Free You're Next by Gregg Hurwitz Page A

Hank read Mike’s face, then broke the mood by floating a hand Fonzie
     style over the remaining strands straggled back on his shiny scalp. ‘Least the new-generation chemo let me keep my hair.’
    Mike leaned back, shot a breath at the ceiling. ‘Shit, Hank,’ he said.
    ‘Yeah, well, everyone’s ticket gets punched sometime. I know better than to take it personally.’ Hank tugged a fat file from
     a bottom drawer and thunked it on the desk, causing the cat to leap from the radiator and stalk along the baseboards. ‘You
     came by to pick this up?’
    Mike regarded the file like an artifact, giving it its due before reaching over and pulling it into his lap. It held the record
     of the private investigator’s search for Mike’s parents. Its girth was impressive, given that Mike remembered so little to
     set Hank on his investigative course. John and Momma. Approximate ages. No last name to work with, no city, no state. Abandoned-child
     investigations back then weren’t what they are now. Nor were computer records. Half of what Hank had dug up was oncrumbling microfiche, and none of the missing-person reports on record fit what little Mike remembered. For decades he had
     lived with the gnawing conviction that it was his mother’s blood that had darkened his father’s sleeve that morning. Maybe
     he’d have to live with it forever.
    He leafed through the file, memories and possibilities rising from the print. The geographic spread of the search was large,
     since he didn’t know how far his family home had been from the preschool playground he’d been left at; his father could have
     driven a few blocks or all through the night. There were investigation reports and phone transcripts, crime blotters and clipped
     obits from small-town papers. Mug shots of scowling men named John, all of an age, all of whom were not his father. By now
     he knew most of these strangers’ faces by heart. The sight made him cringe, made him wonder what children these men had left
     behind, what women they had destroyed. But what really put a hook into his gut were the morgue photos, a Technicolor parade
     of women who’d been murdered in 1980 and unclaimed bodies that had turned up for years after that. He’d become acquainted
     with a virtual dictionary of shrug-off terms for corpses – floaters, crispy critters, headless horsemen.
    He closed the file and tapped it with a fist. A scrapbook of a failed investigation. Years of dead ends. Years of high hopes
     and corrosive disappointments, a deep-seated yearning running through each day like a habit you can’t quite quit.
    It occurred to him that this file, with its cop-house chicken scratch, bluing flesh, and flashbulb misery, had become all
     he had of his parents.
    Hank drew a hand across his face, tugging his features down into a basset droop. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t do better by you, Mike.’
    Over the years there had been quite a few other investigators, but none as committed.
    ‘I didn’t come by today for this,’ Mike said, tapping the file again. ‘I came to apologize. I was up against it when we talked.I know how to handle stress better than that. Things have been good long enough that I forgot what it’s like to be graceful
     when they’re not.’
    Hank studied him. Gave a nod. The tabby jumped up into his lap, and he dug his fingers into its scruff, the cat going limp
     and squint-eyed. ‘You gonna be all right with this pipe business?’
    ‘It’s my own goddamned fault. I liked the price and didn’t perform due diligence, and now I’m a liar and a cheat.’
    ‘What’s that mean?’
    Hank was still regarding him curiously, but Mike just shook his head. No use getting worked up. He’d made a decision, and
     now he had to put it in the rearview mirror. He stood with the file and offered his hand across the desk. ‘You always did
     fine work for me, Hank.’
    They shook, and Mike left him there, staring out the window, the cat purring in his