He found a faded pair of movie tickets to The Usual Suspects, bound together by a rubber band. A drawing of a turkey he had made in preschool by tracing his hand. A plastic bag with baby teeth. High school yearbooks for both of his parents. The plane tickets he had seen before but hadn’t bothered to look at. A diploma from Columbia University with his mother’s name on it.
It all seemed like sentimental garbage to Connor.
He picked up the plane tickets. They were for Kimberly Jones and Frank Callahan. Destination: Prague. Connor knew his mother had researched her ancestry years ago and traced her lineage to the Czech Republic. He wasn’t surprised she had visited. She liked to travel.
He tossed everything back into the box, slid the box back into the closet.
There was a small bedroom on the first floor that Connor’s father had converted into an office. It had been Connor’s room before he had moved to the attic. That was his next stop.
He rifled through his father’s filing cabinet and found nothing of interest. Nor did he find anything in the desk drawers, the closet, or on the bookshelf.
Connor turned on the computer. At one time, this machine had sat in the living room, been shared by the family. That was when Connor had been little and his parents had wanted to monitor his online activity. He still remembered the password. Rickety Rat. It was a little-known character in a children’s book, but one he had loved.
Once he was in, he reset his father’s password and logged in again.
He examined the documents on the desktop and scoured the folders marked as “Frequent” by Windows. Nothing and nothing. Then he fired up Outlook and went through that as well.
That likewise appeared to be a big nothing burger until he opened the trash folder. There were only three emails in it. Two were spam. One was from a Roland Cooper.
Subject: Payment
Body: Let me know when and where you want to meet.
Connor read the message twice, and then asked himself the obvious: What payment?
He thought about the envelope of cash he had found the night of his parents’ abduction, still stashed away in the back of his sock drawer. Could this have something to do with that? It made more sense than anything else so far, so he decided that yes, maybe it did.
He needed to find out more. If this had something to do with the money he had found the night of the abduction, then was it so much of a stretch to think it might even be related to the abduction itself?
He looked up the name “Roland Cooper” online but found too many results for them to be meaningful. Okay. That was fine. The online search was largely reflex. It was not as if there was going to be a webpage called “The Nefarious Activity of Roland Cooper.” If Connor wanted to know what the payment was about (and if there really was anything nefarious going on), he would have to find a way to meet the man in person. A phone call wouldn’t cut it. Roland could just hang up. And even if he didn’t, Connor wanted to be able to look him in the eye so he could judge whether Roland was telling the truth.
He checked the Sent folder to see what his father had said in response but found nothing. Then there was a knock on the door. Connor looked at the time on the computer. It was eight-thirty a.m.
They’re early, he thought.
Isaiah Cook entered the house first. “This is going to be great,” he said, with more enthusiasm than Connor felt was appropriate.
Behind him came a throng of strangers. They hauled in cameras, audio equipment, and lights. Isaiah rattled off a handful of names as they passed, identifying the ones he felt were important. Connor didn’t catch any of them.
Suddenly a man was in his face. And although Connor hadn’t caught his name either, at least he remembered Isaiah had identified him as the director.
“So, let’s just get this straight. The guy came in through the front door. And then what happened? Exactly.”
Connor took a step back. He was overwhelmed and was starting to wonder if this whole thing was a mistake. All of these people in the house—his mom and dad wouldn’t like it. He didn’t like it. Connor wasn’t a people person, and these kinds of people—the ones who delighted in (not to mention profited from) other people’s tragedy—were the worst. But, he reminded himself, he had agreed to do this for a reason. And even if he hadn’t, he also felt like he was stuck now, so he did his best to be helpful.
“He attacked my parents, put them in his van, and took off. I didn’t see much. I was upstairs when it happened. My bedroom is in the attic.”
The director made a face. “Yes, but you heard something. You saw something. According to the police report, you saw a van pull up on the lawn, right?”
Connor nodded.
“Okay. Let’s start there.”
“I’m sorry, but what do you need to know all this for?”
“The reenactment, of course.”
Connor should have known that. Uncovered always did reenactments. Hell, Isaiah had told him they were going to do a reenactment when he’d called back. Part of him must still be thinking about
