He glanced down at the cellphone sitting on the sofa beside him. It was a burner. Only one person had the number.
He picked it up.
“You have a collect call from the Metropolitan Correctional Center. Will you accept the charges?”
The hacker hadn’t heard about Aden’s arrest, but that had to be who was calling. Did this mean the plan was off? He hoped so.
“Yes, I’ll accept the charges.”
There was a click and then silence.
The hacker stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at the city while he waited to be connected to Aden. His heart sank as he realized he had probably already been connected, that Aden was sitting there quietly on the other end, and he followed the protocol.
“Betty, is that you?”
Another five seconds of silence. Then there was a single long beep, so loud he had to hold the phone away from his ear. It was the sound of someone holding down a key on the phone’s keypad. And that was followed by more silence.
“I think you have the wrong number,” the hacker said, and then hung up.
So much for the possibility that Aden’s arrest had put a stop to his plan. They were still on.
Just do what you have to do. It’s the deal you made.
CHAPTER 31
“Why didn’t you tell Olivia about Dylan?” Olin said, when Connor hung up the phone.
Connor stared at him incredulously. “Dylan’s dad just saw us breaking and entering. The police are probably at his house right now taking a statement.”
“But we didn’t steal anything.”
Connor shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road. “If we told Olivia, she would have to go and talk to her,” he said flatly. “And if she did that, Dylan’s father would likely be there, since she’s underage. My name would inevitably come up. Maybe yours would, too. And if he figured out who we were, maybe looked us up online or something, we’d be fucked.” He turned quickly to Olin and then back to the road. “Besides, what good would it do? It was like you said—she’s just a kid.”
He could tell from Olin’s expression that Olin didn’t like the idea of keeping anything from the police. But Olin had to know he was right.
Neither of them said much else until they pulled into the parking lot across the street from Deerfield Park. Olin’s car was still there.
“I’ll talk to you soon,” Olin said as he got out.
“Sure,” Connor agreed. But he wasn’t sure Olin meant it, and he wasn’t sure he did, either. Having handed everything over to the police that they could, what more was there for them to do? What reason did they have to meet again? At first, their shared pain had seemed like the kind of thing that might bind them together as friends for life. But maybe that was just because they had a common goal. A quest, as it were.
For a little while there, Connor had felt like he might be in control of his destiny (and, by extension, his parents’). Olin had certainly felt the same way.
Now, as he watched Olin get into his BMW and pull away, he was starting to think the whole thing might have just been a way to distract himself from the possibility that he would never see his parents again.
He had told himself his parents were alive. But his evidence for that had been flimsy, hadn’t it? Basing his assumption on the finger his mother wore her wedding band was desperate reasoning. Assuming the kidnapper had killed Olin’s parents so the police would think Connor’s parents were dead seemed equally desperate.
He drove back to Austin’s building, barely going the speed limit. He was in no hurry to be anywhere, and felt like even the simple act of turning the steering wheel took all the will he could muster. At one point, coming up to a red light, he thought about not stopping at all. It was a busy intersection. Cars crossed at forty-five, maybe fifty, miles an hour. With no one in front of him, he could sail straight into it, and there was a decent chance he wouldn’t make it out.
But he could also end up paralyzed, and his situation would immediately become worse than it was now. Dead parents. Dead body. All he would have left would be his brain—and all he would be able to do then would be to mourn the loss of both.
Besides, his parents wouldn’t want him to do that. They would be disappointed in him if they knew what he was thinking. You don’t give up on life just because things are hard.
Austin picked up on the change in his mood almost as soon as Connor walked through the door. “It’s going to be all right,” he said. Then, perhaps because he didn’t know what else to do, he ordered them a pizza, calling it comfort food, and put on a movie titled Get Him to the Greek.
It was the type of comedy that might have made Connor laugh a month ago. Tonight he could barely focus on it, and halfway through, he simply stopped trying.
“I’m going to bed,” he told Austin.
Austin seemed disappointed but didn’t put up much of a fight.
CHAPTER 32
Olivia couldn’t sleep. Not well, anyway. She woke up every hour or so and checked the alarm clock to see how close she was to morning. At four a.m., she decided she had slept as much as she was going to. She got up, took a shower. She was anxious to get started.
The US Customs and Border Protection agency still wouldn’t be open for several hours. She was stuck unless she wanted to skip straight to calling the Czech police to see if they knew anything about Matthew Jones. What the hell? Why not?
These days, the US Customs and Border Protection agency digitally logged travel to and from the county. That wasn’t being done when Matthew had gone to the Czech Republic, so it was
