Hellbent--An Orphan X Novel

by Gregg Hurwitz

  “Yeah,” he said. “There is.”

  Joey put the card into its envelope, slipped it into her shoe box, and set the lid back in place.

  “Sorry I’m such an asshole sometimes,” she said. “My maunt used to say, ‘Tiene dos trabajos. Enojarse y contentarse.’ It doesn’t really translate right.”

  Evan said, “‘You have two jobs. Getting angry. And getting not angry again.’”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  He said, “You were close to her.”

  Joey finally looked up and met his stare. “She was everything.”

  It was, Evan realized, the longest they had ever held eye contact.

  Joey finally slid off the couch. “I have to brush my teeth,” she said.

  She lifted the shoe box from the sheets. As she passed, she let it drop to the floor beside him.

  A show of trust.

  She entered the bathroom, closed the door. He heard water running.

  He waited a moment and then lifted the lid. A row of greeting cards filled the shoe box from end to end. He ran his thumb across the tops of the cards. The front two-thirds had been opened. The rear third had not.

  And then he understood.

  He felt his chest swell, slight pressure beneath his cheeks, emotion coming to roost in his body.

  He used his knuckles to push back the stack so he could lift out the first card. Flocked gold lettering read:

  It’s your ninth birthday

  A most happy day

  A time to sing

  And a time to play …

  He opened the card, ignoring the rest of the printed greeting. An iris was pressed inside, already gone to pieces. Familiar feminine handwriting filled the blank page.

  My sweet, sweet girl,

  The first one without me will be the hardest. I’m sorry I’m not there with you. I’m sorry I got sick. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to beat it. Let my love for you be like a sun that warms you from above.

  Forever and always, M.

  Evan put the card back. He flicked through the ones behind it.

  New Year’s. Valentine’s. Easter. Birthday. First day of school. Halloween. Thanksgiving. Christmas.

  He took a wet breath. Let the next set of cards tick past his thumb.

  New Year’s. Valentine’s. Easter. Birthday. First day of school. Halloween. Thanksgiving. Christmas.

  The last opened card was Thanksgiving, the one that had fallen out of her rucksack in the foot well of the stolen car yesterday.

  He pulled out the one behind it, sealed in an envelope that said “Christmas.”

  He scrolled ahead, the labels jumping out at him. “Easter.”

  “Halloween.”

  “Your 18th Bday.”

  And then they stopped.

  In the bathroom the sink water turned off.

  He closed the shoe box, set it back on the couch, and returned to where he’d been sitting.

  Joey emerged, wiping her face on a towel. She slung it over the couch back and sat again on the cushions and sheets. She noted the shoe box’s return and then stared at her lap.

  Finally she said, “That’s when I went into the system.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “The cards, they’re gonna run out when I turn eighteen,” Joey said. “Then what’ll I have?”

  He showed her the respect of not offering an answer.

  “After I ran away from Van Sciver, that’s where Jack found me. Visiting her grave.” She looked down, gave a soft smile. Her thick mane was swept across, the shaved side exposed, two halves of a beautiful whole. “He was smart like that. He knew how my heart worked.”

  Evan nodded, not trusting his voice. Yes, he was. Yes, he did.

  After a time Joey slid down into the sheets and curled up, her head on the pillow. “I never fall asleep with anyone in the room,” she said.

  “Should I leave?”

  “If you want to stay, it’s fine.”

  Evan said, “I do.”

  He sat and watched the curve of her shoulder, the tousled hair on her cheek. Her blinks grew languorous. And then her eyes closed. Her breathing grew regular, took on a rasp.

  He rose silently and eased from the room.

  48

  Something Akin to Pride

  After checking the deep-learning software in the Vault before sunrise the next morning, Evan meditated, showered, and then walked down the hall to the kitchen.

  Joey was up early as well, digging in the freezer, an ice pack in one hand, the bottle of Stoli Elit: Himalayan Edition in the other.

  She heard him coming and looked over her shoulder. “Don’t you have any frozen burritos or whatever?”

  “Careful with that,” Evan said, nodding at the Stoli. “It’s three thousand dollars a bottle.”

  Joey appraised it. “Is it worth it?”

  “No vodka is worth three thousand dollars.”

  “Then why do you have it?”

  “What else am I gonna spend it on?”

  She stared into the pristine white void of his freezer. “I don’t know. Food.”

  He came around the island.

  “Out of my way,” he said.

  * * *

  Two eggs dropped in the frying pan with a this-is-your-brain-on-drugs sizzle. Joey sat on a stool, leaning over the island counter, chin resting on her laced fingers. Fascinated.

  “You know how to cook?” she asked.

  “I’d hardly call this cooking.”

  “How’d you learn?”

  “Jack.”

  “You fit it in between drownproofing and close-quarters combat?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Humor.”

  The toaster dinged, and Evan flicked two pieces of sourdough onto a plate. “Butter?”

  “Duh.”

  He buttered the toast and slid the eggs atop the two slices. “Go snap some parsley off the living wall.”

  “Living wall?”

  “The vertical garden. There.”

  She walked over. “Which one’s the parsley?”

  “Upper left quadrant near the edge. No. No. Yes.”

  She tore off a piece, brought it over as he twisted pepper from the mill onto the sunny-side-ups.

  He halved the sprig, laid a piece on each yolk. Then he set the plate before her, nudging it so it was precisely between knife and fork.

  She stared down at the plate, not moving.

  “What?” he said.

  “Just appreciating it,” she said.

  “Eat.”

  She looked up at him, cleared her throat. “Thank you.”

  Before he could reply, a chime sounded over the wireless speaker system. His head snapped up.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  He was already heading back. “Software just hit on David Smith.”

  * * *

  They stood side by side within the damp concrete walls of the Vault, staring at the monitors. The interconnected web of metadata on display was fascinating.

  From the scant information on David Smith and a few photos, the software had made height and weight projections, assessed facial-structure changes, checked hospital intakes, flight and bus records, school registrations, and foster-home placements in targeted regions on the East Coast. These criteria correlating space, time, visuals, database entries, and events had been dynamically created so the machine would heuristically improve itself, learning as it went, ever evolving. Strange algorithms tracked online purchase orders, grouping vehicular-themed Star Wars Lego sets costing $9.95 or less, industrial-strength drain cleaner, bulk-ordered Little Hug Fruit Barrel drinks, Lavex Janitorial brown paper towel rolls, and dozens more items, narrowing the scope even further. These results were paired with Instagram photos and other social-media posts clustered around specific neighborhoods.

  A YouTube video of a schoolyard fight at Hopewell High in Richmond, Virginia, posted in September of the previous year had caught a wink of a passing car in the backgrou
nd. Despite the midday glare off the passenger window, a freeze-frame had captured the ear of the boy in the passenger seat, which had been picked apart using precise distances and ratios, measuring the upper margin of the ear canal’s opening to the tip of the lower lobe and the flap of the tragus. It gave an 85-percent probability that the ear belonged to their David Smith.

  Two days previous a girl had been adopted out of McClair Children’s Mental Health Center in Richmond’s Church Hill neighborhood, opening a spot in what had previously been a steady forty-bed population. No new child showed to have been committed at the center since, the population seemingly remaining at thirty-nine. However, a bill from a local health clinic the following week showed a new patient-intake exam, and the number of flu shots administered the next month remained a steady forty.

  A child taken into the center under a false claim of domestic violence would have been kept off the books.

  The deep-learning software gave a 99.9743-percent likelihood that the mystery patient was the boy previously known as David Smith.

  Joey jotted down the address, biting her lower lip, frowning with concentration. The light of the monitors played off her smooth cheeks. Evan watched her, feeling something akin to pride.

  She caught him looking. “What?”

  He said, “Nothing.”

  * * *

  All you could hear was the man’s panting.

  Blood flecked the floor, the plywood over the windows, the mattresses on the walls. A molar rested on the plastic tarp. The room stank of vomit, body odor, and worse.

  Two of the three Arrowhead watercooler jugs were empty. That was ten gallons of fluid forced through Orphan L’s face holes.

  Draker lay on the floor curled up in a ball. His head was duct-taped, a slit left open for the nostrils.

  Van Sciver squatted, waiting.

  Thornhill was balanced on his hands again, doing inverted push-ups.

  The guy was the friggin’ Energizer Bunny.

  Candy had left to organize the freelancers Van Sciver had called up from Alabama. Things were about to get busy.

  Van Sciver finally rose with a groan. He was feeling it in his back.

  “Thornhill,” he said.

  Thornhill’s boots hit the ground with a thump. He started unwinding the duct tape from L’s head. As he did, a faint tinny music became audible, growing louder with each loop of tape unstripped. At last he got to the final layer, which he tore free, ripping out clumps of L’s hair and splotching his flesh with broken capillaries. The Beats headphones adhered to Draker’s head were now laid bare, Josh Groban blaring “You Raise Me Up” at top volume.

  Thornhill turned off the music, tugged off the headphones. He stroked Draker’s hair, pushing the sweat-pasted bangs out of his eyes.

  “You did good,” Thornhill said. “Better than Jack could have asked. But this will continue forever.”

  Draker managed a single hoarse syllable. “No.”

  “You know it’s gotta go this way,” Van Sciver said. “It is what it is and that’s all that it is.”

  Draker squeezed his eyes shut and panted some more. He’d developed a tic at the top of his left cheek, the skin spasming, tugging the eyelid into a droop.

  “Okay,” Van Sciver said. “Get him back on the bench.”

  Thornhill started for the Arrowhead jug.

  Draker began to sob.

  Van Sciver held up a hand, freezing Thornhill.

  This was the glorious moment right before they broke. He let Draker weep. The sound was gut-wrenching, dredged up from the depths.

  Thornhill petted his hair. “It’s okay,” he said. “You did good. You did so good.”

  Draker keened and keened. Finally he quieted. Van Sciver waited for his breathing to slow. After all L had been through, he deserved a few moments of rest before the end.

  Draker looked up through bloodshot eyes. “I’ll tell you,” he said. I’ll tell you where he is.”

  49

  Good Isn’t Enough

  “You missed him by an hour, Mr. Man,” the charge nurse said.

  A broad woman packed into navy-blue polyester pants and a billowing white nurse coat, she conveyed warmth and authority in equal measure. A sunshine logo on her coat accompanied equally cheery canary-yellow lettering, which read MCCLAIR CHILDREN’S MENTAL HEALTH CENTER.

  Evan put away his forged Child Protective Services credential, flapping closed the worn brown billfold. The wallet, in addition to his frayed Dockers and Timex watch, were props that screamed Ordinary Guy on State-Employee Salary.

  Tapping his clipboard against his thigh, he hurried to accompany the nurse as she ambled down the hall.

  “Missed him?” Evan said. “What do you mean missed him? His caseworker visitation is overdue.”

  “Baby doll, the only things here that ain’t overdue are the late notices on the bills. We are bailing out a rowboat with a Dixie Cup.”

  In one of the rooms, a kid was thrashing against the wall and bellowing. Two orderlies restrained him, one for each arm.

  The nurse stopped in the doorway. “C’mon now, Daryl,” she said. “Act like you got some sense in you.”

  The boy calmed, and she kept on.

  A few perfunctory posters were gummed to the bare walls, tattered and ripped. Lichtenstein apple. Picasso face. A faded Starry Night. Stacked on a service cart were dining trays filled with half-eaten meals. Watery green beans. Cube of corn bread. Hard-crusted grilled-cheese sandwiches. The place smelled of industrial detergent, bleach, and kids of a certain age kept in close proximity.

  Evan knew this place, knew it in his bones.

  He cleared his throat as if nervously, adjusted his fake glasses. “You said I missed Jesse Watson?”

  Joey’s additional online machinations had confirmed that this was the name David Smith had been living under at the Richmond facility. Joey was outside now in the rented minivan, a block away in an overwatch position near the intersection.

  The nurse paused and heaved a sigh that smelled of peppermint. “He ran away.”

  “Ran away? When?”

  “Like I said, he was gone before seven-o’clock bed check. So call it a hour, maybe a hour and a half. Musta slipped out the back door during the commotion.” Her mouth tweaked left, a show of sympathy. “Girl in six had a grand mal at mealtime.”

  Evan shoved his glasses up his nose, a cover for the actual dread he felt rising from his stomach into his throat.

  She registered his concern. “We already filed the police report. I’m sorry, but it’s in their hands now.”

  “Okay. I’ll just do a living-conditions check and be on my way.”

  “We do the best we can do here with the state funds shrinking all the time.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  “I do.”

  She stopped and took his measure, the raised freckles bunching high on her copper-colored cheeks. Then she blew out a breath, deflating. “Look at us, acting like we on different sides. I’m sorry, Mr.…?”

  “Wayne.”

  “Mr. Wayne. I know you’re just trying to do the best you can, too. I guess it’s…” Her not-insignificant bosom heaved. “I guess I’m embarrassed we can’t do better by them. I use my own salary for Christmas and birthday gifts. The director, too. He’s a good man. But good isn’t enough sometimes.”

  “No,” Evan said. “Sometimes it’s not. Which room was he in?”

  “Fourteen,” she said. “We group the kids with less severe conditions in the C Hall. We’re talking ADHD, dyslexia, visual-motor stuff.”

  “And Jesse’s condition was…?” Evan flipped through the pages.

  “Conduct disorder.”

  “Of course.”

  She waved a hand adorned with hammered metal rings. “C’mon, I’ll walk you.”

  The walk took longer than Evan would have liked, but he held her pace. They passed a girl sitting on the floor picking at the hem of her shirt. Her fingernails were bitt
en to the quick, leaving spots of blood on the fabric.

  “Hi, baby doll, be back for you in a second, okay?” the nurse said.

  The girl turned vacant eyes up toward them as they passed. She had beautiful thick hair like Joey’s, a similarity Evan chose not to linger on.

  The nurse finally arrived at Room 14, knocked on the door once briskly, and opened it. The three boys inside, all around the age of thirteen like David Smith, lounged on bunk beds, tapping on cheap phones.

  In another time, in another place, Evan had lived in this room.

  “This is Mr. Wayne,” the nurse said.

  The oldest-looking kid shot a quick glance at Evan and said, “Lucky-ass us. Another social worker.”

  “Respect, Jorell, or I’ll notch you down to red on the board again.”

  Evan asked, “Did any of you see Jesse Watson run away?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “He didn’t talk about it before? No planning? Nothing?”

  “Nah,” Jorell said. “That fool was bent. For a skinny white boy? He was nails. Could fight like a mofo. He had things his own way.”

  “Jorell,” the nurse said wearily.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d said his name like that. Or the hundredth.

  “Where were you guys before bed check?” Evan said.

  “Still in the caf,” another kid said. “Mindin’ our bidness. Jesse come back to the room early, do push-ups and shit. He say he gonna be a marine.”

  Evan stepped inside, pointed. “This his bunk?”

  “The very one,” Jorell said.

  Jorell was a smart kid. Smart kids in places like this tended to have worse outcomes. A nice dumb boy could toe the line, graduate with C’s, get a steady job at a fast-food joint, live to see thirty.

  On the radiator by the empty lower left bunk rested a Lego version of a Star Wars rebel commanding a Snowspeeder. Evan recognized it from one of Peter’s comic books. He picked it up. “This was Jesse’s?”

  “Yeah. Ain’t that some white-boy shit?”

  All three kids laughed, even the Caucasian one.

  The charge nurse said, “You just dying for me to level you down tonight, ain’t that so, Jorell?”

  He silenced.

  Holding the Snowspeeder, Evan stepped back to her, said quietly, “I’m guessing this was one of the gifts that came out of your salary.”