White Space Season 2

call, they won’t be able to crack the encryption.”
    Milo took the cell, staring at it as he turned it in his left hand.
    “It holds its charge for weeks, too, so you can leave it on. I set it to vibrate, so nobody will hear it ring if I call. OK?”
    “OK, yeah” Milo said, taking the cell and feeling the tiniest bit like he was in one of his favorite comics, Dark Agents of the Damned .
    He opened the truck door, then handed the gun back to Houser, thrilled to be rid of it. “Thanks for saving my ass back there.”
    “Anytime,” Houser said with a smile Milo couldn’t help but like. “See you around.”
    Milo got out of the truck, eager to get behind a closed door where he could finally dig into his arm, probably with a fork.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 3 — Jon Conway

    Jon stood on the balcony, enjoying the cool evening breeze as twilight wrapped the sky in a blooming violet. He stared into his palm, waiting for his agent Marty to reappear on the cell. As he waited, Jon looked into the well-lit living room on the other side of the glass doors, watching as Cassidy and Emma snuggled beneath a big, red blanket on the largest section of the couch, Cassidy reading one of her niece’s books out loud.
    They were so comfortable together, close-knit, like the family they were, and had been for nearly a decade before Jon made it back to the island. Standing outside in a tangle of shadows, he felt like an intruder, eavesdropping on a life that didn’t belong to him — a family that wasn’t really his.
    While Jon had grown closer to both Cassidy and Emma, closer than he’d felt to anyone since Sarah, there were still too many rough edges to catalogue. The three of them were absent the shared history which allowed one to simply be with others. Though it was no one’s fault, and simply the way things were, Jon felt more like a guest, or a distant relative, than truly part of Emma’s family.
    Standing outside in the dark, watching Emma’s genuine glee with her aunt, he wondered if being a father — or any of the stuff that went along with it — would ever feel natural rather than forced. Jon wondered if Emma would ever feel as close to him as she seemed with Cassidy. Perhaps most of all, he wondered if Cassidy would ever open herself to him, or whether she would always harbor their distance, with Sarah’s ghost haunting the good which hung between them.
    Marty’s sudden voice snapped his attention back to the glass. “OK, I’m back, Jonny. So, what am I telling the Maris Brothers?”
    “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head even though he was draped in shadows and Marty couldn’t see him well. “If they can’t wait to shoot, then I guess you’ll have to tell them to find someone else. I can’t give them an answer more definitive than that.”
    “You have to, Jonny, at least if you want this. And you better fucking want this! Black Nova isn’t a franchise. It’s the franchise right now. Five fucking pictures, minimum. And I’d bet my commission they split the last movie into three goddamn pics. This is the Big One, Jonny, bigger than Darkness Everlasting , and it’s not coming from a shit book. The critics want to love you. Black Nova and the Maris Brothers will make it easy.”
    Jon shivered with want, then shrugged off the part of him that was hungry to make Black Nova . He had wanted to make the flick ever since he read the books, then wanted it more than anything when he heard it was the Maris Brothers’ next project, even begged Marty to get him a sit down, which Jon had never done before. Still, as much as he wanted it, Jon longed to be a good father more.
    “The only reason you’re getting this offer right now is because Cooper Ford is a fucking idiot. Plow hookers and snort blow all you want, but if you do them both at once and get caught, you can’t be surprised when the studio gets ice on their feet.”
    Marty paused, waiting for Jon to say something — anything — then finally pleaded through the silence.
    “This is a golden opportunity, Jonny, and I really, really think you should take it. I know you don’t need the paycheck, but if you care about your career then this is your best possible move. You don’t say no to Black Nova , or to the Maris Brothers, not unless you’re content being the answer to a trivia question years from now. ‘Hey, did you know who was up for the lead role in the Black Nova series after Cooper Ford got busted with two hookers and a quarter pound