Situation Normal
Part 1
Six months after the Fire Sale, and everything is back to normal. Well,
mostly normal. Normal-ish. John gets up every morning, gets dressed,
goes to work, gets his paycheck, goes home, lifts weights, jerks off,
and goes to sleep. Only now, every once in a while, he talks to Jack,
to Lucy, even to Holly. No one is more surprised than he is about that.
Yeah,
Holly. She'd called after it all went down, screamed at him for half an
hour for putting their daughter in danger, and then, when he was
mid-wince and wondering how many times he'd have to say "sorry" before
it would sink in, she'd asked how he was. How he, John, was doing. And
he'd found himself telling her, and she'd made sympathetic noises, and
sure, it's not like it was before. It'll never be like it was before.
But he's remembering how much he genuinely likes Holly, what made him
fall in love with her in the first place. She's funny and sharp,
no-nonsense, and she's never been afraid to tell it like it is.
They
talk about the kids a lot, just chat a couple times a week, catching
up. It's nice. Makes him feel a little less lonely. Sure, maybe it's
not manly to admit it, but he's not so blind that he doesn't notice his
own empty apartment, the way there's no one for him to talk to on
weekends, the way nobody's there to notice when he comes home with a
black eye from some junkie who's never heard his name and couldn't care
less anyway. It sucks.
So when Holly asks if he wants to get
together for Christmas, all of them, the family, he doesn't even have
to think about before he's saying yes. He has more vacation time than
he'll ever use, and even though he doesn't really want to go to
California—ever again--the idea of seeing Jack again, spending some
actual time with him and Lucy, together, it's too tempting to resist.
Lucy's been busy with school, anyway, and he hasn't really had a chance
to catch up with her. Find out how her love life's going. See if she's
been seeing that hacker kid, that Matt. It's just curiosity, of course,
he assures himself. Nothing more than that.
Once he's brushed
off all the jokes from the guys at the precinct about alerting the
California National Guard that he's coming, and the jokesters offering
him extra guns and vests and ordnance, the idea of getting out of town
is even kind of pleasant.
"John." Holly's waiting for him at the
airport, which is a nice surprise, and she's smiling all big and
pretty, which is even nicer. She walks into his hug, holds him close,
and kisses his cheek, and he's shocked to realize that there's no
sinking in his stomach, no flutter in his pulse. Just warm, friendly
pleasure at seeing her, and the nice feeling of holding someone he
cares about.
"Holly," he says, with a smile of his own, holding her away from himself. "Man, you look fantastic."
"Flatterer,"
she grins at him, shaking her curls, red now liberally sprinkled with
grey. "You're not looking so bad yourself, old man."
He runs a
self-conscious hand over his head, shaved clean for the occasion, then
chuckles. "Old man is right. C'mon, let's get out of here. I hate
airports."
"I can't imagine why." And there's that dry tone he's
always liked, and she links her arm with his as they walk through the
crowds to the garage. Shockingly, no one tries to shoot, stab, punch,
or blow him up. He almost starts to relax.
"The kids are already
here," Holly chats, negotiating out onto the freeway and into the
insane LA traffic that had always driven him nuts out here. "Jack got
done with finals two days ago, he's been pretty much sleeping since
yesterday. And Lucy's plane landed last night, she's all settled in.
They're excited to see you."
"It's gonna be nice, having
everyone together," he nods, looking out the window. "Lucy mention if
she's seeing anyone back at school?"
"John," Holly says warningly. "We talked about this--"
"No, hey," he protests, holding his hands up. Innocent. "Just asking. I haven't even asked her,
that's how great I've been. I should be gettin' some kind of father of
the year award over here, seriously. I swear, I've been leaving her
totally alone about her boyfriends."
She shoots him a suspicious
sideways look, but he's really and truly innocent this time, and she
relaxes. "You can ask her yourself, we're almost home," she says, and
he sighs. That's gonna be a fun conversation.
"What about you?" She's watching the road, so he can watch her. "You seeing anyone these days?"
"Nah." He rubs his head again. "Haven't met anyone interesting, not worth all the effort. You?"
"Yeah."
She's smiling a little, even though it looks worried and tense, and
he's startled all over again that he's pleased for her, happy to see
her happy. "Listen, I didn't want to tell you like this, but Sean and
I, we've been seeing a lot of each other, it's getting pretty--"
"Hey,"
he cuts her off gently. She glances over at him, and he takes her hand.
Gives it a little squeeze. "I'm sure he's not good enough for you, but
if you're happy, I'm happy."
"Are you okay?" She squeezes his hand back, and now she looks even more worried. "You're not sick, or anything, are you?"
He
chuckles, shakes his head. "Nah. No, I'm fine. Just been doing some
thinking lately, you know? I guess...I don't know. We were good,
though, back in the beginning, weren't we?"
"We were pretty amazing," she agrees, and keeps holding his hand, friends, for the rest of the drive.
***
Maybe
that conversation sets the stage for the rest of the week, maybe it's
just that John really is getting more mellow in his old age, but it's
the nicest weekend he's spent with his family since the kids were in
grade school. He even meets Sean. The guy's kind of a pussy, but he
obviously adores Holly, and after sizing him up (and reading Holly's
mess-with-him-and-I-kill-you look), they manage a halfway civil
conversation, about baseball, of all things. When he gets back on the
plane for New York, it's with a belly full of good homecooked food, a
sore shoulder from playing football with Jack in the back yard, the
peace of mind from knowing that Lucy’s currently single, and more warm
family feeling than he's had in years.
***
"McClane?" He
vaguely recognizes the voice, staticky and almost unintelligible over
what sounds like a bad cell connection. John hauls his holster over his
head, holding the phone against his ear with one hand, kicks the door
closed behind him. First day back at work, always a bitch, and he’s
tired and just wants to eat and settle onto the couch and watch the
game.
“Yeah, this is McClane.” He tosses his bag at the couch,
walks into the tiny kitchen and opens the fridge. “Who…Matt? Kid? That
you?” He hasn’t seen the kid since that last press conference. “I can
barely hear you.”
“Yeah, I know.” There’s a little edge to that
voice, a note of hysteria that’s strangely familiar. “I secured the
line, it makes the connection shitty. Listen, hey, I’d love to catch
up, but I kind of have this problem right now, and I know I said I
wouldn’t bother you anymore, but I think someone’s trying to kill me.”
John
freezes, head half into the fridge, and stands up straight, hand going
tight on the phone. “What do you mean? Kill you? Talk to me, what’s
going on. You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay right now, I’m in
hiding.” The connection gets a little clearer, a little less staticky,
and John can hear that panic even clearer, and his stomach lurches. “I
can’t tell you about it right now, you gotta come get me, I’m not
fucking around, seriously, I am in so much trouble, I’ve been getting
death threats and they’re getting worse.”
“You’re fine,” John
says, going for “soothing” and probably ending up somewhere around
“gruff.” “You and your conspiracy theories, c’mon, Matt, I bet it’s
just one of your little hacker pals fucking around with you—“
“No,
no, that’s not it!” Matt’s voice is getting higher and louder, a sure
sign, McClane remembers, that he’s about to flip right out. “I’m not
kidding—“
“Okay! Okay, all right, I’ll come get you.” Fuck, just
what he needs after a day like today, to go babysit some paranoid kid
with delusions of mortal danger. “Just tell me where. And you better
not say Ohio or anything like that.”
“Oh thank god, oh, thank
you,” Matt babbles, the relief in his voice almost palpable, and then
there’s a pause, and when he starts talking again it’s rushed, nervous.
“Your phone’s not secure, it’s not safe, I can’t tell you, I gotta go.
I’ll…I’ll be at that place we talked about that one time in the car,
where you said you’d never be caught dead? That place, the one closest
to my old apartment, the one that blew up, only make sure you buy one
of those disposable cell phones on your way, okay?”
“The…what? What the fuck, Matt, what are you talking about? What place, wait—“ He’s talking to a dial tone.
That place he said he’d never be caught dead? What the hell?
Even
as he’s rifling through his closet for his spare gun, packing a duffel
with some shirts and an extra pair of shoes (he never goes anywhere
without extra shoes), he’s running all those conversations from six
months ago through his mind. He can picture them with disturbing
accuracy, Matt’s eyes, the way he’d tilted his head curiously, the
jitters and the grins and his weird tangents and even his smartass
mouth.
Goddammit.
He wrenches his mind away from
that, and back to the subject of where the fuck he’s supposed to find
Matt. “That place.” Jesus Christ, they’d talked about a million places
on that endless road trip around the mid-Atlantic, and he’d learned a
surprising amount about Matt, the kid couldn’t shut up on a dare. He
shoulders his bag, picks up the shoulder holster again, shrugs back
into it, buttons his shirt over it, his jacket over that. “That place
John wouldn’t be caught dead in,” and someplace in Jersey. Camden.
Fuck, there are a lot of places like that. He grabs for his car
keys—and groans.
***
“I want a coffee.” He’s in a
staredown with the girl with the pink and green stripes in her hair,
and the ring in her lip, across the counter. “Just a plain coffee. No
flavor, no foam, no nothing. Just coffee.”
Her lip curls as she
looks him up and down. The disdain would burn if he wasn’t halfway
impressed with her stones. “Just plain coffee, right,” she says, her
tone flat. “What size would you like that, sir?”
“Large,” he says evenly. “Please.”
“We offer tall, grande, and venti sizes, sir,” she says, tone almost dripping with saccharine. “Which would you prefer?”
Oh, for… he leans over the counter, looking her right in the eye. “Whichever one is the LARGEST one.”
She leans right back at him, until they’re almost nose to nose. “That would be the venti, sir.”
“Then that would be the one I want, don’t you think?”
“It would seem so.”
“I guess so, then.”
“Then I’ll go get that for you.”
“All
right, then.” He leans back, and she sniffs, and turns back to the wall
of shiny machines. It looks like a goddamn spaceship back there, and
all to make a freaking cup of coffee. Insane. He hates this place so
much—
“John, oh my god, thank god you figured it out, hey, hi
Marisa, I need a grande skinny soy cinnamon dolce latte, extra foam,
oh, Jesus, thank god you figured it out.”
Matt’s a whirlwind of
huge eyes and shaky hands and babble, and John spins and braces even
though he recognizes the voice as soon as the door swings open. He’s
got a shoulder bag slung around his body—probably has enough computers
in there to take over NASA—and he looks like he hasn’t shaved or
showered or slept in days.
“Kid, slow down.” John puts his
hands up, using the voice he uses on his most strung-out suspects, the
ones who look like they’re gonna blow. “Yeah, I figured it out, nice
choice, thanks for dragging me out to Jersey for a cup of coffee. You
want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Not here.” Matt looks around
himself, shifting from foot to foot, staying two arms-lengths from
John, keeping one eye on the door all the time. “It’s not safe. C’mon,
c’mon, grab your coffee, come on, we gotta go. Thanks Marisa, catch you
later, gotta run.” He reaches for the cup with one hand, and John’s arm
with the other, and tugs.
“Hey! Matt, relax. I’m not going
anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on. Sit down, we’ll
drink coffee, you can give me the rundown.” John’s actually starting to
worry a little. Maybe it’s some kind of PTSD. It wouldn’t be the first
time he’s seen it, especially in civilians who get caught up in the
kind of shit that had gone down last summer. Maybe it’s all finally
caught up to the kid, pushed him over some edge he hadn’t even known he
was on.
“Not here,” Matt insists, and John caves,
because…because, shit, he’s missed the kid, and anyway, Matt’d proved
himself pretty steady in the Fire Sale. John throws some money at the
register, hopes it covers Matt’s ridiculous drink as well as his own,
and lets Matt tow him out into the street.
“Where’s your car?”
Matt asks quickly, quietly, still with that edge of panic, and John
points, then unlocks it and lets them in. It’s his personal car, not
the department vehicle…that whole LoJack thing still kinda creeps him
out. “Come on, come on, drive, let’s go.” Matt’s still looking around
like he’s expecting a bullet any second, and John can’t quite help but
catch some of his urgency. He guns the car away from the curb and pulls
into traffic, heading for the Jersey Turnpike. Lots of straight road,
and rest stops every thirty feet, in case he needs to stop the car and
smack some sense into Matt’s head.
“You gonna tell me what’s
going on, or are we just going for a ride for our health?” he finally
asks, after they’ve passed through the toll booth, and there’s nothing
ahead of them but tail lights and black pavement. “Because if you
called me out to fucking Jersey, on a work night, because of a bad
dream, I don’t care how many times you saved my daughter’s life, I’m
still gonna kick the ever-loving shit outta you.”
Matt’s got his
face buried in his cup, and when he looks up, eyes still wide, he has a
little foam mustache. John feels an unwilling smile pull at his own
mouth. Fuck, the kid is cute. Kid. He’s gotta keep remembering that.
Matt takes a deep breath, wraps both his hands around the cup like he
needs the warmth, and starts talking. He sounds steadier already.
“A few weeks ago, I started getting these strange emails.”
“What, like penis enlargement, free Viagra, that shit?” John grins sideways. “You know those aren’t personal, right?”
“Oh my god,” Matt rolls his eyes, exasperation finally wiping out the fear, and John keeps grinning. “That’s spam,
you neander…no, you know what? I’m not getting sidetracked here by your
weird Luddite tendencies. I started getting messages, to my personal
email account, my SECRET personal email account, and they were really
strange. They started out friendly, asking questions about the Fire
Sale. I figured it was one of my buddies just screwing with me, nobody
knows that address, you know?” He takes another drink, like he needs it
just to keep talking. “I just kept deleting them. But they kept coming,
and whoever was sending them knew way too much about stuff from last
summer. Stuff that nobody should know if they weren’t there, you know?
I did some searching, and whoever’s sending the emails, they’ve covered
their tracks really really well.”
He picks at the edge of the
cup. “Then they started getting weirder. Messages every hour,
sometimes. Talking about how the person, whoever, knew about me, about
everything I’d done, everything I was doing. One or two of them totally
talked about me dying, DYING, like, saying I should’ve died in the Fire
Sale, that kinda stuff. And then yesterday, I found this on my
keyboard.” He reaches down, digs in his messenger bag, and comes up
with a post-it note. Hands it over.
John lays it against the
steering wheel and squints to see in the dim light. It looks like
marker, some kind of red pen, and it says “BANG U R DEAD.” Just that.
He feels something cold crawl up his spine, and for the first time, he
starts to really think something might be going on, here.
“They were in my place, McClane,” Matt says, urgent. “I was out getting tacos
for Christ’s sake, and I came back, and everything was normal, nothing
was gone, but that was there. And okay, maybe I freaked out a little,
but I’m not you, okay? I’m not used to this kind of thing happening to
me all the time, I didn’t know what to do. I left, and I went to my
friend’s place, I set up a secure line and I called you. I didn’t know
what else to do. I’ve been walking around the block for hours waiting
for you to show up.”
“Jesus.” John stares at the note for a
second more, then hands it back, and white-knuckles the steering wheel.
“Why didn’t you go to the cops? The feds? This is some creepy shit.”
“You are
the cops,” Matt says, drooping against the window. “And for all I know
it’s the Feds doing it. They were super pissed when I wouldn’t take
that job with them.”
“So they’re, what, cyberstalking you?” John gives Matt a skeptical look.
“Trying
to freak me out. I know too much, they know I know it, and they’re all
pissed off that I’m not under their control.” Matt hunches his
shoulders up around his ears, sounding sulky now. And tired. “Maybe
they think if I get scared enough I’ll come work for them for
protection.”
“And maybe you’re a completely paranoid freak who shouldn’t be drinking any more coffee,” John points out.
“They were in my apartment,” Matt says again, and John has to concede the point.
“Did
you check your shit for, I don’t know, tracking bugs or whatever?” He
looks at Matt’s bag. Anyone who knows anything about Matt would realize
he never goes anywhere without his gear.
Matt nods. “Yeah. I
threw out all my old stuff, this is all new, even the bag, swear to
god. I left everything in my place, I’m clean. Except, oh my god.” He
turns huge eyes on John, he can see the whites around them. “You don’t
think…when I was in the hospital…they wouldn’t put a chip in my head,
right?”
“No, Matthew,” John says, patient even though he wants
to laugh. “I’m pretty sure nobody put a chip in your head. We would’ve
noticed the bald patch, if nothing else.”
“They could chip YOU no problem then,” Matt grumps, and John laughs.
“True
enough. Okay, since nobody’s put chips in anyone’s brain, and you’re
clean, what do you say we pull off here somewhere. Get a hotel room,
you can get some sleep, I can make some calls.” Matt’s looking like
three days of rough road, and John would like him a little more
coherent than this, if shit really is going down.
“NO CALLS,” Matt stresses, chilly fingers locking on John’s forearm, and John shakes him off irritably.
“Quit
grabbing me. Fine, no calls about you, but I gotta call the precinct
and get tomorrow off. There’s no way I’m driving back from here
tonight, so you’re stuck with me, kid.”
“Thank god,” Matt says
again, heartfelt, and John can’t help but feel warmed by it.
“Seriously, though, you’re not gonna call the FBI, right?”
“Seriously, I swear,” John promises, and gets off at the next exit.
The
room is tiny, and smells a little musty, the way low-end motels always
seem to. John is bummed about the one king-sized bed, but pleased to
note that they did get an end-of-the-hall room (closer to the stairs)
and one only one floor up. And Matt’s staggering so badly by the time
he keys them into the room, John has to grab him by the shoulder to
keep him from tripping on the edge of the rug.
Matt kind of
crumples against him, and John sighs, getting one arm around his waist
and heaving him towards the bed. Matt doesn’t even get his shoes off
before he’s flopping face-down across the mattress, and John rolls his
eyes, tossing his own bag at the one spindly-looking armchair, moving
around the room, checking the doors and windows, peeking into the
bathroom. Holly had always objected to his ‘paranoia,’ but Matt’s
watching him with such naked gratitude on his face as he tests the
locks and sets the deadbolt that John actually feels a little
uncomfortable.
“Take your shoes off, kid,” he says, turning to
check the window latch one more time before pulling the drapes closed
on the lovely view of the empty pool, dusted with snow. “Get some
sleep.”
“You’re not leaving, right?” Matt’s eyes are barely open, but they’re still tracking John around the room.
“Definitely
not leaving. I’m gonna sit right here, make my calls, then grab a nap
myself. Tomorrow we’ll figure out what to do. Go to sleep, Matt.”
“’kay.” Matt’s eyes close for a long moment, then fly open again. “Don’t leave.”
“I’m
not going to leave,” McClane repeats, sitting on the bed, back against
the headboard, phone in hand. He has to call the precinct, let his boss
know he’s in who-the-fuck-knows-where New Jersey with a paranoid hacker
at his side.
“Okay.” Matt says again, his voice mushy with
sleep. The next time McClane looks down at him, he’s obviously out,
face turned to the side, breathing deeply and steadily. John reaches
over without even thinking about it, brushes his hair out of his face,
and Matt doesn’t so much as twitch.
Sighing, he crosses his feet
at the ankle, makes sure his gun is close to hand, and dials the
office. This is gonna be a fun one to explain to the Captain.
***
Warm.
Too warm, really, and John turns irritably, kicking his feet away from
the source of the heat, his eyes still firmly closed. His alarm hasn’t
gone off yet, it must still be early, and if the fucking super doesn’t
get this steam-pipe problem fixed soon, he’s going to file a complaint.
Seriously, this time.
The heat makes a sound, and John’s up
and on his feet, tensed and ready to punch, before his eyes are even
fully open. As he blinks, it comes back to him—Matt, the car, the
coffee, the motel. Shit. He’d fallen asleep, obviously, and now…
Matt’s
head, hair fluffed in all directions like a dark brown dandelion, pops
up over the top of the blanket, and he does some blinking of his own at
John, who’s staring at him.
“Morning?” Matt’s voice is a rusty
rasp, and he’s got sleep crusted in the corners of his eyes, and a red
line from the pillow down the side of his face, and that ridiculous hair. John feels his mouth twitch into a smile.
“Morning.”
He relaxes, and moves to the window, stretching as he does, feeling his
shoulders and neck crack and pop and settle into place. Ouch. It’s
actually morning, too, grey light filtering in through the dirty window
as he twitches the drape aside to peer out. “Slept about ten hours,
there, kid. Feel better?”
“Yeah.” Apparently at some point, Matt
had woken up enough to strip out of his clothes, and John gets an
eyeful as the kid scrambles out of the bed and makes a beeline for the
bathroom, wearing nothing but a thin, ratty old pair of boxers that are
hanging precariously off his hips. John can see the dimples in the
small of his back, and sighs, bringing up a hand to rub his eyes and
pinch at the bridge of his nose. He doesn’t deserve this. No one
deserves this.
“If you’d drink less coffee at night, you
wouldn’t be so desperate for a piss,” John calls as he roots around the
bed for his phone, lost in the blankets somewhere in the night, and
gets a snort in return, before hearing the toilet flush and the water
run.
“Blasphemy,” Matt calls back, sounding a hell of a lot
more cheerful than he had the night before. “You can never have too
much coffee.” When he emerges the ends of his hair are damp and
dripping a little, and he’s bright-eyed and smiling, hitching his
boxers up with one hand. John says a quick prayer of thanks. The trail
of dark hair down that smooth belly is doing enough to his equilibrium,
without an impromptu strip show to top it off.
He’s definitely
too old for this. “What’re you so cheerful about?” he grumbles, heading
to the bathroom himself to splash some water on his face, get himself a
little more alert.
“I just had my first decent night of sleep
in about a week,” Matt’s voice comes to him over the sound of splashing
water. “I’m actually almost feeling kind of sane, it’s awesome.”
“Sane
might be pushing it,” McClane murmurs, burying his face in a scratchy
motel hand towel, scrubbing at the skin, waking himself up. He’s not
even sure if he’s talking about himself or Matt, anymore. He stares at
himself in the mirror, grimaces at his wrinkles and the bags under his
eyes, sighs, and heads back out to face the music. Creepy emails and
stalkery post-it notes, right. He’s still not completely sure this
isn’t some prank by one of Matt’s friends, but Matt seems convinced, so
he has some detecting to do. At least he’s got some experience with
that.
When he gets back to the bedroom, Matt’s wearing clothes
again, thank god. John breathes a silent sigh of relief, digs in his
bag for a clean shirt, and slides into it, buttoning it over his tank.
Layers, he’s found, can be useful in all kinds of situations. When he
sits on the edge of the bed to shove his feet into his boots, Matt sits
next to him, close enough to feel the warmth of his skin against John’s
arm.
Hasn’t anyone ever taught this kid about the merits of personal fuckin’ space?
“So,
what’s the plan. I mean, you’ve gotta have a plan, right? Because “kill
them all and save Lucy” doesn’t apply so much in this situation, you
know. Not that it didn’t work last time, it did, it really did, but I
think maybe there should be a little more thinking and a little less
shooting at this point—“
“Matt.” John turns, one boot still untied.
“Yeah?” Huge brown eyes meet his, wide and hopeful, and Matt’s smiling. Fucking kid.
“Nothing.
Never mind. Plan, right. So, tell me again about these email things. I
mean, you said you couldn’t figure out who they were coming from,
right?”
“Right.” Matt settles back, clearly satisfied, and John
wishes for coffee. Desperately. “They came through two anonymizers and
a public email service. No way to trace them back to their originator,
no way to even find out what country they came from. It
could’ve been my next door neighbor.” He pauses, looks queasy. “Which I
really hope it isn’t, because Mr. VanDerPlotz is like, seventy, and
he’s got this skin condition…anyway, hey, do you think they have coffee
at this place?”
“You’re readin’ my mind, kid.”
“MATT,”
Matt stresses, getting that line between his eyes. “I’m almost
twenty-six, legal for everything, and I have a name and I know you know
it.”
“Oh yeah?” John stands up, gets away from that distracting
warmth—what, is the kid some kind of space heater or something?—and
slides his holster on, feeling the gun heavy, snug, and comforting
against his ribs. “Well, it’s barely light outside, I told my boss I
needed the day off for personal reasons, which I am going to catch a
lot of hell for tomorrow. And I haven’t had my coffee yet, so for now,
be glad I’m not calling you ‘hey you little asshole,’ and get your
shoes on so we can get out of here.”
“God, you’re cranky,” Matt bitches, but he does as he’s told. “Are we checking out, now? Where are we going?”
John
raises an eyebrow at the “we,” but shrugs. “I dunno. No, leave your
shit here for now, we don’t have to be out till noon, and it’s…” he
checks his watch, “not even seven yet, Jesus. We can grab coffee and
whatever, come back here, and you can tell me the whole story.”
“I
did tell you the whole story,” Matt says, his voice muffled by the
sweatshirt he’s pulling over his head. “Last night. I’m pretty sure I
wasn’t dreaming that.”
“Yeah, well, you can tell me again.” John
leads the way out of the room and clatters down the stairs, Matt at his
shoulder, following the scent of fresh coffee once they get to the
lobby area, and filling two cups each in respectful, appreciative
silence.
Maybe Matt drinks the girly coffee drinks, John thinks,
but at least he appreciates caffeine the way he should. Another thing
to like about the kid, like he needed one. He shakes his head at
himself and grabs a few bagels, some of those little packets of cream
cheese that always taste like plastic, and a couple of muffins. Noting
with approval that Matt has stocked up as well, he leads the way back
to the room, pointedly ignoring the little happy cooing sounds Matt’s
making over his cup.
Okay, maybe the kid appreciates the coffee a little too much.
The
story is pretty much the same, even with Matt more clear-eyed and
coherent. He’s genuinely freaked, John can tell that much by the way he
stands up and paces, shoving his hands through his over-long hair in
agitation as he reels off the details. The emails, the contacts, the
note. His own panic, and then calling John, because he didn’t know who
else to call, where else to go.
“Any chance that fat little
bastard, what’s his name, Freddy, could figure out what’s going on?”
John hazards to suggest once Matt’s wound down again and is drinking
his coffee. “See if he can trace the emails, or whatever?”
Matt
draws himself up, all injured pride. “If I can’t trace it, he can’t
trace it.” He deflates again. “And that’s probably bad. I mean, I can
trace just about anything, so this guy, whoever, he’s good. He’s really
good, and that’s bad.”
“Better than you and Freddie?” John’s
skeptical. He hadn’t understood even a hundredth of what was going on
during the Fire Sale, but he’d gathered that Matt and Freddie are
pretty fuckin’ talented in ways he can’t even imagine.
“It’s not better, it’s just different,”
Matt answers quickly, a little defensively. “I mean, it’s like some
kind of global hide and seek or something, he could be anywhere in the
world, it could be literally anyone. And me and Freddie, sure, we’re
the best at some things, but finding some chickenshit hiding behind a
thousand routers and network layers and different…whatever, just, it’d
be impossible.”
“He couldn’t be anywhere.” John takes a bite of
his bagel and grimaces at the stale, chewy texture. Maybe living in
Brooklyn has spoiled him a little. “He has to be somewhere close enough
to get into your apartment when you were out getting tacos.”
Matt
blinks at him, one of those long slow blinks that means his brain just
kicked into overdrive, and John waits patiently. The kid’s face
brightens, then scowls, then brightens again, then settles into
neutral. “Yeah, okay, he’s close. But he could still be bouncing his
emails off some server in Siberia or whatever.”
“You know, you
kids, you get so used to thinking in digital speak or whatever it is,
you forget about the regular normal stuff,” John sighs. “He was in your apartment,
Matt. If he’s anything like you and Freddie, I bet you ten bucks he
didn’t wear gloves. And if he didn’t wear gloves, he probably left a
fingerprint somewhere.”
“Fingerprints?” Matt laughs a little,
shakes his head, and then scrunches up his nose. John firmly tells
himself that it’s not adorable. “That’s so…1980’s Law and Order.”
“It’s
called actual police work, you little shit,” John says affectionately,
gulps down his coffee, and slaps the kid upside his head as he walks
past him towards his bag. He ignores Matt’s wounded yelp. “Come on, get
your stuff. We’re going back to your apartment, and you’re paying me
back for the gas. Servers in Siberia, Jesus Christ.”
When he glances at Matt again, the kid is grinning, and John can’t imagine why, but he finds himself grinning back.
***
Weirdly
enough, John thinks as he parks the car yet again in Camden, he figures
he’s talked more to Matt in the last few months than he has to anyone
except maybe Holly and the kids, and most of that talking has happened
in a car. During the Fire Sale, he’d talked in the car to keep himself
awake, and despite Matt’s babble, he’d proved to be a pretty good
listener. And now, again, Matt’s somehow drawn him out into talking
about what’s been going on since he’d seen him last.
John doesn’t do
chatty friendly catch-ups. But something about those brown eyes, intent
on his and interested in what he’s saying, gets him talking like he’s
some housewife at a coffee klatch.
“I gotta say, I always kind
of thought you’d end up getting back together with your wife, after,”
Matt’s saying conversationally, though he’s looking away as he gets out
of the car, not meeting John’s eyes, which is strange enough that John
wonders about it for a moment. The kid’s usually always looking at him,
he’s got those eyes like lasers, as sharp as the mind behind them. “I
mean, you said, how the last couple times you saved the world, you and
her ended up back together.”
“Guess we’re both pretty much over
that,” John answers, checking the locks before pocketing the keys.
Fuckin’ Jersey. Bunch of savages in this state. “Maybe we’re just both
too old.”
Matt snorts, an inelegant sound. “Yeah, right. You’re
ancient, all right. You’re in better shape than most guys my age, I
don’t think you have to worry about much, there.”
John’s
absurdly pleased that Matt’s noticed, and grimaces at himself.
Ridiculous, McClane. “Yeah, well, whatever. Why’re you so curious about
that, anyway? And don’t think I’m complaining here, but you never did
call Lucy. She asked about you at Christmas.”
Matt’s gaze slides
away from John’s again, and he leads the way into his apartment
building—slightly nicer than the last one, but only slightly—with a
quick step. “Guess your warning must’ve made an impression,” he says,
but it sounds almost like a question. He turns the key in the lock, and
steps inside. John’s about to press him on the answer, it’s so
obviously bullshit, but—something slams into his head, and everything
goes dark.
