SEBASTIAN CRAWLED ALONG the crowded freeway, listening to the all-news radio station, hoping to learn actual details about the shooting in Brentwood. Frank hadn’t had much in the way of specifics when he’d called earlier. He’d promised to call back when he did.
That was forty minutes ago.
The news was high on drama and low on facts. Very low. Police—who were in Brentwood in record numbers, according to one reporter—had confirmed that the owner of the home, Sophia Vargas, and an LAPD officer had been shot and killed in what one witness called a “gangland-style shoot-out,” but so far hadn’t offered up anything beyond that. A witness reported seeing a “black compact car with tinted windows” fleeing the scene. There was no other information.
But that didn’t mean the police hadn’t discovered things. Important, key things.
Paul owned a black BMW with tinted windows. Sebastian wondered if anyone had seen and perhaps memorized a plate number. Maybe a camera in a traffic light had recorded it. The thought made Sebastian feel sick all over.
The radio newscaster teased a possible breaking story. First, Sebastian had to listen to an interview with a witness—a hysterical neighborhood yenta who had been out walking her dog when she heard the gunshots. “It sounded like firecrackers—hundreds of firecrackers going off at the same time. And then came the screaming, the awful screaming.” The woman’s voice caught. “I can’t believe this happened,” she said, and began to sob. “I cannot believe this is happening here.”
Sebastian couldn’t believe it, either. He was having an out-of-body experience—the second of his life. The first one he had experienced years and years ago, when he was a teenager, after the judge sentenced him to life in prison.
Which was exactly what would happen to him again if he didn’t find Paul before the cops did.
Ever since Frank’s initial call, Sebastian had been choking on the thought of Paul already in police custody. Paul didn’t know the inner workings of Sebastian’s blood operation, but he knew enough to throw Sebastian to the wolves. Paul worked with a guy who managed stickmen and acquired carriers exclusively for Sebastian’s business, and Sebastian had allowed him to do some menial tasks like the one today—chauffeuring well-behaved carriers and playing babysitter. Paul knew nothing about the infrastructure or the treatment center, and he didn’t know the names of actual clients and had absolutely no idea of the locations where the donors lived.
Sebastian imagined Paul wearing a shit-eating grin while asking the LAPD if they would be interested in the person behind the elusive Pandora in exchange for a reduced sentence. Or maybe the slick lawyer he would hire would bypass the LAPD altogether and go straight to the Feds, see if they wanted the info in exchange for, say, placement in Witness Protection.
Sebastian’s thoughts shifted to his two donors. Paul had taken Alex Hernandez and Jolie Simone to Brentwood for a day of sun and fun. Sebastian had a special arrangement with Sophia Vargas, a long-standing client who, in exchange for free transfusions, allowed his well-behaved donors to spend a nice, long summer day outside in the privacy of her backyard, get some sun and fresh air when her husband was away on yet another one of his overseas business trips. The system, while unusual, had worked perfectly for the last few years, helped make the donors feel less like prisoners.
Had Paul taken Alex and Jolie with him, or were they dead?
On the radio, the reporter who was live at the scene broke in and said, “We’ve got confirmation police found two bodies inside the house—a yet-unidentified male and female. A source close to the investigation believes the victims are carriers who were abducted several years ago.”
So, there it was.
The phone rang. Frank.
“Paul reached out to me,” Frank said.
Sebastian felt a couple of the stones stacked on his heart slide away.
“I gave him the address of our house in Long Beach,” Frank said. “I told him he could lie low there until we sort this mess out.”
Paul didn’t know about the house in Long Beach, what they used it for. With its sweeping ocean views and stellar sunsets, the fully furnished house was disarming—not the sort of place you figured you’d spend your last moments of life.
Which was the point. Paul wouldn’t suspect a thing.
“He’s on his way there now,” Frank said.
A few more stones fell, Sebastian now feeling like he could finally draw a full breath. Forty minutes ago, he’d had his mind set on going home and getting his new passport and credit cards and cash, packing up some clothes, and preparing for life on the run. Now he had hope.
“You’re sure?” Sebastian asked.
“If you mean am I tracking his cell signal, the answer is no. I’m not at the office at the moment. I’ve had bigger fish to fry.”
Frank, Sebastian knew, was referring to certain business arrangements that had become top priorities. “Our other donors,” Sebastian began.
“Already being moved to our new compound.”
They had built a new facility as a backup, in the event the location of their current one was ever compromised. The locations of his donor compounds were Sebastian’s biggest and most important secret. There was no way Paul would know where the donors lived. But with Paul, he wasn’t going to take any chances.
Frank said, “The old compound is being scrubbed and shut down as we speak. Same with the house where Paul picked up Alex and Jolie this morning. There won’t be a single shred of evidence to indicate they were there—I promise you that.”
“What about his car? The Beemer.”
“He said he took care of it.”
“Took care of it how?”
“He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask, figuring we could do question-and-answer time later. I stuck to the script.”
“How’d he sound?”
“Like he always sounds. Like we were talking about the weather or last night’s box score instead of him killing six people.”
“Six? I’m counting four. Vargas, the cop, and now Alex and Jolie.”
“There was another kid there,” Frank said. “A stickman, I’m hearing.”
“One of Anton’s?”
“I don’t know any details yet. As for the sixth victim, remember Jolie Simone was five months pregnant. State considers that another human life.”
Sebastian thought of Jolie’s unborn kid suffocating to death inside the womb because her mother had been killed. The news angered him—and Frank angered him. Not Frank personally but the deadpan way Frank spoke, like he was a computer rather than a man. Frank always spoke that way, and there were times, like now, when Sebastian wished Frank shared his outrage.
“I have more news from our man on the inside,” Frank said. “It appears Jolie gave blood. And Vargas got a transfusion.”
Sebastian chewed on that for a moment. Jolie wasn’t scheduled to give blood today, or any day, because she was pregnant—and Sophia Vargas wasn’t scheduled to get her transfusion until next month.
“Why would Paul take Jolie’s blood?” Frank asked.
“Must have a side deal going with someone, make some extra money, is the only thing I can think of.”
“With who? The Armenians?”
Let’s hope not, Sebastian thought. “What else do you know?”
“When the cops arrived, they found Sophia Vargas lying in the backyard, in her bikini. She was having a little DIY time—you know, buttering her muffin—even after the cops arrived.”
“What?”
“That’s what our guy said. She ever done anything like that before?”
“No. And she’s been getting Pandora infusions for years.”
“So what changed?”
Sebastian didn’t know. Had no idea. One of the immediate side effects of Pandora was enhanced sexual arousal, yes, and a lot of his male and female clients reported feeling extremely horny for a good couple of weeks or so after a transfusion. But he’d never had a client act the way Sophia Vargas had, if what Frank had just said was true.
“My guy also told me they were executed—his word—while they were passed out, sleeping, whatever,” Frank said. “Single stab wound to the back of the head with a strong blade, like a hunting or military knife.”
Instant death—at least according to Paul, who had told Sebastian about the night he used his government-issued knife to quickly dispatch a pair of Iraqi soldiers during a night mission over in camel country. Paul had brought that knife home with him—carried it with him. He even had a name for the blade: the Angel’s Kiss.
“Why were the cops called to the house?”
“Because of the dog,” Frank said.
“What dog?”
“Vargas’s dog. Black Lab. Somehow it got out of the fenced-in backyard, was running around the neighborhood when a police car hit it. The cops saw its tag. Someone had left a bloody fingerprint on it and written the words Help Us, I’m told. If I had to guess who did it, I’d say Alex.”
It took Sebastian by surprise, the betrayal, how deeply it stung. Alex and Jolie had been with him since they were kids and had never given him so much as a lick of trouble—had, in fact, been appreciative of how well they were taken care of. They didn’t want for anything. He had made sure of it.
No, that wasn’t entirely true. He couldn’t give them their freedom.
Frank said, “I’m guessing they had some plan in place to run away together, start a family.”
“Run to where?”
“No idea. I’m sure it was more of a fantasy than an actual plan. You remember what it’s like at that age, the stupid shit you do when you’re in love. You believe anything in the world is possible.”
Frank, Sebastian knew, was referring to him and Ava.
Frank, though, didn’t have any personal experience in this area. Frank had never been in love—at least as far as Sebastian knew. He had no idea if Frank saw someone or got laid or if his childhood friend had any interest in sex. Sebastian had no idea about Frank’s sexual preference, either, because Frank was still, after all their years together and after all the shit they’d gone through, intensely, almost pathologically private.
Still, Frank was dead-on about the stupid shit you did when you were young and in love—especially the first time you fell hard for someone, believed she was the great love of your life, your soul mate, the person God created only for you. It made the impossible seem possible.
Frank said, “Where are you?”
“I was heading home to prepare for my new life on the run. I’m almost there. Let me change out of my clothes. Then I’ll meet you in Long Beach.” Sebastian wasn’t going to ruin a perfectly good Tom Ford suit.
“Stay home. I’ll take care of Paul. You don’t need to be there, see what happens to your kid.”
“He is not my kid.”
“But he is the kid of your former longtime girlfriend or live-in or common-law wife or whatever you called her. You don’t need to be there for the particulars. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.”
Sebastian’s thoughts shifted to Trixie. Like his dearly departed mother, Trixie had lived her life as a God-fearing woman. She devoted her time to various charities and went to church and organized fund-raisers, many of which were devoted to helping the families of missing carriers. Trixie had had absolutely no idea of her husband’s real business. Sebastian had made sure of it.
When she was diagnosed with Stage IV malignant melanoma, it was Sebastian, not her, who had brought up Pandora, explaining how carrier blood could destroy cancer cells and halt the progress of the disease, sometimes reverse it. Sebastian said he knew people—discreet people—who could acquire it. No one would ever know.
But I’ll know, Trixie had told him. It’s illegal and, more importantly, immoral. An abomination. That blood will come from some child who was kidnapped and tortured. If God wants me to die, then it is his will.
In the end, it didn’t matter. Once melanoma entered the bloodstream, it became one of the most aggressive cancers. Rounds of invasive testing revealed Trixie’s cancer had already worked its way past her lymph nodes and spread to most of her organs. No amount of carrier blood could reverse that. As she lay at home dying, all she thought about was God and the welfare of her son. Paul, she kept telling him, was a good man. He had served his country and deserved a good life. All he needed was some good, orderly direction. Not just from God but from the second most important person in Paul’s life. Sebastian had given her his word. He would watch over Paul. Help guide him.
Paul, though, had zero interest in real estate. He did, however, have a ton of interest in Sebastian’s other business.
Sebastian obliged, albeit reluctantly. The cat was already out of the bag. Better to manage Paul and keep an eye on him and where he went than to have him poking his nose around where it didn’t belong.
I brought him into our thing—I allowed it, Sebastian wanted to tell Frank. And if I’m being honest, I’m not surprised about what he did today. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew something like this would happen.
“Don’t do anything until I get there,” Sebastian said.
Traffic, finally, seemed to be moving. As Sebastian drew closer to his exit, he thought about what Frank had said, about not being there when Paul got to the Long Beach house.
He’s not my kid, he’d told Frank.
Which was true. He had never adopted Paul—had never had any interest in the job, either, and, as far as he could tell, Paul had never wanted him to fill out an application. Even as a kid, Paul had never been big on talking. Sure, he’d had plenty to say about sports, movies, and his favorite TV shows, maybe the occasional book he read, but anything deeper than that? Sorry, nothing to say.
Same with his feelings. Nothing ever seemed to bother him. Whatever happened to him, good, bad, or indifferent, he never showed his true colors.
“He’s just sensitive. Quiet and insular,” Trixie would tell him. “Insular men are always the most private.”
Sometimes, she would add, “His father was like that.”
Sebastian could count on one hand the number of times Trixie had spoken about Paul’s father. That was how she always referred to him: “Paul’s father.” Like he was a store that had gone out of business. She wouldn’t tell him the guy’s name, just that he split town when he found out she was pregnant, and she always ended the conversation with her mother’s favorite words: Good riddance to bad rubbish.
On paper, everything pointed to Paul being solid. He had never given Trixie much in the way of grief beyond the usual kid shit of not picking up his room or putting away his clothes and his dirty dishes. He rarely got into trouble at school or at home, always got good grades and had plenty of friends, all of them good kids from good families, and, later, plenty of girlfriends—all pretty blondes with the same life ambition of looking good in a bikini. And yet Sebastian had always suspected there was something not quite right with Paul, something that made him different from everyone else.
An incident when Paul was ten had provided Sebastian with some deeper insight.
For Paul’s eighth birthday, his mother had given him a three-month-old puppy that was part Tibetan mastiff and part chocolate Lab. With its dark brown fur and shaggy face, the dog looked like a baby Chewbacca, which was the reason why Trixie had instantly fallen in love with the mutt. Chewbacca was Paul’s favorite character from his favorite movie, Star Wars. He’s my favorite because he’s loyal, Paul had explained to him once. Loyal and protective.
Chewie the dog lived up to his namesake. And Paul, unlike most kids, took over full responsibility, feeding and walking Chewie without having to be reminded or nagged, playing with him in the backyard. Paul had never been big on sleepovers, but the handful of times he agreed to them he had insisted Chewie accompany him.
When Chewie collapsed in the driveway one morning, Trixie and Paul still asleep, it was Sebastian who brought the dog to the twenty-four-hour emergency veterinary hospital.
When the vet gave him Chewie’s diagnosis, Sebastian sobbed like a baby right in front of the vet, Chewie lying right there on the examining table after coming out of anesthesia for the X-ray and MRI, the dog wagging its tail limply, no clue as to what was happening.
While Chewie had been undergoing the tests, Sebastian had texted Paul and Trixie, telling them he had brought the dog with him to the office. When Sebastian pulled into the driveway, his eyes were no longer puffy or bloodshot.
Paul was home—out back, practicing his free throws. He shot the ball, Sebastian watching it roll off his fingertips, like he’d taught him. Swish. He had made the JV team.
“I’ve got to talk to you,” Sebastian said after he got out of the car.
Paul used a forearm to wipe the sweat away from his eyes. “What’s up? Where’s Chewie?”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
Sebastian told him about the cancerous tumors the vet had discovered in Chewie’s brain. About how surgery and chemotherapy weren’t options with this type of cancer, and even if they were, the cancer had spread. It was too late. There was nothing to do but say goodbye.
Sebastian was proud of himself for getting through his talk without his voice cracking. He was grateful for the mirrored sunglasses he was wearing, so Paul couldn’t see him blinking back fresh tears.
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian said, watching as Paul cradled the basketball against his hip and looked down the long driveway, as though someone were about to arrive at any second to rescue him, turn this situation around. “I’ll take you to the vet’s office.”
Paul turned back to him, his head cocked to the side. “Why?” he asked, sounding—and looking—genuinely puzzled.
“So you can say goodbye.”
“He’s a dog.”
“No,” Sebastian said. “He’s your dog.”
Paul’s expression and body language didn’t change. It was as if Sebastian had been speaking another language.
He’s in shock, Sebastian thought. But he quickly dismissed it because of how eerily relaxed Paul was, how the kid seemed to be waiting for more information. In that moment, Sebastian thought of his mother, an intensely religious woman who constantly quoted from the Bible, and he recalled a passage from Mark or Matthew about how the eyes were the lamp of the body, how if they were healthy your body was full of God’s light.
God’s light wasn’t in Paul’s eyes. There wasn’t any light, not even a flicker of one, because his eyes were dead. And they had always been dead, Sebastian realized—that was the thing that was off about him, what the kid was missing.
Sebastian pulled into his driveway and stepped out of the car, the memory still fresh in his mind when his phone rang. Frank again.
“More news from our guy on the inside,” Frank said. “A cop got a solid look at Paul. A female cop who was at the scene. Don’t have a name for you yet, but we’ll know soon, I’m sure.”
“Paul’s not going to come to you.”
“You spoke to him?”
“Not yet,” Sebastian said, staring into his backyard, at the pool. “He’s here.”
“Here as in your house?”
“Yep.”
“What the hell is he doing there?”
“Judging from where I’m standing,” Sebastian said, “I’d say the breaststroke.”