I dropped Alex off at his apartment a little after dark, after the kind of long, quiet day that made me feel every one of my thirty-nine years. Driving him around had been easy enough — he wasn't difficult, wasn't demanding, didn't treat me like furniture the way some of Law's parents' guests did. If anything, that made the whole assignment worse. I'd hoped, selfishly, that he'd be insufferable. It would've made what was coming easier to watch.
I called Law from the parking garage once I knew Alex was safely inside.
"Report," Law said, picking up on the first ring, no greeting, like always.
"He went to the hospital to see his sister. Karen — she's in long-term care, twelfth floor. Looked serious. He also visited his mother, Beth. Spent the rest of the money — the ninety thousand — on her surgery fund."
There was a pause on the other end, longer than I expected. "Surgery for what?"
"I don't know the specifics, sir. Whatever it is, it's been going on for years, from the sound of it. He told me about his father, too — died when he was nine. Drunk driving accident. The other man walked away clean because of money."
Another pause. "He told you all that? On a drive to the hospital?"
"People tell me things, sir," I said. "I have an honest face."
"You have a face like a brick wall," Law said, and I heard something that might have been amusement underneath the dry tone.
"He's not what I expected," I admitted, after a moment. "He's not cruel. He's not greedy, not in the way you'd think, given what he did at the casino. He's scared, and he's tired, and he's doing something dangerous because he doesn't see another option."
"That doesn't change what he did," Law said, voice flattening back out.
"No," I agreed. "It doesn't. I just thought you should know who you're dealing with, sir, before you decide how far to take this."
He didn't answer that directly. "Keep watching him," he said instead. "I'll call you when I need you again."
The line went dead before I could say anything else, and I sat in the dark garage for a long minute, thinking about the last time Law had looked at someone the way he'd looked at Alex across that casino table — easy, unguarded, the wall coming down piece by piece without him even noticing it happening.
It hadn't ended well, that last time. I didn't know yet whether this one would be any different. I just knew I'd be watching closely enough to find out.