Sustained(9)

“Thank you for dinner, Jake.” She smiles up at me. “This was fun. We should do it again sometime.”

I open my mouth to tell her no thanks. Honesty has always been my policy. I don’t have the time or will for sugarcoating. But I stop myself—because this is dating. Spin, half-truths, white lies, keeping options open and bases covered are what you do when you’re dating. And maybe she’s having an off day. Maybe the next time I see her she won’t be annoying and I’ll actually want to fuck her brains out. It could happen. And I’d hate to shoot myself in the cock if that is even the slightest possibility.

So I go with the old standby. “I’ll call you.”

Camille reaches up on tiptoes and kisses my cheek. “Good night, Jake.”

“Bye, Camille.”

And I walk back to my empty apartment alone. Reminding myself that it could actually be worse. I could be alone with syphilis.

• • •

The next day goes by in a bit of a blur. I spend it reviewing discovery—mostly medical reports—for an upcoming domestic violence case. Senator William Holten is a career politician with his hands in all kinds of cookie jars. That makes him a formidable enemy—and an even more powerful ally. He’s charged with several counts of aggravated assault against his wife of thirty years. My boss, Jonas Adams, is Holten’s good friend—he asked me personally to take the case. That’s a really big fucking deal. This one case could make my whole career at this firm.

Which is why I took it—even though Holten has flat, emotionless eyes that I find unsettling. Even though reading the files, seeing the photographs and details of his wife’s injuries going back years, makes me uneasy. Makes my stomach twist with the familiarity of it all.

By five o’clock, I could use some air. I walk out onto the sidewalk and down the block, stretching my legs. It’s cooler out today, the sky a dirty gray, with a breeze that blows back the jacket of my navy suit. Still, the cold wind feels good after being inside all day. I close my eyes and inhale deeply, feeling the icy oxygen expand my lungs . . . and then I collide with something waist-high and warm.

It bounces off me with a soft, “Oomph!”

I look down into big cobalt eyes, brown curly hair, pale skin with freckles. He can’t be more than nine or ten. He stares at me for a few seconds from where he’s sprawled on his ass on the sidewalk, lips parted, breathing hard with surprise. Then he turns on his side, scrambling to bury his hands in his backpack, making sure nothing fell out of the many pockets.

“You all right, kid?” I ask, offering to help lift him up.

His eyes dart to my hand, and he pauses before taking it. I pull him to his feet.

“Yeah, I’m good. Sorry, mister.” He drops his chin to his chest and hoists his brown leather backpack up on one shoulder.

“Watch where you’re going,” I say. “If I’d been on a bike, you would have taken some serious damage.”

He mutters a quick “Okay,” then turns and continues down the block.

I keep walking in the opposite direction. But after just a few steps, I realize something feels . . . different.

Lighter.

Off balance.

Immediately my hands go to the pockets in my jacket. My phone is in my right pocket and my wallet . . . my wallet is not in my left.

I turn sharply, weaving my gaze through the throngs of stooped pedestrians walking against the wind, until I zero in on the kid, who’s now a half block away.

“Hey!” My voice booms like a cannon, and he and several other passersby stop and glance my way.

Even from this distance I make eye contact with him. And the diabolical expression that slowly comes over his face tells me everything I need to know. A confident smirk over straight, baby-white teeth, and a victorious glint shining in catlike eyes because he thinks he’s out of my reach.

And he holds his right hand high and flips me off with his middle finger.

Little shit.

Then he hauls ass down the block.

I don’t fucking think so, kid.





4


Arms pumping, I sprint up the block, then take a sharp left down the connecting street, trying my damnedest not to take out the pedestrians on the sidewalk. I dodge a honking car and make it across the street in three strides, then up concrete steps in two, entering the door of a mall that empties out two blocks up—onto the street I saw the kid turn onto. I dash past the Gap and through the food court.

“Watch it!” a bowed, gray-haired mall walker yells as I pass, wagging his cane.

I bust through the rear doors to the street.

I look right, then left. And I spot the little shit, still running, his backpack like a beacon in the fading sunlight. Beads of sweat break out on my forehead as I race up the block, jumping over a fire hydrant like a track hurdler. I stretch out my arm, fingers reaching—and grab the little fucker by the back of his white collared shirt.