The List Page 7

  Evan said, “David.”

  “Are you gonna call me?”

  He kept stroking her hair lazily, the back of her neck hot against his fingertips. “No,” he said, not unkindly.

  “That’s fine.” She stretched, catlike, content. “I’m so sick of bullshit. Thanks for being honest.”

  “Thank you for letting me spend time with you.”

  She cocked her head. “You’re a funny one, David. Polite and … hmm, formal, I guess. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I dig it.” She slid up and pulled on a lace camisole, which had landed slung over her headboard. “Can I make you something to eat?”

  “No thank you,” he said. “I can show myself out.”

  “You sure? You want an espresso, something?” She caught herself. “I’m sorry. Ugh. It’s just—women, we’re used to making ourselves useful.”

  “You don’t need to. You’re delightful doing nothing.”

  He was on his feet now, hunting for his boxer briefs on the white Carrara marble floor. His RoamZone, discarded near an overturned high heel, showed a missed call.

  Same number as the last three calls, starting with the country code of Argentina.

  The one time he’d picked up, he hadn’t liked what he’d heard.

  There was a time when a missed call to 1-855-2-NOWHERE would have been cause for concern. But he’d moved on to a normal life—or at least a simulacrum of what a normal life could be. A life that allowed for the Polo Lounge, women with broad ski-jump noses, and evenings that didn’t bring with them the promise of violence.

  He exhaled deeply, cracked his neck, breathing in perfume and sweat. Stretching his shoulders, he took in the warmth of the decor.

  The luxury bungalow floated above the Hollywood Hills, the massive bed centered in the great room between two pillar candles, each the width of a tank gun’s barrel. The open kitchen was modern-chic with a Moroccan-tile backsplash, sage-green cabinets, and a rough-sawn farm table. A white plastic trash bag, neatly knotted, leaned against a wood-paneled refrigerator. A substantial picture window looked down at the Sunset Strip, alive with traffic lights and tall-wall billboards displaying It Girls and Boys like larger-than-life jewels. Or perishables.

  He was distracted by that missed call. The woman behind it was proving to be persistent. What the hell did she want? Who had sent her?

  Jeanette-Marie studied him, her eyes glinting. “Okay. Lemme guess. You’re a … sous-chef.”

  Amused, he said, “Sure.”

  Evan had an average build, the better to blend in. Just an ordinary guy, not too handsome. He kept his muscles toned but not pronounced. When he was dressed, it was hard to discern just how fit he was.

  But he wasn’t dressed now.

  Jeanette-Marie had certainly seen him up close, but she scanned him once more with the benefit of greater perspective. “No—wait.” She snapped her fingers. “A trainer! Hang on, no, like a physical therapist?”

  He said, “Sure.”

  “Okay. A sous-chef–trainer–physical therapist. We’ll leave it at that.” Her smile was radiant, youthful. “What do you think I do?”

  “I think you’re a painter, educated at the Royal College of Art. You prefer to work in oils, and you teach part-time at UCLA.”

  Her lips pressed together, her brow furrowed with incredulity. “Um. How…?”

  He found his boxer briefs beneath a throw pillow that had lived up to its name. “You have calluses on the side of your left middle finger near the joint from holding a thin brush. Your shirt had paint stains on the cuff. Acrylics are water-based, so they would’ve washed out by now. So: oil. At the Polo Lounge—after you wouldn’t let me buy you a drink—you paid with a Bruin faculty credit-union card.”

  She pursed her lips, taking a moment to catch up to this. “Okay, fine. But the Royal College?”

  “You mentioned a favorite café on Prince Consort Road in London, which is right around the corner.”

  She was sitting perfectly upright now on the mattress, her hands in her lap. “Wow. You actually pay attention.”

  He unearthed one of his boots from beneath her flung-aside jacket. “Some people are worth paying attention to.”

  “God,” Jeanette-Marie said. “You are the opposite of my ex. You’re the un-ex. Given how things ended with him, you’re exactly who I needed for the night.”

  “It didn’t end well?”

  “Let’s see. I got the house, so that’s good. But he got the bank accounts. Which were numerous. He’s an I-banker, Harvard asshole. You know the type. Quite different from us Royal College assholes.” Her grin lightened her face once more. “Opposites attract. Until they don’t.”

  Evan thought of the scattering of freckles across Mia’s nose. That birthmark at her temple. The smell of her neck.

  He said, “Right.”

  “But when you fall for someone, it’s gonna be different, right? Every time. And then it’s not. It’s always not.” She pulled her curls up in the back, the moonlight striking the side of her neck. Evan paused to admire her.

  “I’m the common denominator, though,” she continued. “So I shouldn’t blame Donnie. I mean, on paper? He’s really good. I think I fell in love with my image of him, which is even more powerful than being in love with a real person, because, man, what it takes to knock the shine off an image.” She shook her head. “He’s harmless enough. Just a cheater and a dick. I knew it for longer than I wanted to know it. But being alone? It gets old, right?”

  Evan said, “Right.”

  “That’s what I miss. Even more than the sex. Someone to … you know, cook dinner once in a while, take out the trash.”

  Before he could respond, he heard the metallic purr of a key sliding into the front-door lock.

  “Oh, shit,” she said.

  The dead bolt retracted loudly, and the door swung open.

  A guy in a rumpled suit sauntered across the threshold. Three men at his back with flashing eyes and bad energy—simmering hostility tempered by a whiff of sheepishness. They looked well lubricated, their movements loosened with alcohol, and they stank of tequila. An inferior spirit.

  “Goddamn it, Donnie,” Jeanette-Marie said. “This isn’t your place anymore. Get out now. And give me your key or I’m changing the locks.”

  Donnie threw his arms wide. “Well, look what we have here. My fucking wife in my fucking house with a naked fucking guy.” He spoke with the careful articulation of the very drunk.

  She said, “Bad night at the strip clubs?”

  He glowered at her.

  “I said give me the key, Donnie. Now.”

  Still he didn’t answer. The front door was open, the wind carrying the thrum of a bass guitar from a club way down on the Strip. The smell of stale cigars came off the men’s clothes, poisoning the scent of night-blooming jasmine.

  She looked at Evan, and he watched the concern on her face migrate to fear. “I’m really sorry.”

  Evan shrugged.

  “Don’t you apologize to him,” Donnie said. “You look at me. Look at me, you fucking whore.”

  Evan grimaced. So much for evenings that didn’t hold the promise of violence.

  “Listen,” Jeanette-Marie said to Donnie, more cautiously now. “He’s just leaving. Let him go, and you and I, we’ll talk in the morning.”

  Donnie frowned, considering. “Okay. You know what? You’re right.” He held up his hands, retreated to the front door. Paused. His jaw flexed a few times, the shiny, clean-shaven skin of his cheek rippling. “Fuck it,” he said, and flipped the door shut.

  He swung back around to face them, his mouth shifting left, right.

  Jeanette-Marie appealed to the others. “Eric? Jim? Rich—c’mon. This isn’t you guys. You know that. What are you gonna do? Beat up some guy you don’t even know? What’s that gonna accomplish?”

  Evan flipped aside a corner of the duvet with a bare foot and found his jeans. He usually wore cargo pants but had upgraded to dark 501s as a concession to the
Polo Lounge.

  “Hey, motherfucker,” Donnie said. “Hey, you. You enjoy being in my bed? You enjoy being in my wife?”

  Evan picked up his jeans and sat down on the bed. “You really want me to answer that?”

  Donnie’s laugh turned into a sputter. He took a step forward, his friends fanning out behind him. “You’re an idiot. There are four of us.”

  “I see that,” Evan said. “Need me to wait while you get more?”

  They blinked at him.

  The biggest of the quartet—Rich—stripped off his suit jacket. “We’ll be enough.”

  Evan pulled on his jeans, one leg, then the other. One more irritated glance at the missed call with that 54 country code before he shoved the phone into his pocket. He finished dressing calmly, the men staring at him in disbelief. He buckled his belt and then held out his hands, palms up. “Okay,” he said. “Make an example out of me.”

  Rich struck a boxing stance, shifting his weight from side to side. Donnie dropped his right foot back, which along with the watch on his left wrist signaled that he was right-handed. He gave a target glance at Evan’s chin, telegraphing where he intended to strike. The two beta males filled out the semicircle at the edge of Evan’s peripheral vision.

  Jeanette-Marie’s bare feet hit the floor with a thump. “Donnie, you call this off right—”

  The big guy led first as Evan knew he would, a haymaker, all force, no nuance. Evan slapped the fist aside with an open-hand deflection, placed his insole behind Rich’s heel, and jerked the guy’s loafer sharply two feet forward. Rich went airborne, landing hard on his shoulder blades. His lungs expelled a grunt, the wind knocked clean out of him.

  Already Donnie was angling for the cheap shot, but Evan stepped aside and flicked his knuckles at the looming nose, shattering it neatly, a healthy spurt painting the front of Donnie’s designer shirt.

  Jim came in halfhearted, his body already registering his fate, though his booze-addled brain was too slow to catch up. Evan smacked both sides of his head, boxing his ears and putting a concussive barb straight through his brain. As Jim’s hands rose protectively, Evan grabbed his dress shirt in the back and raked it up, a prison-yard move that trapped his arms. Then he kicked out Jim’s front leg, dumping him on the marble next to Rich, who was still sucking for oxygen.

  By that time Donnie was reentering the fray, bellowing and swinging blindly. Evan grabbed his wrist in a bong sau/lop sau trap, sliding into an arm control. Locking Donnie’s elbow, he spun him around in a half turn and slammed his forehead into the farm table, bouncing him onto the floor next to the other two.

  Then he turned to face the last man standing.

  Frozen in place, Eric stared at him, panting, eyes rimmed with a good show of white. Giving Evan wide berth, he eased around the others and ran out, leaving the front door swinging in the breeze. Jim untangled himself from his shirt and hustled out after Eric in a limping run.

  Rich lay on his back, as exposed as a flipped turtle. Evan offered his hand, and Rich flailed for it, missing once before Evan hauled him to his feet. Rich’s face had purpled, his lips still wavering in search of air.

  “Lean over,” Evan said. “It’s just a diaphragm spasm. Slow deep breath in through your mouth, push out your stomach. Okay. Good. Once more. Now door, please.”

  Evan gave the big guy a gentle prod. Bent over, he hobbled out.

  Donnie gripped the table and pulled himself up, his face awash in blood and snot. He made a wheezing sound, choked with sobs. His shirt was little more than a rumpled rag, and his pants had torn at the knee, his wallet twisted inside a front pocket. He wiped at his watering eyes, holding up his other hand to fend Evan off.

  Evan pulled out his Strider folding knife, snagging the shark fin atop the blade on the edge of his pocket so it snapped open with a menacing click as it emerged.

  Aside from a Zippo, a Strider was the only item one hundred percent made in the United States with a lifetime guarantee. Unlike a lighter it could—with a modicum of skill and intent—turn a human being into a velociraptor. One side of the handle was made of G-10, a high-strength, acid-resistant, nonconductive fiberglass and epoxy synthetic. Titanium, ridged for a better grip, constituted the other half. The blade itself was S35VN, a refined-grain metallurgy comprising a precise mixture of carbon, chromium, vanadium, molybdenum, niobium, and iron. The knife was as finely made and precise a killing tool as anything earth, man, and science had conspired to manufacture.

  Donnie’s mouth was open, emitting silent cries, his spine curled in submission.

  Evan stepped forward and flicked the knife at his crotch.

  There was a tear, a yielding of fabric.

  Donnie stared down, his eyes swimmy.

  An instant later his wallet and keys dropped from the slit in his pants pocket and struck the floor.

  Evan crouched, picked up the key ring, and flipped it around a finger into his palm. Then he removed the most likely suspect.

  Turning, he held the key up for Jeanette-Marie. “This one?”

  Her mouth slightly ajar, she nodded.

  He clicked it down onto the farm table.

  Donnie’s knees went out, and Evan caught him. “Okay, pal. Tilt your head back. Pinch here. Lean on me. There you go. Let’s get you on the other side of the door.”

  Donnie clutched at Evan’s shoulder, dragging his legs, still finding his feet.

  Evan said, “You’re gonna want to get some ice on that.” He paused, looked back to Jeanette-Marie. “You good?”

  “Sweet Jesus,” she said. “Thank you. And … um, also? Thank you?”

  He gave her a little nod. “Ma’am.”

  As he helped Donnie to the door, Evan reached down, grabbed the knotted white trash bag, and took it out with them.

  Chapter 6

  A Suicidal Ghost

  Neon rolled across the laminated armor glass of the windshield as Evan steered through the Hollywood night toward the Wilshire Corridor, one hand clamped on top of the steering wheel. He stared down at the flap of dry skin lifted from the knuckle of his trigger finger. The windows of his Ford F-150 didn’t roll down due to the Kevlar armor hung inside the door panels, but cold leaked in through the vents, tightening his skin, making him feel alive. The taste of adrenaline lingered in the back of his throat, the bittersweet aftermath of the fight holding on.

  A keenness always amped his senses in the wake of a confrontation.

  He tried not to focus on how much he missed the sensation.

  He’d placed the RoamZone with its missed call on the passenger seat as if he needed to keep an eye on it. The preposterously encrypted phone, with its hardened rubber-and-aramid case, used to be his tether to another life.

  At the age of twelve, Evan had clawed his way out of poverty. He’d been given a new identity by a man named Jack Johns, his father figure and handler, the closest thing to family he’d ever known. Jack had taught him everything from Slavic languages to ancient Greek warfare. Had shown him how to top off bank accounts in nonreporting territories and how to live like a ghost. Had brought in subject-matter experts to drownproof and interrogate him, to teach him how to zero a sniper rifle, where to nick a femoral artery with a box cutter.

  Jack had turned him into Orphan X.

  For years Evan operated in a black program so covert that even denizens of the Capitol Building knew it only through whispers and rumors. He required no backup, left no footprint. Every mission was illegal under U.S. and international law.

  He did not exist.

  There was only one complication: Jack had raised him not just to be a killer but to remain human.

  At a certain point, Evan had to choose.

  And just as he’d once escaped the foster-care system, he’d left the Orphan Program behind, going off the grid, hunted by the very government that had created him.

  He’d turned his skills to a new venture, one more aligned with the ethics embedded in him by Jack. As the Nowhere Man, Evan remained on cal
l 24/7 for people who were being terrorized, people who found themselves under the heel of a crushing predicament, people with nowhere left to turn. After a decade and change spent leaving a trail of dead high-value targets across six continents, he figured he owed something to the universe.

  He also figured he owed something for getting out where others had not. Out of the foster system. Out of East Baltimore. Out of the Program.

  But recently he’d been ready to discharge his duty as the Nowhere Man and the awful, awesome responsibilities that came with it. He’d reached a tentative truce with no less an authority than the president of the United States. She’d granted him an unofficial pardon—but made clear that it would be withdrawn the instant he conducted any extracurricular activities as the Nowhere Man. It wasn’t just that what he did on behalf of his clients was illegal; it was that he was too sensitive an asset for his operational capabilities to be put on display. If he didn’t wish to be neutralized, he had to remain on the shelf.

  So he’d agreed to leave his work as the Nowhere Man behind.

  He was ready to try to lead an ordinary life, whatever that was. A life he’d never thought he could have, never thought he deserved. One without knife wounds and concussions. Without a threat around every corner, the reek of death one wrong turn away.

  People would have to go about helping themselves the ways they had before he’d come along. Or the ways they hadn’t.

  The RoamZone should have stopped ringing with any more missions. And yet he’d received a series of calls from the same number.

  The first time, he’d picked up and found a woman on the other end. She’d addressed him by name.

  And claimed she was his mother.

  He’d hung up immediately, figuring her for a lure designed to draw him out.

  And yet—who’d sent her?

  How did she know his name?

  What did she want?

  Her voice was unfamiliar, of course, and yet something about it had tugged the thread of a memory. No, not a memory, exactly. More like a wisp of a forgotten dream.

  Evan. It’s your mother.