“You’ve got one chance to make this good, James. Explain why I’m standing here looking at your sorry mug in my daughter’s bedroom at three in the morning.”
Jamie stammered. The man who once compared Jamie to Dennis the Menace and predicted a stint in the state penal system, seemed more than the equal to Iggy’s killers. His breaths shortened. He panicked.
Sammie came to his aid, grabbing her father by the arm.
“Daddy, please hear him out. He said he saw horrible things tonight. Incredible things.”
Walt turned and winked. “Don’t worry, Pumpkin. I’m not going to kill him.” He asked Sammie to back off then inspected Jamie’s clothes. “Are you wearing my daughter’s things?”
Jamie and Sammie shared an awkward glance. She shrugged. “Yes, Daddy. He had blood all over him. Something happened. Please let go of Jamie and hear him out.”
Walt did as she asked but told Sammie to get her mother. “I can handle this, Pumpkin.”
Sammie gave Jamie the same reassuring smile he didn’t trust the last time he saw it. She nodded and left the room. Her father saw the bloody clothes and backed away.
“Sit down, James. My daughter seems to think you have a story to share. I’m listening.”
Jamie pieced his thoughts together. Before he began, he apologized.
“Mr. Huggins, first of all, I know you think I’m a major screw-up … and OK, yeah, I ain’t gonna deny it. But I didn’t come here to take advantage of Sammie or …”
“Give it a rest, James. I realize you didn’t come here for Samantha, because you know very well that if you had, I’d string you up from the lowest branch on the tallest tree. Now get on with your story. I heard something about blood. Time is wasting.”
He spared no details. Walt Huggins never interrupted, although Jamie saw him furrow an eyebrow at the mention of Iggy Horne’s death. Walt checked his watch as Jamie reached the conclusion. Walt stepped away, his back turned to Jamie.
As Walt turned and said, “You’re safe,” Jamie heard the scratching again, the same as in the woods. It sounded muffled, as if outside the window. Not now, he thought. Please not now.
“I know what to do,” Walt said, his voice intermingled with the growing chorus that steadily morphed into a symphony of crickets. “We’ll figure this out together, James. James?”
He lost track of Walt’s words as the shrill song returned. He put his hands to his ears, ignoring Walt’s demands to pay attention. Jamie stepped toward the window. The crickets were everywhere, millions of them coating the glass, invisible to the naked eye but too close to be denied. The window cracked, the tiniest sliver piercing the pane like lightning in reverse.
He saw her out of the corner of his eyes. Lydia sat on an easy chair, her legs crossed. She nodded as she smiled, then her eyes darted back across the room, looking behind Jamie. Her smile disappeared.
He felt a thud against the base of his skull and dropped into a flash of white light.
10
3:15 a.m.
B EN SLOWED THE Dodge as he approached his apartment. He studied every visible detail, looking for any unusual shadows beneath the streetlights. Jamie left his second-floor window open – no surprise, since the heat must have been stifling. The AC had not worked for days.
Terror snatched him. Ben double-checked the clip in his pistol and took a deep breath. Adrenaline rushed forward. Ben hadn’t felt such an overwhelming sense of fear in two years. The pistol shook in his hand, but he knew he had to go inside. He wouldn’t find Jamie, and he assumed the traitors already tore it apart. But he remembered Iggy’s final plea. Hope for the third option.
Inside, he found the front door open. He held his weapon with firm aim and focus. He glanced into Jamie’s bedroom, which was a confusion of disorganized possessions that represented the life of a 17-year-old boy. Ben couldn’t remember the last time he’d come into this room just to sit down and chat with Jamie, to be the man his parents would have expected.
In the bathroom, he took a handful of aspirin. Then he grabbed a pocket knife, dragged his frayed couch away from the living room wall and pried open a one-inch-square section of wood. He reached into the hole and felt a tiny envelope. Ben opened it and allowed a flash drive to fall in his hand. He wrapped his fingers around the compact metal device, which was the perfect size for a key ring but carried forty gigabytes of data, and breathed a deep sigh of relief.
Ben wanted to show this to Jamie for so long, but he never found the right time, knowing Jamie couldn’t accept these contents until he was told the truth about everything else. Ben didn’t know if he’d have enough time, but he had to find Jamie before anyone else and explain.
Ben was ready to leave when his phone rang.
He heard the granite tone of Walt Huggins. “He’s safe, Sheridan. I have him.”
Unseen weight fell from Ben’s shoulders. “I’ve been calling. What took you so long?”
“Unexpected business. I’ll need your help for that. As for James, we’re en route to the safe house. Twenty minutes out. Are you drunk?”
“What …? No, Huggins. I’ve had a bad night, that’s all.”
“We all have. Would have been less bad if you had stayed around to protect James.”
“Please, I already feel enough like a schmuck. Did you know the others betrayed us?”
“I know about
