It’s a longer drive than I was expecting, but no one seems to want to talk, especially not me. My dad acts like he wants to say something a couple of times, but he takes a deep breath and then remains silent and goes back to typing. Finally, he exhales with purpose.
“So I’ve been thinking about what you told me, Pats, about how you had some connection to everyone on your list. Do you know any other kids who had a hit list?”
“I did,” Chance pipes up.
Rex just nods, and Bea manages to look vaguely interested.
“Good,” my dad says, looking at each of them in turn. “Did all of you get through your lists? All ten names?”
They all nod.
“And did any of you know anyone on your list or have any connection with them whatsoever, that you know of?”
“Nope,” Chance says. And he’s trying to sound like it doesn’t mean anything, but his hands are tight and white on the wheel. It’s funny—we’ve been together almost a week, and none of us have ever talked about how we lived through it.
“Me neither,” Rex says.
Bea shakes her head.
My dad continues, looking grim. “So what that tells us is that Patsy is different. Now we just have to figure out why. One or two connections would be understandable, considering that everyone’s list is confined to their immediate area. But nine out of ten is . . .”
“A sick joke,” I say.
“Do you know anyone at Valor, pip-squeak? Did you have an account there? Did your mom work at any banks?” He stares pointedly at the paint on my hands. “Were you doing graffiti before the takeover?”
I shake my head. “My checking account is at the credit union. I’ve never set foot in Valor. Mom didn’t even bank with them. She worked for some businesses downtown, but I don’t think any of them were banks. And, no, I didn’t do graffiti until I had a reason to.”
“There has to be some connection.”
I glare. “Um, like the fact that my grandfather and father both worked for Valor?”
“Burn,” Chance mutters.
My dad sighs. “I quit a long time ago, and your grandfather is dead.”
“Still. Doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me. Did you piss off someone there? Someone who knew about me?”
“The only person who knew about you,” he says carefully, “was my brother, Ash.”
My eyes go hot. When I blink, I see Ash’s dead eyes, my eyes, my dad’s eyes, Cannon eyes, staring back at me.
Repress, repress, repress.
“I think you actually mean ‘suppress,’ ” Bea says, her voice cold and distant. “ ‘Repress’ means you do it automatically, but ‘suppress’ suggests you’re trying really hard. It’s not working, is it?”
I didn’t even realize I’d said it out loud.
I ignore that and attend to my dad’s last statement. “My picture was on Ash’s mantel. Maybe someone else saw it? My name was on the back.”
He shoots back with, “Unless it included your last name and the words ‘my beloved niece,’ I still don’t see the connection. You saw Ash’s house. It’s not like visiting Valor dignitaries were stopping in for tea.”
“But you told me your real name. Maybe someone who knew . . .”
He holds up a hand. “Yeah, I told you. Because I knew who you were. No one else knows my real name or that I have a daughter.” When I roll my eyes at him, he adds, “Yeah, okay, so the entire Crane family knows my name. But for all that they’re assholes, they’re against Valor. They weren’t involved in the process of selecting assassins and sending them out after debtors. That was all Valor. Most of what the Cranes know about Valor is from intel I brought them. I’ve got a list of aliases a mile long, and most of my business is done on the darknet, anonymous and hidden by layers of misdirection.”
My head drops, and I look at my cheap, stained shoes. I’ve had enough of this. I am so sick of pretending that everything is fine. “Look, the connection is either you or me. And as I was just a normal, poor, fatherless bastard living in a crappy house, going to a crappy school, and working a crappy job, and you’re the heir to the Valor throne and an Internet hacker or whatever, I’m kind of guessing it’s more about you than me. So maybe stop being a defensive dick and, I don’t know, ask your hacker friends about it? Because I’m too busy trying to figure out how to get my dog back to figure out if maybe I shortchanged a customer at the pizza restaurant and it began this nightmare.”
My dad, this strange man, looks down and flexes his fingers over the keyboard in his lap. His mouth opens and snaps closed before he shakes his head and says, “Okay, honey. Okay.”
Soon Chance is pulling into another unfinished neighborhood, all lovely streets and empty foundations and streetlights that were fancy until someone busted out their glass. It reminds me of the one where Wyatt tracked me down to kill me and then ended up saving my life, back when I still thought I could just curl up and go to sleep alone in an empty lot without any consequences. My dad points down a houseless street, just an asphalt edge fading to gravel and dirt, and Chance slows and carefully bumps down the long, winding drive to a house hidden in the woods, big enough to rival Château Tuscano. We’re all quiet, and I imagine everyone is hunting for signs that it’s already occupied. But when we get to the circular drive, there are no other cars and no lights, not even the bounce of flashlights or the flicker of a fire in the fireplace.
“Is it safe?” Rex asks.
My dad closes his laptop, hands it to me, hands the snake terrarium to Rex, and pulls out his Glock. “Keep the car running, pointed out, and I’ll go make sure.”
“Do you want backup?” Chance asks.
My dad pauses in his open door. “From here on out, let’s just assume that if someone’s going to do something stupid and get shot, it’s me. Agreed?”
“It’s your funeral,” Chance says, all flippant, but when he sees my face, he mutters, “Sorry.”
Wyatt tries to get out of the burgundy sedan behind us, and my dad stops him with a hand on the door, motioning for him to stay inside. They get into a whispered argument, and I’m guessing my mom’s calm hand on Wyatt’s shoulder is what keeps him in the driver’s seat. Before I realize what I’m doing, I unbuckle and bolt for the other car. When I open the back door on Gabriela’s side, she gives me a weird look, then nods and gets out, heading to the other car. I slide in to take her place, careful not to bump Kevin’s leg, and put a hand on my mom’s shoulder, which she covers with her own. I couldn’t stay away from her a moment longer.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
She turns partially in the seat, and she doesn’t look good, but her smile is real. “I’ve been better, but I’ve been a lot worse. At least I haven’t started the chemo. Yet.”
I lean forward, hug her around the seat, and put my cheek against her shoulder, and she pats me. I didn’t realize how tense I was in the car with my dad, but this . . . I know how to do this. I know who I am when I’m with my mom, taking care of her. I tell myself she doesn’t know what I’ve been through in the last week, everything that I’ve done. Even if she tried to guess, even if Wyatt’s already told her some of it, there’s no way she would get it right. To her I’m just Patsy. And there’s a comfort in that. The look in her eyes is still one of love.
For now.
“What about you, honey? How are you? Did you do . . . ?”
There’s no good way to phrase it, is there?
Did you go kill your ten people like the bank told you to?
Yes, Mom. I sure did.
“I took care of it,” I say.
“Have you been back to the house?”
I look away. Right, as it happens, at Wyatt. At the tendons in his neck, standing out, and the curls of his blond hair over his ears. He’s looking straight forward, hands clenched on the wheel of the idling car. Like he’s trying to pretend this isn’t happening. I know that look well.
“Yeah. I’m really sorry, but . . . they blew it up.”
Her head turns to me slowly. “Who did what now?”
I rub my eyes. How much does she need to know? And why does it matter? She owed more on it than it was worth anyway.
“Our house blew up. They had Mrs. Hester waiting to kill whoever showed up first. She tried to shoot me. And they told her to go in the house if she saw me, and when she did . . .”
“None of this makes sense,” my mom says, sounding less like she’s in her forties and more like an old, tired, confused woman. “Why would you blow up a perfectly good house?”
“Nothing Valor does makes sense,” Wyatt says.
“My dad said it did,” Heather says. “It’s all based on deadweight and how far in the hole you are. It actually costs them less to blow up your house and collect on the insurance than to keep trying to get you to pay it. I’m betting that all the houses that exploded will actually be categorized as acts of God. They’ll have the insurance adjustors in their pocket. And it frees up resources.”
“Um, what?” I say.
“My dad was a statistician. Probably why Valor targeted him. He’d done some CPA work for one of the smaller banks that Valor subsumed—and for the Cranes, of course. That’s why I went to Crane Hollow after. He was writing a study of the subprime mortgage collapse and had sold a book on the politics of debt.”
“Did he have debt himself?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Nothing unusual. A thirty-year mortgage. Valor just wanted him quiet. Permanently.” She looks out the window and wipes away tears. It’s getting pretty hard to hate her.
“So, Mom. I have a question for you. Did you ever work for Valor? Or do any business with them?”
She sighs and taps her lip. “Hmm. I never worked for them. I filled out an application once, but they never called back.” She pulls her purse into her lap and digs through it, releasing the scent of her perfume into the air. “I guess this is all I have,” she says finally, handing me a credit card. It’s bluish green and has Valor’s logo on it. “It had such a low interest rate that I thought it could help.”
I turn the card over in my hands, and even though I’ve held guns and bombs this week, the unremarkable piece of plastic feels like the most dangerous thing I’ve ever touched. On the front it says in red DIAMOND ELITE, with my mom’s name beneath that. I flip it over and find her signature in the signature strip and all the usual things I guess you’d expect in a credit card. It doesn’t say, “Owner can be murdered at any time,” anywhere on it. The closest thing I can find is the phrase “By activating this card, user agrees to the complete terms of service outlined in the credit card application.”
That line leaves a lot to the imagination these days.
“Wait. Heather. Is this trackable?”
She looks up, eyes red. “What, the credit card?”
“Leon mentioned getting rid of cards at the meeting. Can Valor use it to find us?”
I put the card in her waiting hand, and she looks it over. “Only if you use it. Leon might’ve lied a bit to keep people in line.” She hands it back.
“How high was the balance on this card?” I ask.
My mom looks away, her cheeks red. “I don’t remember.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Wyatt says. “It’s over.”
“But I’m trying to figure out why they picked me. Why I knew everyone on my list.”
“You knew everyone on your list?” Heather asks, suddenly interested.
I lean back and pull my gun out of my waistband so I can slump. The gold letters are starting to rub off a little. “I mean, I didn’t know them personally. But they were all connected to me or Valor somehow.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that before,” she says, looking troubled.
“So what does it mean?” my mom asks.
My dad appears at the top of the grand staircase and motions us inside.
“It means that I’m special,” I say. “And not because of my test scores. Let’s go.”
I get out of the car, grab my backpack, and head for the open door.
21.
The house smells like incense and BO, which is not good, but at least it doesn’t smell like blood and bleach. It’s kind of amazing how low my standards have fallen in just a week. There’s no electricity, but there’s a battery-operated camping lantern in each room and jugs of dirty-looking water sitting beside the toilets.
“Cisterns out back to flush the toilets without city water. It’s kind of genius,” Rex says.
My dad’s already found a worn piece of paper hidden in one of the huge, fancy kitchen cabinets that explains how to tap into a neighbor’s Wi-Fi. He’s on the floor of one empty bedroom, legs out in front of him, typing away. I’ve had a dad for twelve hours, and I already know what it’s like to be neglected for work.
Our shoes make strange echoes in a house that’s big enough for twelve people but was probably just haunted by two people who constantly planned new renovations. The walls are all high and white, the floors wood and stone. It is not a soft place. Even though it’s still morning, I feel like I’m supposed to claim a bedroom and go to sleep, because what else is there to do in an empty house? Without a mission or a list or any way to access media, sleep seems like the most interesting option anyway.
I feel like a little ghost, going from room to room, looking for something that isn’t there. In the basement, there are rows of chairs facing an empty wall, bolted down like a movie theater. There’s also a bar and an entire apartment that’s bigger than my old house. Most importantly and strangely, though, is the pool table. I guess it must’ve been too big and heavy to move, or maybe the house was just built around it, because it’s massive. And even in the post-Valor world, even though the people who lived here must’ve fled months ago, every cue and ball is still here, along with the rack and a row of blue chalk.
“Want to play?”
I spin around, mouth open. Wyatt snuck up on me, which makes no sense until I see that he’s in his socks. That’s the kind of guy he is—he would take off his shoes in an empty, foreclosed house so that he wouldn’t mess up the floors.
“You don’t want to play me at pool,” I say, a beat too late for it to sound relaxed.
A ghost of his old smile. “Except maybe I do.”
I stare at him, and I want nothing more than to run into his arms, except that it won’t be the same if Matty’s not slobbering all over us. My anger has cooled, but I’m not ready for hugs yet. I guess we can play pool. It’s better than talking, at any rate.
“I’ll rack.”
He tips his head to me as I gather up the balls and put them in order, rolling the rack and snapping them into place before backing away. He’s already got his cue and is chalking it up and rolling the cue ball under his hand in exactly the place I like to break from. Just when I think he’s still rich-boy, honor-society Wyatt, he does something to remind me that he’s also smashed-a-window-with-my-bass-and-watched-my-friend-OD Wyatt. His break is flawless and sharp, and the balls rocket around the felt. He pockets a stripe and a solid.
“Stripes,” he calls, and suddenly he’s all business as he moves around the table.
“Did I hear pool?” Chance calls, barreling down the stairs.
Wyatt turns to face him. He always seems a foot taller and wider when he stands like that, and whatever Chance sees on his face sends him right back upstairs, shouting, “Never mind, bro.”
Wyatt misses his next shot and steps back with a small bow to me. I take an easy shot and pocket the two.
“So,” he says.
“So,” I say. I miss my next shot and step back.
“So I’m going to assume that things are going to be weird until we get Matty back.”
A small smile tugs at my lips at the word “until.” “You learn quick.”
“When I pay attention, yeah. But I know I won’t feel okay until we have her back, either. So how are we going to do it?” He misses his next shot, too, and it was an easy one.
I miss my
shot and scuff the felt. “I just can’t believe you let her go. She’s the closest thing I have to—”
“That doesn’t work anymore, Patsy. Your mom and dad are in this house. Like, right upstairs.” He points at the ceiling, angry. “I get that Matty’s important. She’s important to me too. But how would you be treating me if your mom had died in the explosion but I’d brought our dog? You’re not being fair here.”
Panic clutches my chest, and I double over with my hands on the pool table. It feels like there’s a sucking hole in my gut, as if all the horrible feelings I’ve been repressing are rising up like an overflowing toilet and choking me. I just want to hug my dog. Matty can make this better. But what if they kill Matty? Leon would do it. I know this instinctually: Leon would kill her for nothing. I can’t even imagine where I’d be if my mom had died in the explosion. Either of the explosions, Klein house or Crane house. But that doesn’t make it any easier to tamp down the panic.
My heart is hot and hammering, my stomach a cold rock, and the world goes fuzzy and starts spinning. I think I might be as angry at myself as I am at Wyatt. If I’d just told him to grab Matty and run, or if I’d never planted those stupid nut cans, maybe we’d all be together. But now Leon is furious, and it’s all my fault. And he knows it.
“I think I’m having a heart attack,” I whisper, and Wyatt wraps his arms around me, his chest against my back and his cheek against my hair like he’s a second skin, like he’s armor.
“You’re not having a heart attack. You’re having a panic attack. It’s the same thing that happens at night. You just have to breathe deep, in through the nose and hold it and out through your mouth. You can do this.”
“Panic attack?” I squeak. I can barely draw in any air at all.
He lifts me like a baby, one arm under my knees and the other around my shoulders, and sits down on the ground with his back against the carved wood of the pool table. I manage to swallow down a breath, but my heart is still beating in my ears, my eyes darting madly, my thoughts showing me all the horrible things I’ve done. All the horrible things I’ve seen, all the things that might have happened if I’d pulled the trigger a second later or aimed a little worse. All the horrible things Leon could be doing to Matty right now, her tongue flopping bloody on the ground like he promised.
Strike Page 25