You're Next

‘You can be displeased with the facts, but I’m too old to have my character questioned. Come by the office and pick up your file. We’re done.’

Mike held the phone to his face until the dial tone bleated, regret washing through him. He’d acted like an asshole, looking for someone to blame, and he owed Hank an apology. Before he could hit ‘redial,’ he heard the door to the garage open and then Annabel breezing through the kitchen. He tossed the phone onto the bed just before she swept in, his suit slung over her shoulder.

‘Sorry I’m late. He pressed the pants wrong, made them look like Dockers. Come here. Grab a shirt. Put this on.’ She jangled her watch around her wrist until the face came visible. ‘We can still get you there on time.’

The photo shoot. Right.

He obliged, moving on stunned autopilot. He couldn’t figure out how to stop getting dressed and start telling her.

Annabel moved around him, tugging at the lapels, straightening the sleeves. ‘No, not that tie. Something darker.’

‘It used to be I could pick out my own tie,’ Mike murmured. ‘When did I become so useless?’

‘You were always useless, babe. You just didn’t have me around to point it out.’ She went on tiptoes, kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘You look amazing. The governor will be impressed. Might hit on you, even. Could be a scandal.’ She stepped back, appraised him. ‘Certainly beats that plaid jacket.’

‘Windowpane,’ Mike said weakly. ‘Listen…’

‘Lord.’ She’d spotted his work clothes, kicked off on the bathroom floor. ‘What’d you do, crawl through a sewer?’

She went over and scooped up the grimy clothes. A small brown box fell from the pocket of the jeans, bounced on the linoleum, and spit out a ring – the two-carat diamond he’d chosen at the jewelry store after dropping Kat off at school. He’d forgotten about it.

Annabel’s hand went to her mouth. She crouched reverently over the ring, plucked it up. Her eyes glimmered with tears. ‘The deal closed!’ She laughed and ran over, embracing him. ‘I told you it would all work out. And this ring. I mean, Mike, are you kidding?’ She slid it onto her right hand, splayed her fingers to admire the stone. The joy on her face was so absolute that the notion of breaking the spell tightened his throat, made it hard to breathe.

He set his hands gently on her shoulders. Her bones, delicate and fragile beneath the skin.

She looked up at him. Her gaze sharpened. ‘What’s wrong?’

There he was, in their tiny walk-in closet, wearing a jacket and shirt with no pants. ‘The pipes. Remember the pipes?’

‘Vitrified clay. Arm and a leg. Of course.’

‘The subcontractor screwed us and took off. I just found out. Everything stubbed up through the slabs is vitrified clay. That’s how we passed environmental inspection.’ He moistened his lips. ‘But everything buried beneath the surface is PVC.’

A flicker of understanding crossed Annabel’s face. ‘How much? To fix it?’

‘More than we’ll make.’

She took a step back and sat on the bed. Her hands were clasped and her eyes on that big diamond sticking out, gleaming even in the faint light of the bedroom. She and Mike breathed awhile in the silence.

‘I love my old ring anyway,’ she finally said. ‘You married me with it.’

Something in his chest unraveled a bit, and he felt suddenly much older than his thirty-five years.

‘It’s you and me,’ she said. ‘And Kat. We don’t need more money. I can put school on hold, get a job for a while. Just until, you know. We’ll find room in the budget. We can pull Kat from that after-school enrichment program. We’ll live in a condo. I don’t care.’

He pulled on his pants, slowly, his legs heavy and numb, like they didn’t belong to him. He couldn’t meet Annabel’s eyes because he was scared of what that would make him feel.

‘You are always true,’ she said. She took off the two-carat ring, set it on the duvet beside her, and managed a smile. ‘Make this right however you have to.’

The suite in the Beverly Hills Hotel was the largest Mike had ever seen. Bill Garner sat behind an antique letter desk, cocked back thoughtfully in a leather chair that seemed designed for musing. He studied the photo, a computer printout that showed PVC pipe protruding into the ditch.

Through the open door to the sitting room wafted laughter, tidbits of conversation, and the occasional camera flash. The recipients of the community-leadership award were to mingle now and take some PR photos to lay the media foundation for the formal ceremony Sunday evening. Aside from the governor, who – judging by the chorus of salutations – had just swept in, Mike had been the last to arrive.

Garner rose, strode across, and poked his head through the doorway. ‘Are the setups ready? Okay, give us a minute here.’ He closed the door and resumed his spot behind the desk. His face, teenage smooth, registered nothing but pleasant optimism, as it had the entire time Mike had explained the problem.

Garner templed his fingers. ‘You’re going to pay for the fix?’

Mike said, ‘I am prepared to do that.’

‘Those PVC pipes. Where do you think they’ll go once you dig them up?’

‘I hadn’t given that much thought,’ Mike said.

‘Into a landfill, I’d guess. So you want to move pipes from the ground back into the ground in another location? And use a lot of gas-guzzling machinery to do it?’ He smiled affably. ‘Sounds a bit silly, doesn’t it?’

Mike became suddenly aware of his new suit. ‘Yes. But honest, at least.’

‘These houses you’ve built, they’re ninety-nine-percent green. There’s a lot to be proud of.’

Mike studied him a moment, trying to read his face. ‘I don’t see it that way.’ He shifted on the plush armchair, uncomfortable in the dress clothes. ‘I’m not sure I’m following the direction this conversation is taking.’

‘The governor’s hung his hat on this project, Mike. You know how strong he is on the environment. And your housing community, with our pilot subsidy program, shows that a green model can work not just for rich assholes – that it can make sense for working folks. Green Valley is the governor’s baby. He’s been talking it up in the press for months.’

‘I understand that this is an embarrassment,’ Mike said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘The subsidies are a pilot program, tenuous at best. The governor is under fire from both sides of the aisle. If we don’t parade out a community model to show the energy benefits – soon – those subsidies will be off the table. You’re aware of the election in a month’s time? The governor’s got a host of ballot initiatives he’s put his neck on the line for. That’s why we timed the press, the photo shoot, the award ceremony this Sunday.’ He pursed his lips. ‘How long will it take you to switch out these pipes?’

Discomfort glowed to life in Mike’s stomach, crept up his throat. ‘Months.’

‘And your award for outstanding community-’

‘Obviously, you’ll have to withdraw that.’

‘See,’ Garner said, ‘that’s the thing. No award ceremony means no press. No press means no public support. No public support means no state subsidies for those home buyers.’

Mike’s mouth went dry.

‘How much are the subsidies?’ Garner asked. ‘Three hundred thousand per family?’

‘Two seventy-five,’ Mike said faintly.

‘And these are middle-class families you have moving in there. I mean, that was the point, really. And now you’re gonna tell these folks that not only can they not move into their new houses for months but that the subsidies upon which they’ve based their financial planning will no longer be there for them?’ He grinned ruefully. ‘That they will have to come up with nearly three hundred grand more apiece? Or were you planning on covering that as well?’

Mike swallowed to wet his throat. ‘I don’t have anywhere near that kind of money.’

‘Then are you sure you want to pass on this problem to those families?’

For the first time, Mike had no ready answer.

Garner placed a manicured fingertip on the photograph and slid it slowly back across the antique desk.

Mike stared down at it.

An impatient knock on the door. A young aide leaned into the room and said, ‘We need him now. The photographer’s restless, and I have to get the governor on a plane back to