The Breaker Read online

  Dean had seriously upped his game since then. He’d written a big magazine piece that was used as the basis for a Hollywood film, and while it hadn’t made him rich, it did allow him to pay off his Shorewood duplex, accumulate some really great shoes, and buy a new Honda CR-V, the world’s most practical car. And that big smile, not to mention his generosity with the byline, meant he was making another play.

  Strangely, she found herself the most attracted to him when she was ovulating.

  She really didn’t want to know what that meant.

  * * *

  —

  Back at her desk, checking her email, she thought that the whole thing would be so much easier if she could just tell Dean she had a boyfriend. But she couldn’t, because Dean was a reporter, so he’d start asking questions. He’d definitely want to meet Peter.

  It wasn’t just Dean, either. If she ever made the mistake of bringing Peter to the Newsroom Pub, every reporter in the place would grill him like a Supreme Court nominee. They’d zero in on any inconsistency or evasion, because that’s what good reporters do. To everyone they know. Even if Peter never said a word, some smart-ass would probably try to sneak a picture. With a good face-frontal photo, he’d be one click away from the FBI’s Wanted list. And that would be the end of that.

  Even that term, boyfriend. June was in her thirties, a professional journalist with a national reputation. She’d been short-listed for the Pulitzer, for chrissake. Calling someone her boyfriend was ridiculous. But what else was Peter to her? Her significant other? Her partner? Her lover? Those names were either too domestic or just plain stupid.

  She supposed the label didn’t matter. They were living together, after all. And she loved it. She loved him, God help her. She would never have thought it would work, dating a Marine. Dating this Marine.

  Part of the challenge was his post-traumatic stress, the claustrophobia, the restlessness. Sometimes he got so wound up, he was practically climbing out of his own skin. And she couldn’t do anything about it except hold him when he hurt, and encourage him to do the things that helped. Exercise, meditation. Find meaningful work. And, yes, maybe chase an armed man into a crowded public market at risk to his own life, because that was part of what he needed to make himself whole. Even if it drove her nuts.

  Because the truth was that she could handle his particular flavor of high-energy crazy. In fact, that passion, that intensity, was part of the appeal. Nobody was perfect, right? Lord knows, June had her own crazy to deal with, the emotional fallout of her strange, fucked-up childhood.

  No, the real problem was that she was having trouble imagining their life ten years from now, or twenty. Peter was a fugitive from justice. The feds had a warrant for his arrest. What kind of future could they build together?

  Plus it was hard to have this conversation with him because June didn’t even know what life she wanted. Was it a husband and three kids, a house in the suburbs, and a pot roast in the oven? Some days, that’s exactly what she wanted. Or maybe she just thought she wanted it, because everyone else seemed to want it.

  Other days, all she wanted was to be in hot pursuit of the next big story, living her life on fast-forward with no obligations, not even a potted plant. Ready to hop on a plane at a moment’s notice. Christ, maybe she wanted somebody else to stay home, cook dinner for her.

  Which was funny, because Peter often did exactly that. In his underwear, usually, after showering off the day’s plaster grit and sawdust. But that wasn’t a negative, not when you looked the way he did, threadbare boxers falling off his lean hips, a smirk on his face, a spatula in one big hand, a beer in the other. Jesus, just the thought of it made her all shivery.

  But that’s not how things were all the time.

  Sometimes, when he got restless, when he needed to be useful in the way only he could be useful, he stepped into someone else’s problems. Then he got chased and beaten and shot at. The last time, he’d almost died. And he hadn’t even told her where he was. She’d found out when she saw his face on the news. She could have killed him herself. And now they were living with the consequences.

  Since then, she’d been wondering if Peter would always need that rush of action, that feeling of risk.

  More and more lately, she was thinking the answer was yes.

  June guessed what she was asking herself was, could she live with that?

  Or was it time to get practical? Find herself a Dean? Find herself a future.

  Thankfully, her phone rang before she came up with an answer.

  It was Christina Willis, the Houston police detective, and she didn’t waste any time. “Lady, what the heck are you into? According to the Texas DMV, that VIN number you sent is for a vehicle that was listed as totaled after Hurricane Harvey and sent to the crusher. The license plate, on the other hand, is for a totally different vehicle, up on blocks out back of a Fort Worth landscaping company, waiting for an engine. And get this—the plate’s still on it. The owner sent me a picture.”

  “Wait,” June said. “We have duplicate plates from a vehicle that doesn’t run, on another vehicle that’s not supposed to exist?”

  “Yeah,” Christina said. “So let me repeat myself. What are you into?”

  17

  PETER

  Lewis drove the Yukon down Kinnickinnic Avenue in Bay View, dodging potholes while raindrops flecked the windshield.

  Bay View was a rapidly gentrifying south side neighborhood tucked between Lake Michigan and the freeway, a maze of narrow streets crowded with old houses and corner bars. Kinnickinnic—known to locals as KK—was the heart of it, a hip strip of gastropubs and tattoo parlors and gleaming new condo blocks sprouting up between old-school funeral parlors and tire shops. Peter and June came for the tortilla soup at Riviera Maya and the pork fries at Honey Pie.

  They found the South Side MakerSpace behind the library in a windowless redbrick rectangle that took up most of a city block. An enormous transformer with faded gray paint, mounted on a dedicated pole in the parking lot, indicated a previous power-hungry incarnation, maybe as a machine shop or early data storage facility. But Peter couldn’t see anything to indicate its current use, which was, according to the website, a nonprofit self-organizing communal workshop offering space and tools to anyone for a modest monthly membership fee.

  “Drive the perimeter,” Peter said. “Let’s see the rest of it.”

  The Yukon’s big engine rumbled as Lewis feathered the gas. “Any idea what we looking for?”

  “Hell if I know,” Peter said. “Let’s hope we know it when we see it.”

  Two sides of the building came right to the narrow sidewalk. A third side ran along the alley with a row of angled parking and a wide roll-up door for freight deliveries. The fourth side backed up against an ancient apartment building’s cobblestone service drive lined with garbage cans. Along the rooftop at the rear, a small array of solar panels soaked up the sun.

  There was no homemade electric getaway bike chained to a rack. No convenient sign reading russian assault rifles serviced here or armed robbers use rear door.

  The main entrance was a plain steel slab with a hand-painted address, an electronic fob reader that would control the lock, and a cheap security camera looking down from above. A repurposed industrial switch was labeled doorbell with a black permanent marker.

  Peter hit the button. After a minute, a young guy opened the door. He wore a Notre Dame jersey and a smile. “Can I help you folks?”

  Peter returned the smile. “We’re interested in memberships, maybe taking a class or two. Any chance we can take a look around?”

  “If you’re not members, you need someone to walk with you. But I’m not busy right now.” He was maybe twenty, a good-looking kid raised on milk and butter. He stuck out his hand. “I’m Mac. Welcome to the MakerSpace.”

  Peter and Lewis followed Mac into a large common area clutt
ered with industrial shelves and secondhand furniture and a long table made of plywood sheets laid across sawhorses, exactly the kind of claustrophobic windowless space that would have made the static flare wildly just a year ago. At the back was a line of kitchen cabinets with a sink and a microwave and a pair of vintage refrigerators, one labeled alcohol, the other non-alcohol.

  “This is where we have community meetings on Tuesday nights,” said Mac. “It’s also our hacker space and computer shop.”

  A middle-aged woman in a plaid flannel shirt with headphones and many facial piercings leaned back on a folding chair with her Doc Martens up on the table, typing furiously on her laptop. An older guy with an unconvincing comb-over hunched over a circuit board with a soldering iron, thin smoke rising. Four more people sat at the far end, deep in conversation, a bin of used computer components spilled out on the table.

  Peter had spent plenty of time in junkyards, salvaging truck parts. It never occurred to him that people might build their own electronics from scrap, too. “Can we see the rest of it?”

  Mac walked them through a messy crafts area with piles of raw fabric, sewing machines, and pictures of smiling people in elaborate Princess Leia and Gandalf costumes. Next came a cluttered metal shop, then a well-equipped woodworking area. The smells of machine oil and sawdust reminded Peter of his dad’s barn in northern Wisconsin.

  The equipment was a mix of industrial-grade and custom-built. “A lot of it was donated by people who closed their businesses but didn’t have a place to put their stuff,” Mac said. “This way they can still use it anytime, but now other people can, too. Plus the community will maintain and repair it for them.”

  They passed a row of laser-cutters, then a line of 3-D printers, half of which looked homemade, and into an enormous room filled with industrial shelves. They were divided into four-foot sections, each labeled with a member’s name and piled high with everything from a vintage motorcycle chassis to ancient computer carcasses to giant dismembered stuffed animals.

  “I read about your bike-building class,” Peter said. “Do you know anyone who’s done it?”

  “Oh, gosh, that’s very popular,” Mac said. “Kiko, the instructor, is really great. But you have to be trained on the tools first. You should get started soon if you want to be ready. I can connect you to the metal shop champion if you like.” The champion, he explained, was the volunteer in charge of a given area.

  “Actually,” Peter said, “what I’m really interested in is building an electric bike. Do you have anyone here who’s done that?”

  “I don’t know, but Spark might. She’s our electrical champion. Actually, she’s more our champion-at-large. She built half those 3-D printers.”

  “From scratch?”

  “Sure. I’ve built one myself, although I bought a kit. The software is open-source.”

  Peter said, “Where’d you learn this stuff?”

  Mac laughed. “I don’t know anything,” he said. “But I’m a pretty good sponge, and the people here are usually willing to help.” he said. “Larry back there, he designed circuit boards for IBM. Suzanne, on the laptop, is an engineer at an electric car startup in Detroit. And Spark, well. Spark’s the coolest.”

  Mac’s face flushed a little when he mentioned her. Spark was definitely the coolest.

  “Those are her solar panels on the roof. I talked her into entering our electrics race last year. She used recycled Prius batteries for her power source, totally green. It wasn’t her fault they caught on fire at the finish line.”

  Peter looked at Lewis. “Sounds like Spark would be good to talk to. Is she here now?”

  “Actually, I haven’t seen her for a while. She’s not very social.” Mac gave them a shy grin. “But maybe she’s in her project space?”

  He walked them through a set of double doors in a raw cinder-block wall. “The MakerSpace is set up as a place to make stuff for yourself, not to run a business. But there was such a demand for private shops that we built out some spaces to rent. The waiting list has so many people that we’re actually buying another building.”

  Peter said, “What kinds of stuff do you do, Mac?”

  “I’m just here for the weirdos.” He grinned. “I study sociology at Marquette. These communal groups are fascinating.”

  They walked down a bright, branching hallway wide enough to accommodate the small electric forklift charging in a corner. Painted plywood partitions formed workrooms of varying sizes, many of them in use. Peter saw a sweating glassblower at her forge and a man bent over a potter’s wheel with a row of kilns along the back wall.

  “What does Spark do in her space?” Peter asked.

  “You’d better ask her yourself,” Mac said. “She’s pretty private, so she probably won’t tell you. She lives with her boyfriend but nobody’s ever met him.”

  At the end of the hall was an open door. Inside was a futon couch with a sweatshirt balled up for a pillow, board-and-block shelves stacked with spine-cracked textbooks and reference manuals, and a young woman at a thrift store desk. Her legs folded on the chair beneath her, fingers poised on a laptop.

  Her hair was jet-black and cropped short, her skin the color of burnished copper. Her intent eyes, high cheekbones, and prominent nose reminded Peter of an Aztec statue. She stared at two big mismatched monitors, one showing the multicolored text of raw computer code, the other with detailed line drawings.

  “Spark?” Mac knocked on the jamb.

  Her hands fluttered off the keyboard like startled birds. “Mac,” she said. “What’s up?”

  Then she looked past him and saw the two big men filling the hallway behind him. Her unblinking eyes studied their faces for a moment, then flicked to something on her side of the partition wall.

  Then she reached out and slapped the laptop shut.

  The monitors went black. She unfolded from her chair and moved to close the door. She wore baggy black cargo pants and a long-sleeved MIT shirt with the sleeves pushed up her forearms.

  “Actually,” she said, “now’s not a good time.”

  Peter stuck his head through the doorway. On the other side of the wall stood a coat rack made of scrap metal with a red jacket draped across the top.

  He saw the Cardinals logo, two birds on a baseball bat.

  Brown flecks of what could only be smashed apple were crusted onto a spot high on the chest.

  18

  Peter stepped past Mac into the doorway.

  “Spark, I’m Peter,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  “Get out,” she said. “I’m not talking to you. I’m working.”

  She tried to push the door shut but he blocked it with his boot. Fear flickered on her face like a signal getting clearer.

  “Spark.” She pushed harder, and Peter had to grab the door to stay put. She was strong and knew how to use her body.

  For a moment he wondered if she had somehow been the shooter, but he remembered the guy being thicker through the torso. Besides, Peter couldn’t exactly see her growing that thick beard.

  “Spark, who are you afraid of?”

  Her voice rose. “Right now, dickhead, I’m afraid of you.”

  “Why don’t you call 911?” Peter asked. “We can straighten all this out.”

  She didn’t answer. He could see the outline of her phone in her front pocket, but he knew she wouldn’t reach for it.

  He set his feet and moved her back, shoes squeaking on the cement floor, until she abruptly released her hold and retreated into the center of the room, fast and fluid on her feet. Inside now, Peter noticed another doorway on the far side of the futon couch, either a storage closet or a second room. The static didn’t like not knowing what was behind that door, but Peter couldn’t get there without letting Spark get behind him. The static didn’t like that, either.

  “Have a seat,” he said, pointing at the cou
ch.

  “Dude, I’m not doing shit,” she said. “I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I want you to leave. Right fucking now.”

  Mac moved in and put a hand on Peter’s shoulder from behind. “Leave her alone, man. It’s time for you to go.”

  Peter heard a thump and the smack of skin and Mac suddenly was squashed face-first against the wall, Lewis’s hand on the back of his neck and one arm twisted up in a wrist lock. Lewis looked at Peter with his eyebrows raised in a question.

  “It’s okay. Let him go.” Peter turned back to Spark. “We don’t want to hurt you. Is it your boyfriend you’re afraid of? Someone else? Whoever it is, we can help. We can protect you.”

  She looked at him, her fear gone into hiding but her contempt like something physical in the room. “I don’t need your protection. I need you to get the hell out of my office.”

  “Ma’am, we’re not going anywhere until you talk to us.”

  She closed her eyes a moment, then blew out her breath. “Fine. Let me get my things and we’ll go sit in the common area.” She scooped up her laptop, wrapped it in the sweatshirt from the couch, and shoved it into a plain black backpack. She pointed at the second door. “My skateboard’s in there.” And before he could move, she opened the door, slipped through, and slammed it shut. He heard the thunk of the deadbolt as she locked it from the other side.

  “Dammit.” Peter looked at Mac, who was rubbing his arm in the corner. “What’s in there?”

  “Her workshop,” Mac said.

  Peter tried the door. It was thick and solid.

  “Is there another way in or out?”