Free Company Man by Joseph Finder Page B

up.
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    An hour later, Lucas still wasn’t home. Julia was hungry, so the two of them sat down to dinner at the small round table that had been temporarily placed in one corner of the kitchen, away from most of the construction. Marta had set the table for the three of them before going out for the evening. In the warm oven was a roast chicken, tented with foil. Nick brought the chicken and rice and broccoli to the table, remembering to put trivets under the chicken pan so he didn’t scorch the table. He expected a fight over the broccoli, and he got it. Julia would accept only rice and a chicken drumstick, and Nick was too wiped out to argue.
    â€œI like Mommy’s better,” Julia said. “This is too dry.”
    â€œIt’s been in the oven for a couple of hours.”
    â€œMommy made the best fried chicken.”
    â€œShe sure did, baby,” Nick said. “Eat.”
    â€œWhere’s Luke?”
    â€œHe’s on his way back.” Taking his damned time of it too, Nick thought.
    Julia stared at the chicken leg on her plate as if it were a giant cockroach. Finally, she said, “I don’t like it here.”
    Nick thought for a moment, unsure how to respond. “Like it where?”
    â€œHere,” she said unhelpfully.
    â€œThis house?”
    â€œWe don’t have any neighbors.”
    â€œWe do, but…”
    â€œWe don’t know any of them. It’s not a neighborhood. It’s just…houses and trees.”
    â€œPeople do keep to themselves here,” he conceded. “But your mommy wanted us to move here because she thought it would be safer than our last house.”
    â€œWell, it’s not. Barney…” She stopped, her eyes welling up with tears, resting her chin in her hands.
    â€œBut we will be now, with this new security system in.”
    â€œNothing like that ever happened in our old house,” she pointed out.
    The front door opened, setting off a high alert tone, and a few seconds later Lucas trundled noisily into the kitchen, threw his backpack down on the floor. He seemed to get taller and broader by the day. He wore a dark blue Old Navy sweatshirt, baggy cargo pants with the waistband of his boxer shorts showing, and some white scarflike thing under his backwards baseball cap.
    â€œWhat’s that on your head?” Nick asked anyway.
    â€œDo-rag, why?”
    â€œThat like a hip-hop thing?”
    Lucas shook his head, rolled his eyes. “I’m not hungry,” he said. “I’m going upstairs.”
    â€œSit with us anyway, Luke,” Julia pleaded. “Come on.”
    â€œI’ve got a lot of homework,” Lucas said as he left the kitchen without turning back.

11
    Nick followed his son upstairs. “We have to have a talk,” he said.
    Lucas groaned. “What now?” When he reached the open door to his room, he said, “You been in here?”
    â€œSit down, Luke.”
    Lucas noticed the computer monitor facing the door, and he leaped toward it, spun it away. “I don’t want you going in my room.”
    â€œSit down.”
    Lucas sat on the edge of his bed, hunched over with his elbows propped on his knees, his chin resting on his hands, a gesture that Julia had recently started imitating. He stared malevolently.
    â€œYou’re not allowed to go to porn sites,” Nick said.
    Lucas blinked. His angry blue eyes were crystal clear, innocent and pure. He was trying to grow something under his chin, Nick noticed. For a moment Lucas seemed to be debating whether to own up to the evidence so prominently on display. Then he said: “There’s nothing there I don’t know about, Nick. I’m sixteen.”
    â€œCut out the ‘Nick’ stuff.”
    â€œOkay, Dad, ” he said with a surly twist. “Hey, at least I’m not going to snuff or torture sites. You should see the shit that’s out there.”
    â€œYou do that again