.

  —Melissa Little, Queen Restorer of Vintage Movie Posters, for showing me the tricks of the trade when it comes to forged art and documents.

  —Melissa Hurwitz, M.D., and Bret Nelson, M.D., for patching up my injured characters or permitting them to expire with the dignity of verisimilitude.

  —My editor, Keith Kahla of the keen eye and tireless ethic, for helping hammer Evan Smoak into shape. The rest of my team at Minotaur Books—Andrew Martin, Kelley Ragland, Paul Hochman, Jennifer Enderlin, Sally Richardson, Hector DeJean, and Hannah Braaten—for giving him a home.

  —Caspian Dennis of the Abner Stein Agency, and Rowland White and his fine team at Michael Joseph/Penguin Group UK for taking care of Orphan X on his OCONUS operations.

  —The unimprovable Lisa Erbach Vance, as well as Aaron Priest, John Richmond, and Melissa Edwards of the Aaron Priest Agency.

  —My superb crew at Creative Artists Agency—Trevor Astbury, Rob Kenneally, Peter Micelli, and Michelle Weiner for giving Evan a sensational boost.

  —Marc H. Glick of Glick & Weintraub and Stephen F. Breimer of Bloom, Hergott, Diemer, et al., who have had my back for two decades and change.