crumbles into sand, and then we don’t have to worry about walking down. Unless we’re murdered first.”
“As if that’s something you’re worried about,” Gwendolyn said.
“Standing next to you, I am,” Balowsky said. “Why don’t you just get it over with? I’ll even let you have your favorite target.”
He turned his back on her-and then whirled around quickly to see if she was aiming a knife at it.
Gus looked at Shawn. Wasn’t he going to stop this? But Shawn wasn’t paying attention to the bickering lawyers. He didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything outside himself. He stared off into the far distance, the beginnings of a smile on his face.
“Shawn?” Gus said.
“Rushton brought us into the conference room apparently so we could learn what you all were like,” Shawn said. “And you didn’t disappoint. Gwendolyn Shrike attacked immediately, only to retreat when there was clearly no hope for victory. Kirk Savage hid behind legal technicalities. Morton Mathis was scared we’d reveal his real identity. Reggie Balowsky sat back and waited to see who was going to win before he chose a side. And Jade Greenway, poor, sweet Jade Greenway, bravely stood up for us.”
“Bravely!” Gwendolyn almost spat the word. “Is it brave to suck up to your boss?”
Gus stared at Shawn. What was he doing now? What he was saying still seemed like a stall, but there was confidence in his voice and a glint in his eye that hadn’t been there when he started the reveal.
“Not to speak ill of the dead or anything,” Balowsky said.
“The only reason you don’t speak ill of the dead is because you can’t do them any more damage that way,” Gwendolyn said.
“Personally, I’m all in favor of sucking up to the boss,” Shawn said. “Of course, that may have something to do with the fact that I run my own business and I end up sucking up to myself. Which isn’t really as easy as it sounds. Anyway, there’s sucking up and there’s sucking up. It’s one thing to lavish praise on your boss’s new pet detectives. It’s another thing to do it before you even know they exist. This is the point where you ask what I’m talking about.”
If it was, neither Gwendolyn nor Balowsky was taking advantage of the opportunity. They were glaring at each other, unmoving.
“I’ve had enough of you to last a lifetime,” Gwendolyn said. “So if you’re going to try to kill me, go ahead.”
“No point pretending with me,” Balowsky snarled. “We both know I didn’t do it, and that only leaves you. And I’d like to see you try it now.”
Balowsky opened his hand, revealing the Swiss Army knife he had palmed. It was opened to its largest blade, and the three inches of forged steel trembled in Gwendolyn’s direction. Gus didn’t see her move, but somehow she had a large rock in her hand, which she was holding up as a club.
“They seem pretty busy,” Shawn said to Gus. “Maybe you should ask what I’m talking about.”
“Do you know?” Gus said without taking his eyes off the lawyers.
“You should try me and find out,” Shawn said.
The bright tone in Shawn’s voice gave Gus a small hope. Maybe they could get of this with a minimum of bloodshed.
“Okay, Shawn,” Gus said. “What are you talking about?”
“You sure you don’t want to lecture me here about how I always drag these things out and make you ask questions instead of just giving you the answer?” Shawn said. “Because I figure we still have a couple of minutes left.”
“Before what?” Gus said, a shiver of dread going up his spine.
“One question at a time,” Shawn said. “So let’s get back to the first one, and the answer involves Hank Stenberg. Which is really remarkable, because this is not the first time that kid has helped solve one of our most baffling cases, and he really is kind of a tard. But if he hadn’t written that Wikipedia entry on us, we never could have figured out the truth.”
“Why, did he put the solution to our final case in there?” Gus said, beginning to wonder if Shawn had simply lost his mind.
“How could he?” Shawn said. “We couldn’t tell him what was going on in the mountains because we have no way to contact him, so he’d have to be up here with us to know about it. And even if he was, he couldn’t access Wikipedia, because there’s no cell service and no Wi-Fi up here. So how could anyone access Wikipedia in a place where there’s no cell service and no Wi-Fi?”
Gus tried to slog through the layers of verbiage Shawn was spewing out to find the point. He even managed to keep himself from chiding Shawn for the inappropriate use of the slur “tard” as he searched for the point. What difference could it possibly make to point out that there was no Wi-Fi up here, especially since no one had a cell phone? And yet Shawn seemed to think there was something significant about the availability of Wikipedia in the mountains.
Something began to click in Gus’ brain. It wasn’t here Shawn was talking about. It was about receiving information where there shouldn’t be any signal. He knew this meant something, but he couldn’t quite place it.
He turned to Shawn, expecting to see the triumphant grin that would accompany Gus’ admission that he needed Shawn to carry the explanation out another step. But Shawn wasn’t smiling at him. In fact, he wasn’t looking anywhere near Gus. He wasn’t looking at the lawyers, either, even though they seemed to be frozen in place.
Shawn was staring off into the woods, his attention riveted to a space between two large trees.
“What are you looking at?” Gus asked.
Shawn didn’t take his eyes off the space. “I think I was wrong.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” Gus said. “You haven’t explained what you were talking about, so I’ll never know if you change your mind now.”
“Not about the killer’s identity,” Shawn said. “I’m right about that. But when I said we had a couple of minutes, that was all wrong.”
Gus felt a flash of fear run up his spine. “Couple of minutes until what?”
“And I was wrong about something else,” Shawn said. “And this is the big one. I told you to fight your fear. I told you not to give in to panic. That was absolutely backwards. You need to panic. You need to panic right now.”
“I don’t understand,” Gus said.
“Look around you, Gus,” Shawn said sternly. “There’s nothing here but trees and sun and mountains and cliffs. You’re alone in the wilderness and there’s no one who can help.”
“Stop it,” Gus said. The panic was rising now. Even though Gus was clearly not alone, his brain was having an increasingly difficult time convincing his muscles of that fact.
“It’s your dream finally coming true,” Shawn said. “You’re going to die and there’s nothing you or I or those two freaky lawyers can do to stop it.”
Gus squirmed as a spasm of terror flowed through him. His feet pawed at the ground as if trying to shake off the shackles of his will and start running blindly. “What are you doing?”
“There’s nothing any of us can do to stop it,” Shawn said.
Gus’ head was spinning, or maybe it was the ground. He tried desperately to hold on to reason. “Stop what?”
“That.” Shawn pointed at the gap in the trees. For a moment, Gus saw nothing. And then it was there. Just a flash, barely enough to settle on his retinas, but Gus saw it and he understood what Shawn had been trying to tell him.
Just a flash, but that one flash told him everything he needed to know. That one flash of bright, brilliant green.
Chapter Fifty-Five
