Page 69 of The Best Trick

We pulled to the side of the road just down from the house, keeping it in view.

“Visiting a friend?” Zeus speculated. “Who could it be?”

We watched her take keys from her jacket and unlock the door. “A very good friend,” Thor said.

“Man friend, maybe,” I mused. “And this is their love nest?”

“Is anybody else thinking we might find Harold and Doris inside here?” Zeus asked.

“Excuse me?” I perked up right there. “What?”

“Just a hunch,” he said.

“That would be amazing,” I said.

Zeus was on his phone. “This place is a rental. It's managed by a rental company.” Zeus tucked his phone away. “Odin. You and me.”

Zeus and Odin slipped out of the car. I watched them disappear up the side of the house, using bushes as cover.

“What if this is it?” Thor asked. “What if the dog is in there? Can you imagine?”

“That would be amazing,” I said, leaning back and smiling over at him. “We get the dog. We make the trade for the tackle bag. Clear your names. Get pardoned. Being on the run ends.”

“It has to be the end,” he said. He sounded almost desperate.

“Well, if it’s not the end, we’ll figure it out,” I said. “Like we always do.”

“We're not figuring it out, though, that's the problem,” Thor said. “Nothing’s changing. Nothing’s letting up. We can't go on like this forever—you know that, right?”

I couldn’t help but think about what Odin had said. That Thor was desperate for the distraction of doctoring. That he’d never gotten over killing that man way back when. “We’re a family. We’re always home when we’re together.”

“It’s not right that we live like this,” he said.

“I love our life,” I said. “We’re here for each other. To have a family who is behind you no matter what—not everybody has that.” I don’t know, I was hoping maybe he’d open up.

He shook his head.

“We help each other—that’s what we’re about. You especially.”

He sniffed in a way that suggested I was being full of shit or something.

“Don’t even,” I said. “You’re a healer. It’s your whole thing.”

“I guess.”

“When did you know that was your thing?” I asked him.

He sighed, faraway gaze out the windshield. “As long as I can remember, I guess.”

“That long?” I prompted.

He simply nodded.

“My first memory is feeling shy in a sandbox,” I said, hoping that would encourage him to share. I know he grew up rough, but he rarely talked about it. Medical school, yes, but not his boyhood.

“My first memory is saving a spider,” he said. “Or more like, crying and utterly freaking out when I realized my mom was about to kill it. She had to take it outside in a Tupperware to get me to stop crying.”

“Oh my god,” I whispered, grinning.

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