Free You're Next by Gregg Hurwitz

open again. Tucking in his shirt,
     he returned to his desk, Mike shadowing him across the room on a cautious delay, both men avoiding eye contact. Hank slumped
     into his chair and gestured at the worn love seat opposite, where Mike had sat many times over the past five years.
    Hank had an old-fashioned build, the kind they don’t make anymore – tall and lanky, scarecrow shoulders broad enough to hang
     a linebacker’s frame on. He was balding pleasantly and evenly, his hair receded midway on his head, which extended, turtlelike,
     on a ropy neck. It was an intellectual head – academic, even – built for peering at dusty tomes and longhand letters. It matched
     neither his powerful forearms nor the taciturn cop’s demeanor he’d perfected during the thirty-some years he’d spent behind
     a badge before going private to limited success.
    Hank’s dry lips wobbled as he tried to come up with an explanation. No easy task, given what Mike had walked in on. Hank cursed
     under his breath, shoved back from his desk, and stood,cuffing his sleeves. Mike noticed that he was wearing his years a bit more heavily than when they’d last face-to-faced. Hank
     never gave his age. He was old enough to wobble here and there but young enough to get pissed off if you tried to steady his
     elbow.
    He crossed to the window, shoved it open, and leaned on the sill, his suspenders drawing tight across his back. He’d quit
     smoking but still forgot sometimes, leaning out windows as if to exhale. His cat, an obese tabby, looked up from the radiator
     at him with indifference.
    Mike cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘I wanted to apologize for yesterday when—’
    ‘I’m dying,’ Hank said. He remained leaning over the sill, staring off at the Hollywood sign in the distance, the fabric of
     his shirt bunching between his shoulder blades. ‘Lung cancer. I gave ’em up, hell, fifteen years ago. Thought I was in the
     clear. Amazing how something like that can boomerang back on you.’
    He strode over and tapped the little needle kit on the desktop. ‘That’s what this poison is for. Neupo-something. Supposed
     to stimulate my last two white blood cells.’
    Hank eased down into his chair, his gaze shifting, unsure where to land. At closer glance he looked not just slender but downright
     gaunt. Mike had never seen him uneasy, let alone floundering. Empathy left Mike tongue-tied. It was always hard to find the
     right words when someone parted the curtains like that, when you were given a glimpse into the inner workings of a life. So
     Mike said the first thing that came to mind: ‘What can I do?’
    Hank sneered a little. ‘You gonna start coming by the house Wednesdays with baked casserole?’
    ‘If I baked a casserole,’ Mike said, ‘it would kill you for sure.’
    Hank tilted his head back and laughed, and Mike recognized him again. That quiet dignity, the wise-man smirk in the face of
     it all.
    ‘Aw, hell,’ Hank said. ‘Your expression when I had my pants around my ankles just about makes dying worth it.’
    ‘Maybe—’
    ‘We stopped chemo. Last week. It’s in the bone now.’ A wry grin lost its momentum, flared out on Hank’s face. He swiveled
     slightly in his chair, bringing into view a wallet-size school photo of a young boy, maybe six years old, thumbtacked to the
     otherwise blank wall behind him. Mike had politely inquired during an early meeting, and Hank had made clear: Any discussion
     about the photo was off-limits. That Hank was unmarried and had never mentioned children only added to the photo’s curiousness.
     The picture was worn, wrinkled with white lines. The boy’s striped, snap-button shirt had late sixties written all over it.
     Something in the shrinelike placement of the picture – so low as to be a private reminder – suggested that the boy was dead.
     An estranged son? A victim from an unsolved case that Hank couldn’t let go of?
    Mike averted his focus before Hank could key into it.