us, can we?”
Luke glanced back at the sobbing boy
“Yeah,” he said. “He’s too sad to lie.”
Luke was convinced: Smits definitely believed everything he’d told them was true. He’d mostly told the truth all along — until Oscar had begun pressuring him to betray Luke, as a way to betray his parents. Smits’s only lies were the ones that had come from other people.
Luke was willing to stand there and try to figure everything out, but Trey elbowed him in the ribs.
“Where’d you get the key to this room?” he asked.
“Oscar gave it to me,” Luke said absentmindedly
“How do we know he hasn’t bugged the whole place?” They asked. “How do we know he isn’t still planning to kill you and Smits?”
Luke stared at his friend. Luke’s vision was starting to go fuzzy around the edges. It was so tempting to give in to that fuzziness, to slump down in a heap and let someone else figure out what to do. But he blinked hard, blinking They and the secret room back into focus. And Nina and Smits.
Most of all Smits.
“Think one of us can figure out how to drive?” Luke asked.
CHAPTER 30
In the end they decided to trust the chauffeur. Joel and John sat in the front with him, ready to overpower him if he tried anything suspicious.
Trey and Luke sat in the first seat in the back, all the papers from Mr. Grant’s desk spread out between them. They had insisted on bringing them. He was methodically reading one paper after the other with a penlight. Occasionally he’d mutter, “This is incredible!” or “Listen to this!” but Luke barely heard him. It was always something financial, something about Mr. Grant’s business. Nothing Luke cared about. Luke just stared straight ahead, thinking.
Nina and Smits sat across from Luke and Trey. Or lay, in Smits’s case. He’d fallen asleep leaning against Nina, but he still whimpered and thrashed about. Several times she had to grab him to keep him from falling off the seat.
Every time that happened, Luke knew he was doing the right thing.
It had been the middle of the night when they started out, so their entire trip had been in darkness. There seemed to be no light at all in the world except in their car. But by the time They finally gave up on the papers and turned off his penlight, the first gleam of dawn had begun creeping over the horizon. Luke stopped staring at Smits and began pressing his face against the window, trying to see something familiar outside. He couldn’t get enough of staring at the landscape around him.
When the car passed a crossroads with nothing but three mailboxes in the midst of a clump of weeds, he suddenly screamed out, “Stop!”
The chauffeur hit the brakes so hard that Smits finally rolled completely off his seat
“Sorry, sir,” the chauffeur said.
“That’s all right,” Luke said. “You can let Smits and me out here.”
“Here?” The man sounded incredulous. Luke saw him looking around at rutted fields stretching all the way to the horizon. To the chauffeur and almost anyone else who might see this scene, it would look like a vast wasteland. The middle of nowhere.
But that wasn’t what Luke saw.
“You can take the others on to Mr. Talbot’s house,” Luke said. “Thanks.”
Luke didn’t wait for the chauffeur to open the door for him. He pushed his way out on his own.
“Come on, Smits,” he said gently, holding the door.
Nina handed the younger boy over as if he were a mere parcel. Still, Smits stood up straight once he was out of the car. Luke saw him glance down at the dried mud streaked across the road, but he didn’t say anything.
“You won’t change your mind?” Trey asked. “You can still come with the rest of us.”
“No,” Luke said. “I’ve got to do it this way”.
He had a feeling Mr. Talbot would disapprove. He was probably being a coward, not going to Mr. Talbot’s house first. Or foolhardy for not discussing everything with Mr. Talbot before making up his mind. But Luke knew now that Mr. Talbot didn’t know everything, either. Mr. Talbot was going to be stunned to learn what Oscar had done. Luke was perfectly willing to let They and Nina break the news.
“Okay,” Trey said hesitantly.
Luke shoved the door shut and turned to Smits.
“Up ahead,” Luke said. “That house. That’s where we’re going.”
They waited until the car drove out of sight, then they began walking. Luke barely managed to keep himself from breaking into a run — he was that eager. But he had the younger boy to think about, and Smits didn’t seem capable of running right now.
Finally they reached the driveway, and Luke could restrain himself no longer. He raced up to the door and pounded.
“Mother! Dad! I’m home!”
The door flew open and Mother stood there, her jaw dropped in astonishment.
“Oh, Lu—,” she began, then swallowed the rest of his name and just buried him in a hug. Then she stopped and held him out from her by the shoulders, much as Mrs. Grant had held him when she was planning all the ways to change him. But Mrs. Grant had been looking for his faults, and Mother was beaming as though everything about him was wonderful.
“You’ve gotten taller and more muscular, and your hair’s darker and — are those braces?” she asked in amazement. She didn’t wait for an answer. Her face clouded suddenly, as though she’d just remembered why he’d had to leave home in the first place. “Is it safe for you to be here?” she asked.
“As safe as anywhere else,” Luke replied steadily. For that, finally, was what he’d concluded. Oscar knew about Hendricks School and Mr. Talbot, the Grants’ house was a Byzantine mess of mixed loyalties — if Luke was going to be in danger, he might as well get to see his family. And he wasn’t going to be staying long enough to endanger them.
“Everything’s different now, Mother,” he said. But he couldn’t say to her, “I just saw two people killed, right before my eyes. I was almost killed myself. And then the murderer hugged me…. How can anything stay the same after that?”
Mother gave him a searching look and opened her mouth as if she was going to ask more. But Smits reached the front door just then, a sad, slow little boy who seemed to have barely enough energy to climb the steps. Luke saw the sympathy playing over his mother’s face. She didn’t even know what had happened to Smits, and she already felt sorry for him.
Good.
“Mother, remember how you always wanted to have four boys?” Luke asked. “Well, I brought you another son. This is Smits. Smits Grant. He is — was — well, he’s my brother now. His parents are dead.”
Automatically Smits held out a hand, and for a single second Luke felt a stab of doubt Mother and Smits looked so wrong together — like pictures cut from two different magazines and haphazardly glued together. Smits, in his fine woolen suit and leather shoes, did not belong with Mother, with her faded housedress and haggard face, her graying hair scooped back into a bun. And what had Luke been thinking, bringing Smits from his mansion to Luke’s family’s house, with its peeling paint and weathered wood? What must Smits think?
Mother ignored Smits’s outstretched hand and drew him into a hug that was every bit as genuine as the one she’d given Luke.
“You’re always welcome here,” she told him.
Then Luke’s dad and older brothers, Matthew and Mark, came out to see what the fuss was about. They weren’t the type to give hugs, but Luke could see the joy and relief in their eyes, even as Matthew punched his arm and Mark joked, “Luke? You couldn’t be Luke. I could always whomp Luke with one hand tied behind my back And
