Page 94 of The Evening Wolves

“Have a good time?” Emery said, reaching to unbuckle his seat belt. “That was a nice try, John, but we’re not leaving him here until I’ve had all my questions answered to my satisfaction—”

“We already had all your questions answered. Weeks ago. When Colt first brought this up, and we spent forty-five minutes on the phone with these people.”

“Exactly: by phone. Koby wouldn’t even talk to us in person.”

“And he answered all our questions.” Emery opened his mouth, and John-Henry added, “To my satisfaction, if not to yours.”

“Well, I’m sorry if ‘We’ll figure out dinner when we get there, Mr. Hazard,’ doesn’t inspire a robust confidence in their ability to plan this trip.”

“There’s Farah,” John-Henry said as a dark-haired woman in a rainbow cardigan emerged from GLAM. He pulled Colt over, kissed him on the top of the head, and squeezed his neck. “Make good choices, bubs.”

Emery gave Colt a hug, and Colt reached for the door. Then the boy stopped, and he looked back, and for a moment, he was a child again. “Are you guys ok?”

John-Henry smiled. “We’re ok, bubs. Don’t worry about us. Just have fun.”

Colt opened the door as Ashley reached them. The boy was already talking. “Oh my God, bruh, I thought we were going to leave without you! What took so long? Hi, Mr. Hazard. Hi, Chief Somerset.”

“Hi, Ash.”

“Make sure nothing happens to my son, Ashley, or we’ll revisit our conversation about the productive potential of power tools.”

Ashley’s face lost some color, and he stepped back so quickly that he slipped on a patch of ice. He would have fallen except Colt caught his arm and steadied him, and then the boy shot a furious look back at Emery. Without another word, he retrieved his duffel and led Ashley toward the van.

“Power tools?”

“Please,” Emery said. “Colt lives for any opportunity to be annoyed with us. And honestly, I think Ashley likes it a little too. It must add a certain zest, don’t you think?”

John-Henry shifted into drive as he said, “When Evie is old enough to date—”

“So, thirty.”

“—I’m sending you somewhere else. Do they have study abroad opportunities for private investigators? Maybe you could spend years and years in the Amazon basin, hundreds of miles away from a computer or telephone.”

“That’s ridiculous, John. They have satellite phones and internet now.”

“Maybe the International Space Station.”

Emery rested a hand on the back of his neck and left it there as they drove home.

Their friends’ cars were still parked on the street, and when they got inside, a familiar scene was playing out.

“Because if I’d wanted something healthy,” North was saying, “I would have said, ‘Hey, let’s eat something that tastes like shit’ not ‘Hey, let’s get pizza.’”

“Pizza can be healthy,” Tean answered. “Have you ever had pizza with grape leaves?”

“Oh my God, there’s this great Mediterranean place Theo and I love,” Auggie said. “We could do that.”

“Listen, Strawberry Shortcake, I’m sure it’s nice that you finally found a place that will pre-chew Paw-Paw’s food for him, but I want something that’s actually good.”

“How’s their baba ganoush?” Shaw asked.

“I don’t even like eggplant,” Theo said, “and it’s amazing.”

“What don’t you motherfuckers understand about pizza?” North demanded.

“Hey, how about tacos?” Jem asked. “Wait, hear me out: we DoorDash them.”

“I’m changing the locks,” Emery said to John-Henry. “Tonight.”

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