by Jason Parent
Trying to keep his wound clean, he slapped the dirt and splinters from his hands, squealing but enduring the pain. Hand over hand, he shimmied the handlebar up the pulley system to have it ready should he need it. Then, he headed into the treehouse, grabbed the binoculars, then knelt before the window. His watch would be vigilant. At least it had been for an hour or so.
Fear slowly transformed into boredom, and adrenalin depleted into exhaustion. Still, there was nothing to do in his little hideaway but sit and watch. He had only the binoculars and Dylan’s copy of Moby Dick discarded on one of the chairs to keep him company.
He sat on the empty chair beside the book, picked it up, and flipped through it. He read the first page before tossing it back onto the chair. Talk about being vigilant. That’ll put me to sleep. He sighed, crossed his arms and his ankles way out in front of him as he slouched, and listened to the sounds of the forest.
“I knew you’d come here.”
Michael jolted upright, fist raised. He turned toward the saloon doors to see Dylan freeze partway through them.
“Woah! Easy there, Badass.” Dylan creaked the door open the rest of the way and stepped inside.
Slowly, Michael brought down his arm, eyeing the boy from head to toe, looking for weapons without realizing he was doing so until a few seconds later. Dylan’s hands were empty. His pockets were flat. Still, he could have had a knife tucked in the back of his pants or something worse hidden outside the treehouse, beyond Michael’s view but not Dylan’s reach.
Hands still balled up but at his sides, Michael kept what little distance he could from Dylan. He dared not blink, scrutinizing his friend’s every movement and expression, always on guard. “I saw them grab you. How’d you get away?”
Dylan pointed to a gash on his neck that Michael hadn’t noticed despite its conspicuousness. Smeared blood stained the skin beneath it, and dried flakes fell like scraped rust from his T-shirt’s collar as he ran a finger along it. “Wasn’t easy.” He shrugged. “I guess they were just more interested in you. I saw the other two going after you. The one that had me seemed old and out of shape, kinda had a wimpy grip on me. When I saw the one with the ax go completely psycho and you take off, I stomped on my guy’s toes as hard as I could. It worked. He let go but cut me as I slipped free.”
Michael’s gaze narrowed further. “You sure have a funny way of showing up right before those Indians do.”
Dylan’s eyebrows shot up, his mouth dropping open. “You think I have something to do with them?” He puffed out a breath. “Maybe you’re used to this crap, but that guy had a knife to my throat! I lived in a lot of places, some of them a lot more dangerous than Fall River, and nothing like that’s ever happened to me before. I thought I was going to die! And all I could think was how embarrassing it would be to be found dead if I pooped myself. Being friends with you, well... it’s never boring, anyway.”
Michael shrank into himself. “I—” he sighed, his head suddenly too heavy to hold up. “I know. I’m sorry. I get it if you—”
“No, man. Forget it. None of this is your fault. It’s not like you asked for this crap.” Dylan touched around the wound and winced. “I don’t think it’s deep. Can you tell?”
Michael leaned closer. “Doesn’t look too bad.”
“Anyway, I tried to follow you, but damn! Who would have guessed you could run that fast? And on a hurt ankle? You should definitely consider track this year.”
Michael exhaled. His shoulders drooped, and he sat back down. Dylan picked up his book and sat beside him.
Michael punched him in the shoulder.
“Hey!” Dylan whined. “What was that for?”
“Sneaking up on me. I didn’t even hear you coming up. I could’ve killed you.” Michael didn’t really know how he could have done that last part, but it sounded like the way he would be expected to finish his gripe. Or perhaps it was all his fault Dylan had gotten the drop on him. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but the last few hours had passed so quickly they blurred at times. Other moments had moved so slowly he could describe their every detail. Though the day had certainly been too real, his wearied mind and body had left him so detached from himself that he felt like an outsider looking in, a spirit watching from an ethereal realm. A lot like he felt when he had a vision.
Dylan chuckled. “I can’t help it if I’m a ninja. Also, I didn’t exactly want to let the whole world know we were here.” He nudged Michael with his shoulder.
Michael giggled softly. The more he tried to stifle it, the louder it became.
The smile vanished from Dylan’s face. “What the heck could be so funny right now?”
Michael laughed harder, warmth flushing his face. “Did you really think you were going to poop yourself? I mean, poop, not shit.”
“Oh, fu—” Dylan huffed. “Fudge you.”
They burst out into a laughing fit that. Though grossly exaggerated, it let out some of the stress Michael had been harboring and relaxed the tension between them. He laughed until tears formed in his eyes. Wiping one with the back of his hand, he gazed over at Dylan, who had gone quiet. Apparently, his friend couldn’t laugh away the madness so easily.
Dylan grimaced. “So, what do we do now?”
Michael chewed on his cheek. “I don’t suppose you have a phone?”
“Sorry. No.”
“I thought everyone had a phone?”
Dylan shrugged. “Left mine in my bag. Not like anyone’s calling.”
Michael puffed out his cheeks and blew out air. “Then I guess we wait for Sam. She’ll find us here.”
“I believe you, Badass.” Dylan dropped to his hands and knees and peered out the window. “I just hope those nutbags don’t find us first. This is so messed up.”
Michael buried his chin against his chest. “I’m sorry, Dylan. For getting you into this.” He glanced up but could only see Dylan’s back. “Sam will find us. She’s a really good—”
“Shhhh!” Dylan hissed. “Someone’s coming.”
Michael cocked his head and listened. Dead leaves crackled and twigs snapped as feet plodded through underbrush. The sounds grew louder.
“Michael?” a familiar voice called. “You up there?”
“Sam?” Michael leapt to his feet as Dylan signaled with his hands for him to slow down. “It’s all right. It’s Sam!”
After bursting through the double doors, Michael watched from the platform as Sam, Frank, and Officers Tagliamonte and Paltrow approached the base of the tree. He might have cried, he was so happy to see her, had he not been too damn tired.
Sam smiled up at him, her eyes wet. “Michael! Thank God you’re all right.”
“I’m okay,” he called down to her. “Dylan’s okay too.”
“Dylan Jefferson is with you?” Sam glanced over at Frank, and they shared a look Michael couldn’t decipher from thirty feet up. “That’s great, Michael. Come on down, so we can all go someplace safe.”
Home? For a second, Michael thought it odd Sam hadn’t used the word. But home wasn’t safe anymore. No, they wouldn’t be going back there, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Is anywhere safe?
Michael turned to his friend, who stared back expectantly. “It’s Sam. We can trust her.”
Dylan smirked. “If you say so.” He ducked his head under the threshold and grabbed the bar for the zip line. “But I’m taking the easy way down. See ya!” He chuckled as he hustled over to the cable, snapped the bar onto the wire, then jumped off the platform.
“What the...” Frank said, circling the base of the tree and heading to where Dylan had landed. Sam and the two officers remained at the base of the tree, staring up at Michael. He sighed and began his slow descent.
At the bottom, Sam pulled him into a hug. Her hands only touched the back of his shirt, and her arms, covered by her long coat, prevented contact with his. But she almost pressed her cheek against his before apparently remembering herself. Instead, she leaned it against his clothed shoulder.
Behind Sam, Officers Tagliamonte and Paltrow watched in silence. Warmth rose in Michael’s cheeks. Down on the ground, it was much darker under the canopy of trees than it had been up above. Sam was whispering something to him, but he wasn’t paying attention. Then the hair on the backs of his neck prickled.
“O-officer—” His mouth dropped open, and he stuttered, struggling for the words. “Officer Paltrow! Look out!”
As if he’d materialized from tree bark, a masked figure dressed like a cop appeared behind her back. He raised his arm as she turned to face him. Michael heard the slightest chirp, and the back of Officer Paltrow’s head exploded. Her body dropped to the forest floor, glassy, dead eyes staring at Michael accusingly. A rivulet of blood trickled down her forehead where a third socket had formed. Then, he was falling.
Sam had thrown him to the ground as she drew her gun. Officer Tagliamonte went for his as well, but froze when another masked person pressed something to the back of his head.
“Don’t,” the person said, a woman’s voice.
Still holding her service pistol, Sam raised her hands. She glanced around, then at Michael, her eyes begging for forgiveness. Behind her, more masked figures circled.
Michael stayed put, hands smeared with cold earth. He looked anywhere and everywhere but Officer Paltrow. He counted at least half a dozen in the strange group, men and women of varying shapes and sizes, even one with the frame of a child. Nothing indicated their connection beyond the identical cigar-store Indian mask each wore. Most of them were chanting, each something different, but he couldn’t understand one over the other. Something about Indians? That they were crazy, Michael was certain. And there was no telling what they might do next.
A tall woman with an athletic build stepped out from behind her brethren. “Take them,” she said with the trace of an accent, pointing at Sam then Michael. He tensed as they approached, but he didn’t fight the two pairs of hands that pulled him to his feet. Two others were on Sam, taking her gun and cuffing her hands behind her back.
The woman behind Officer Tagliamonte pushed him forward. “Five little Indians on a cellar door.” She cackled, then pushed the officer harder. “One tumbled in and then there were four.”
The Amazonian woman held up a hand. “Easy, Laura. He doesn’t want that one. You know what to do. But just shoot him. No knives. Return to your room when you’re done here and await further instructions.” She nodded, then signaled something to the others. Michael lurched forward, pushed by rough hands. Behind Sam, he was shoved in the direction of Brentworth.
He heard Officer Tagliamonte whimper a soft, “No... no.”
But Michael didn’t want to look back, not even when a gun fired and a body dropped. He’d seen enough of death that day and was sure he would see more soon enough.
CHAPTER 21
“Jimmy,” Nurse Francine called after knocking on the door, her irritating singsong voice driving his drowsiness away. “You have a visitor.”
Jimmy sat up in bed. He never had any visitors, and to come on a Saturday morning when he was allowed to sleep in was just rude. The clock on the wall read eight in the morning. Breakfast hour had just ended, which left him with no solid reason to get out of bed. Still, his curiosity nagged at him like a toddler tugging on his sleeve. But the hollow pang in the pit of his belly told him that no good would come from it.
My parents? His mom had come to see him once after he’d been arrested and without his father’s knowledge. She told him how he’d embarrassed the family, soiled the Rafferty name. As if the Rafferty name had ever stood for more than domestic violence, alcoholism, and degenerate gambling—things they could hide behind closed doors, mouthwash, and revolving credit cards. But she’d cried as she’d spoken the words—his father’s words, reiterated in a letter that practically disowned him after the Suarez mess—and he knew she still loved him. His baby sister, too young to even understand what Jimmy had done, was kept away from him entirely. It was as if his sole act of violence, retaliation against a boy who’d done terrible violence to him and so many others, was infectious and could corrupt sweet innocent Tabitha with its poison. He hoped he’d see her again someday, probably aged well past her crescent pigtails and deeply dimpled pudgy cheeks. Smiling but only for a moment, he touched the divot in his own face before it could fade. Then again, maybe not.
He changed from his pajamas, pretty much a T-shirt and sweatpants, into his day clothes, another T-shirt and sweatpants—the kind with an elastic stretch-band waist. Jamming his feet into slippers, he headed for the door.
“Jimmy?” Nurse Francine knocked again. “I’m coming in.”
The door opened and the raven-haired nurse entered, looking quite beautiful that morning except for the sharklike quality of her smile. She gave him a once-over. “You need some time to get ready?”
He’d thought he was ready but nodded anyway as he bounced on his feet. “Just gotta brush my teeth and... you know.”
She smiled and nodded back. “I’ll wait for you here.”
Jimmy hurried to the restroom and let out a stream so pleasant his eyes rolled back. Finished, he flushed, washed his hands, then doused cold water on his face and neck. Drying off, he tried to flatten his curly, reddish hair, which was deeply in need of a razor or maybe some hedge clippers. He was starting to look a bit like Ronald McDonald.
After brushing his teeth, he met Nurse Francine in the hallway. “Come on,” she said, putting an arm around his shoulder.
Though her touch was gentle and kindly, he flinched a little before he could stop himself.
“He’s waiting in one of the private meeting rooms,” she continued without seeming to notice his apprehension. “Right this way.”
He wanted to ask who his visitor was but thought better of engaging a possible threat to his existence. His brow furrowed, and he glanced back down the hall behind them. No one was following. The hallway was empty, eerily quiet except for the sound of his and Nurse Francine’s footsteps.
What if she’s bringing me to the same doctor that fixed Tessa? His shoulders stiffened, the nurse’s touch no longer seeming so warm. What if I’m one of the ones who doesn’t come back?
He could run, break away from Nurse Francine and raise a huge stink up and down the halls, but that would probably only result in getting himself tackled by Link and poked with a thick needle. They’d probably still drag him knocked-out to the doctor and do that old-fashioned lobotomy-thing for the mentally ill to make him into a drooling obedient dog.
Nurse Francine buzzed them through a door. The hallway on the other side looked pretty much the same—faded, snot-colored carpet, hotel-like walls lined with doors with square windows. The windows were lined with what looked like chicken wire, but he could make out the rooms on the other side. In the second one on the left, a tall man in a dark suit with short graying hair stood with his hands in his pockets, back to the door.
Nurse Francine ushered Jimmy into the room, and the man turned. He buttoned his suit jacket as he did, then extended his hand. “Jimmy Rafferty? Special Agent Frank Spinney.” He glanced at the nurse, then added, “I’m doing some follow-up on the Suarez case and was hoping for a moment of your time.”
Jimmy sensed this last bit was meant more for Francine’s benefit than his own.
“Well—” Nurse Francine smoothed out her uniform and winked at Jimmy. “I’ll leave you boys to it. When you’re finished, just hit the intercom by the door and someone will come get you.”
Jimmy let the agent’s hand hang in the air. He circled the small desk to the seat on the opposite side, wondering why the agent hadn’t done so himself before Jimmy had arrived to make things easier on them both. Apparently, the man preferred his back to the door, where someone could sneak up on him, maybe wrap some piano wire around his neck.
Jimmy snickered, then shifted in his seat, waiting for the agent to sit down and get to it. Instead, the agent paced the eight feet or so between the side walls, apparently taking
in the scenery or noticeable lack thereof. Jimmy, too, looked at the blank white walls, the linoleum floor, and those cheap Styrofoam-looking ceiling tiles like in school, wondering what the FBI guy saw in them. Jimmy had been in rooms like that many times before. Sure, they had different names—interrogation room, interview room, meeting room—but they all served the same purpose—someone wanted information. And the guy expected Jimmy to provide it.
Frank Spinney, that’s what Francine had called him. He studied the man, growing more uncomfortable with the agent’s pacing. His gaunt features—pointed nose, high cheekbones, and sharp chin—made him almost look like that Guy Fawkes dude, or the mask that was supposed to look like him anyway. Maybe Jimmy might have learned about him in history class had he not been expelled.
But there was something else about the lanky agent, something familiar. Aside from the wrinkled suit, stubble, faint aroma of sweat, and sunken eyes that made him appear as if he hadn’t slept in weeks, Jimmy could have sworn he’d met the man before. He leaned forward to study him more closely, then slapped the table, pleased with himself for having remembered where he’d last seen the agent but not so pleased with the memories that flooded in with it.
The blood of the youngest Suarez brother, Luther, not even twelve, had covered Jimmy’s hands as he’d tried to comfort him in his final moments. Sometimes, he thought he could still feel that sticky warmth on his skin. He hadn’t been remotely responsible for Luther’s death, but he hadn’t been able to stop it either. The agent and Mikey’s detective friend had found Jimmy like that, covered in blood. His reward was Detective Reilly shooting him. To be fair, I was holding a gun.
The bang Jimmy’s hand made on the table seemed to snap the FBI man out of his thoughts, and he took a seat. Still, he just sat there, staring silently at Jimmy while he scratched his chin as if the fate of the world would be determined by his next words.
At last, he leaned forward and whispered. “I am not, in fact, here to talk to you about the Suarez case.” His eyes twitched in the direction of the intercom as he pulled a small black mechanical device from his pocket and flipped a switch. “Scrambler of sorts,” he said, tapping the device. “There’s a camera in the corner that’s not supposed to be recording audio, but I am sure they’ve got this room bugged every which way to Sunday even if it isn’t. This should allow us to talk freely, but we should still keep our voices low and our mouths facing away from the camera.”