He dropped his head onto the wheel. He cried. And he cried. And he cried. He cried so hard that he was coming apart.

And then his phone rang, and he saw Matty’s name, and he almost swiped the call into oblivion. But then he thought of how Matty had touched his arm. And touched his hand. He thought of the buttons done up wrong on Matty’s shirt and the way he plunged his hands into his cardigan and twisted the sweater. He thought of how good it had felt when Matty had needed him. Right then, Shaw needed to feel something other than how much he fucking hated himself for running away.

“Matty? What’s up?”

Something was blowing on the other end of the phone: shrill blasts of wind scraping the microphone. Then Matty spoke, and Shaw realized it wasn’t wind he was hearing. It was Matty’s hyperventilating breaths.

“House.” That was all Matty could stutter out.

“What’s wrong? Matty, what’s going on? Talk to me.”

“P-p-please. H-h-he’s in the house.”

Chapter 18

Shaw drove as fast as he could. The Mercedes’ headlights cut out glistening, halogen tracks ahead of the car; the rest of the city was a smoky suspension of light and steel and concrete.

As Shaw drove, he talked to Matty, but the boy seemed almost catatonic. He answered Shaw’s questions in single words, voice shaking so hard he could barely be understood, but Shaw kept talking, kept asking, kept pressing because he had the feeling that if he stopped now, if he ended the call, Matty might slip deeper into shock.

The Mercedes ate up miles of I-44 with a steady purr; at this hour, the interstate was basically empty, and Shaw fed the car gas until he felt like he was flying. As he drove, he pieced together Matty’s fragmented answers. Someone had been in the house. Or maybe someone was still in the house. Matty, however, wasn’t in the house. All he would say, when Shaw asked where he was, was Soulard, which wasn’t much fucking help.

And then two words pierced the connection—the only two words Matty had strung together since calling Shaw: “He’s coming.”

The call ended.

“Fuck,” Shaw roared. And he pounded on the steering wheel once before calling back. Matty didn’t pick up, and the call went to voicemail. Shaw called again, and this time, it went straight to voicemail. Fuck, Shaw thought as he stomped on the gas. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Peeling off the interstate onto Park Avenue, he took another sharp right onto 7th, and he followed 7th into Soulard. He passed the farmers market. He passed the park. He passed, on his left, the mixture of pubs and pop-up tax centers and dry cleaners and tattoo shops that straddled a charter school. He was halfway across Soulard, getting closer to Matty’s loft, when he swore and slammed on the brakes. An Escalade behind him laid on the horn, swerved, and for a moment, the thump of the car’s music rattled Shaw’s windows.