The cottage in the gently rolling hills of South Pasadena was tucked behind an ivy-covered brick wall. The streets were wide here, the sunshine plentiful even in the late afternoon, even in November. Polished fenders, moist green lawns, spit-shined windows—it all had a big-ticket gleam.
Evan had taken every precaution approaching the residence, but it was evident that there was nothing on this patch of neighborhood but an excess of money. Beside him Max shuffled from foot to foot.
The doorbell gave a resonant chime that belied an interior far deeper than what the cutesy stone-and-stucco façade implied. Evan felt the key chain—and the thumb drive it hid—pressing against his thigh through the tactical-discreet pocket of his cargo pants, right beneath one of his backup magazines.
Footsteps sounded.
Max said, “Maybe I should just wait in the—”
Violet opened the door.
She was as striking as Max had described. Glossy black hair lay pronounced against her pale skin, a single forties wave peekabooing one eye. Bloody red lipstick. Sharp, intelligent irises the color of espresso.
She wore leggings and a gauzy loose sweater over a fitted midnight-blue shirt. Instinctively she tugged at her cuffs, covering her wrists with her sleeves, but not before Evan saw the telltale marks. Thin raised scars, white as milk, like the branches of a dead tree.
Her eyes sharpened further, her brow twisting. For an instant her face wore a bare expression of unadulterated hurt, and then it hardened, locking down the softer emotion.
“Get him off my property,” she said.
Evan said, “His life is at risk.”
“Yeah? So was mine.”
Max stared at the porch, at the tops of his shoes. Evan could feel the heat from her glare, and he was certain Max could, too.
“I can’t believe you’d show your face here,” Violet said.
Max nodded and faded back off the porch, never lifting his gaze. He waited in the grass, a salesman afraid to approach.
Violet looked at Evan, and he could see the strength in her. She was breathing hard, her neck flushed, her clavicles pronounced on the inhalations.
Evan said, “He did a favor for someone, and now a crew of hit men are after him.”
Violet’s focus moved past Evan’s shoulder to Max. Her blink rate had picked up. She pressed her lips together. Unrolled them. “I’ll give you this, Max. At least you don’t make the same mistake twice. You find yourself a whole new one.”
Her voice now was steady. Not a tremor. This is what pain looks like when stoked to a bright light, Evan thought. It gets cold.
“If I don’t get him off the street and hide him,” Evan said, “he will be killed. He said your parents are—” He almost said “slumlords,” corrected course. “Real-estate kingpins. With thousands of holdings in questionable neighborhoods. He said you work for them now.”
“Yes,” she said, each word diamond-hard. “I do. Now. It was the best option, and I took it.” She was going for a wounded kind of pride, but her misery at the admission was evident.
Evan asked, “Can you find a place that’s between tenants in a”—shitty part of town—“lower-income area?”
“For what?”
“To hide him. To save his life.”
“Why should I put myself at risk for him?”
“You’re nearly three years divorced. And it wasn’t amicable. It’s incredibly doubtful anyone would think Max would come to you—”
“You can count me in that group,” she cut in.
“—and be able to connect the dots from you to the business of your parents—who dislike him—and then to one of countless places they own around Los Angeles.” Evan paused. “Let’s just say it’s beyond a long shot.”
“You misunderstood my question,” she said. “I didn’t ask if I’d be at risk for him. I asked why I should put myself at risk for him.”
A patch of roses breathed a lovely scent that seemed out of place amid all the bitterness.
Evan said, “I can’t answer that.”
She said, “Who are you?”
“Someone who’s helping him?”
“Out of the goodness of your heart?”
Evan considered this. “Out of the badness of my heart, I suppose.”
She seemed to appreciate his candor. “It’s really life-or-death?”
“It is.”
“Fine. I’ll find somewhere. Somewhere really crappy. On one condition. Ask him what he did to me. You make him tell you. You should know who you’re helping.”
The breeze from the rose garden now smelled saccharine, a sickly indulgence.
Evan said, “I will.”
“I’ll give you three addresses,” she said. “Unrented places. Pick whichever you like. Do not lose the keys. Return them when you’re done. And then I never want to hear from you—or him—again. Also? I don’t know anything about this.”
Evan said, “Copy that.”
“And tell him…”
“What?”
“Tell him I’m sorry about Grant.” Her scowl returned. “Wait out here.”
The door closed abruptly. The footsteps padded away, more sharply than before.
Evan exhaled through his teeth and eased back until he came level with Max on the front lawn.
Max said, “Look, after she … after she tried to commit suicide, I was lost. I remember going to the drugstore one day to buy shampoo and just standing there, paralyzed, because I couldn’t decide what to get. Like for twenty minutes, just frozen.” He wet his lips, swallowed. “We were gonna be parents. And then, all at once, we weren’t.”
“What did you do to her?” Evan asked.
“I felt so fucking helpless,” Max said. “Just … at a total loss, you know? She didn’t want to go on, and I didn’t know when she’d do it again. She was sick with grief. She was sleeping all day and throwing up when she ate, and I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t do anything but hold her hair, and she looked … she looked like she had nothing inside her anymore. Like she’d already gone and left a husk behind. I would’ve done whatever I could to help her, but I didn’t have the answers. I didn’t have any of the answers. Everything I tried just made things worse. I would have done anything. You understand? Anything.”
“You couldn’t handle it anymore,” Evan said.
Max took in a breath. “I guess not.”
“So you left.”
Max plucked a glossy rose petal from the bush, ground it between his thumb and forefinger. “Sure,” he said. “I left.”
A silence ensued, nothing but the cheery chirps of songbirds on the scented breeze. The closed door confronted them like a moral rebuke.
Evan felt Max’s eyes on the side of his face.
“Lemme guess.” Max’s tone was sharp, but it was clear that just served to hide the shame. “That makes you not like me.”
Evan said, “I don’t have to like you to protect you.”