I walked to my 4Runner and exchanged my pen and pad of paper for my steel spatula.
The students I’d left upon spotting David were still clustered near my tailgate. I banged the flipper against the grill. “All right, my friends, I apologize for the delay. Give me a couple minutes.”
I clicked on the burner and cocked my head. A gift-wrapped box about the size of a hardcover book sat under my hat. Had that been there the whole day? I grabbed the shiny package, walked around to the cab, and climbed in, leaving the door open to stretch my legs. I unwrapped the box to find a computer tablet and a fancy note touched with perfume. The calligraphy read, To the man I love.
Adrenaline burst in my mind and my mouth opened slightly. I wanted to say something but my breath refused. Had Steph really written “love”? I’d refrained from saying the word yet in our relationship, knowing how much the sentiment meant to her and how betrayed she’d been by it in the past.
I grinned, and a small laugh sneaked out as I realized how much the word meant to me now. Steph loved me.
I had been patient these past few months, giving her and the girls space. They’d gone through so much heartache. That she was the one stepping out on a limb felt strange. What had made her take this leap? And why now—like this? I looked around, but there was no sign of her.
Tiny pinpricks flowed through me as I activated the tablet. I didn’t even know Steph owned a tablet. A simple black screen with a Play icon appeared. I tapped it and a slideshow started.
Syrupy music filled the 4Runner as images populated the tablet from offbeat angles most likely recorded on Stephanie’s phone: Steph dancing and laughing with Isabella in the kitchen, Tilly tapping away on the lens as if playing a game, the three of them squished together taking selfies in bed.
Next came a video of Steph and the girls outside playing in the sprinkler. The angle was odd, though, as if someone was filming them from across the street in the overgrowth.
Then came a shot of Steph doing dishes in front of the kitchen window, a pensive look on her face.
Another of Steph in nothing but a towel in her bathroom, tapping away at one last text before getting in the shower.
My stomach twisted. Steph didn’t do this. Who was filming the girls?
The screen went dark. I reached for my phone to call Steph, but the tablet came to life again.
I saw a dark room, brightened only by the flickering light of old-fashioned lanterns. Glimmers of antique bookshelves and a single stool flickered in and out of focus. A blurred object came into view, and a man sat down in front of the camera.
A fancy dark hat overshadowed his face, which resembled a scarred-up Marilyn Manson. Black-and-white makeup caked his skin so thickly that not one inch of his flesh was visible. His eyes were deeply set under a large, dark hood.
“Sorry about that,” the white-faced demon said, his voice surprisingly high. “I have a flair for the theatrical. The girls are lovely, they really are. But you know that. You know everything there is to know about them, you protective stallion.”
I closed the 4Runner’s door, probably too hard, and furrowed my eyebrows.
The man who sounded like a woman smiled and leaned back, folding his hands, which were just as white and made up as his face. “I’m going to make this short, because editing these videos can be a real shard of glass to the eyeballs. You are now a member of the string, Markus.” Unnerving anticipation filled the man’s eyes. “What is the string, you wonder? Think of the string as one long sheet of music, with notes of all shapes and sizes, tones, and pitches. You’re a note. And judging from what I see—shaved head, muscular, someone who pushes tractor tires just for exercise—I’d say you’re of the bass variety.” He pointed at the camera. “But don’t pass judgment against the tenors of the world just because you swing lower than the rest of us.”
My face contorted. Who in the world was this lunatic, how did he know my routine, and why had he filmed the girls?
“I . . .” The man tilted his chin up like a waiter at a five-star restaurant. “I am your conductor. And that’s what you will call me.”
I grabbed my cell. Wasn’t going to put up with this any longer.
“Now before you do something stupid like call the chief or your girl, Steph, you should know that doing so will hurt someone very close to you. Yes, very close.” He laughed.
I put my phone down. Was this guy serious?
“See, isn’t it spectacular? I lift my baton and the string goes up. I dip it, the string goes low.”
“Who are you?” I muttered, taking a quick peek out the windshield. Nothing unusual. Same scene. Same loud music.
The conductor sat upright. “It all comes down to rules. ‘Rules rule the world,’ Daddy used to say, that sick old man. So here are the rules of the string.” He held up a finger. “Rule one: Each person gets a positive and negative reason to play their part. Your positive is simple. I know how badly you want out of this bottom-rung position. Trenton University Police, TUP—really? You were meant for better acronyms than TUP. I will make that happen, and you’ll be smiling the way you do grilling for students.” He winked. “Yes, this might be recorded, but I can see you. I can always see you.”
I looked at the rearview mirror, then out both side windows. Just students, their family members, a couple of early-bird basketball fans, and some faculty. This “conductor” could be any one of them. Or completely bluffing. I put one hand on my leg. Focused on my breathing. What could I do? What should I do?
“So, the negative. Don’t do what I say, and something horrible is going to happen to you. That wouldn’t be fair to your lady, Steph, or those two chickpeas, now would it? No, they’ve already grieved enough.”
How’d he know so much about their lives? Stephanie needed to know and to protect the girls.
The conductor got up from his chair and disappeared. Five seconds later, he returned holding a male ventriloquist doll. “My mother gave me this doll years ago. The thing haunted me from the corner of my bedroom. Don’t know why I never moved it off its chair. That’s what I call it: ‘it.’ I thought if I ever named it, then it would come alive and stab me while I slept.” He sat the doll on his lap and smiled, as if ready to tell it a story. “But today, I’m finally deciding to name it: Markus. It’s a solid name. But see, now that I’ve named the doll, I don’t dare fall asleep.” The conductor stared at the camera, eyes narrowed. “And I don’t sleep, Markus.” He glanced at the doll. “So if you come for me, I’ll be waiting under the sheets with a sharp surprise. I know I come across as all cozy-bear, but Haasy—to borrow your cute nickname—don’t test me.” He leaned forward and whispered, “I do terrible things.” He tossed the doll away.
I clenched my fists. I was going to crush his skull.
“So that’s rule one. Rule two: dictator decision,” the conductor said. “But I’m not the dictator. You are. You have the power to destroy not only your own life but the lives of every knot in the string. Reminds me of my first solo. I played and sang with all my heart, see, and brought down the house in beautiful fashion. Everyone succeeded because I succeeded.” The conductor rubbed his temples. “Oh, but if I had frozen . . . if I had failed . . . if I had so much as kissed off one note, every last person on stage would have suffered. We’d have turned beauty into a mockery.” The conductor dipped his fingertips toward the camera. “You are in the spotlight, Markus, standing in heaven’s pinprick, and I’ve given you your cue. All around you stand your fellow musicians, wondering if you’ll finish the night with mastery or doom them to despair.” He held his hands out as if weighing options on a scale. “Do you follow the baton the way they have? Or walk off stage to their pain and destruction? What are you going to do, Markus?”
Stick a Taser down his throat, that’s what I was going to do. How long was he going to go on for? I eyed my phone a third time. My brain said this was just a twisted, elaborate prank. But it was too elaborate. Too direct.
“If you don’t play your p
art,” the conductor said, tilting his head down and his eyes up, “you’re going to do far worse things to far more people—and they’re all going to know you did it to them. And when a knot breaks the string, knots get broken.”
A student approached the driver’s side window, asking if more shish kebabs were on the way. I put a finger to my ear, acting as if I were talking via Bluetooth and couldn’t get away. The student gave me a thumbs-up and walked away. I looked back at the tablet.
“Now, finally, rule number three: your duty. The action you must take. It’s my favorite part. Care to guess why? It’s that moment your will, which has been your protector, friend, and warrior for your whole life, finally drops its guard, then waves mine through. You’re going to—”
I clicked the tablet’s power button and tossed it into the back. Called Stephanie.
The phone rang three times and then was picked up.
“Big mistake,” the conductor answered.
Just then, something outside of the 4Runner exploded and my head slammed against something hard.
Day turned to night, though I never remembered closing my eyes.
5
SATURDAY, 3:58 P.M.
The thunderous burst silenced the crowd and band.
Janet, who’d just stepped onto the sky bridge to observe the conductor’s sick game discreetly, turned toward the 4Runner. Flames engulfed its posterior and licked air off the tailgate. Had the conductor really used her to plant a bomb? The package she had dropped weighed little more than a pound. Could bombs be that light?
She pressed one hand to her mouth. Where were the students who’d been there mingling?
She ran down the stairs into the gymnasium lobby, stumbling and nearly twisting her ankle at the bottom. Janet cursed, pulled off her heels, pushed through the swinging glass doors, and ran barefoot over red bricks toward the smoke.
Students and parents were still crouching in defensive postures. A few dazed faculty members blurted out confusing instructions.
Janet sprinted past them. She strained to see if bodies awaited her near the 4Runner. Only one other person beat her to the blaze, a student wielding a camera close to his face, taking pictures of the chaos—baffling idiot.
The four students who’d been standing near the tailgate must’ve wandered away before the blast because she didn’t see them, thank the Lord. But one body lay on the far side of the vehicle, blocked from view except his legs. Oh no, those red socks. “Jimmy.”
She pointed at the driver’s side door and darted toward her friend from janitorial. “Someone help Officer Haas right now.”
Jimmy’s eyes were wide open, looking directly at the sky. He lay perfectly still except for his quivering lips and stilted breaths. Janet dropped to her knees and slid her hands between his head and the bricks. The hiss of a fire extinguisher filled her ears as someone doused the 4Runner. She inhaled some of the powdery fumes and coughed them away. “It’s okay, Jimmy, it’s okay now, you’re okay.”
No blood or breaks that she could see. She leaned down and kissed his forehead. Jimmy’s eyes finally moved from the sky to Janet, and he cried.
A lump formed in her throat, but she wanted him to feel safe, feel normal. “Looks like we’re both tougher than we thought, huh? You taking a snooze on bricks and me running so fast my heels blew right off my feet.”
He still wasn’t quite hearing her yet. She glanced up for a quick breath. The first person who came into view was the student snapping photos, a Trenton Telegraph badge flopping around his neck. Normally she’d assume he was an overeager journalism student, trying to get the scoop for the school paper. But Janet recognized something else in him, urgency in his movements, fear in his eyes.
Tall and slim with curly brown hair, dressed sharp for student standards, the man met Janet’s gaze. He lowered his camera and stared at her for two uncomfortably long moments.
Then he turned and fled the scene.
“Here he comes,” a male voice said. “Markus, it’s Sidney Scott with the fire department. You took a steering wheel to the forehead, might have a concussion.”
I opened my eyes. Four bright lights shone down on me from a low ceiling. The fireman was crouched beside me. I slid my hands to my sides, gripped aluminum poles. I was on a gurney in an ambulance that wasn’t moving.
“From the looks of things, your grill decided it’d had a good life and wanted to go out in style,” the fireman said. “Students and faculty are fine, a little shaken up. But the back of your 4Runner—hate to tell ya this—looks like a skid mark.” He held up a cracked tablet. “And I doubt this is going to be the same.”
I sat up. Stephanie, the girls.
The conductor. The string.
“Slowly, bud. Soon as Matt and Tim hop in, we’re off to get you checked out.”
I eyed the medical hardware attached to my finger. “You’ve got my vitals, I’m fine.”
“We do, but it’d be best for a doc to look at you. Concussions can be tricky.”
I had taken enough blows to my head while kickboxing to know the difference between a headache and a concussion. I think.
“I’m fine.” I grabbed the tablet and swung my legs to the side.
“Can’t make you come with us, you know that, so I won’t pester. But take care of yourself and forget about cooking kebabs.” The fireman smirked. “Your last batch bombed—sorry, sorry.” He chuckled, patted his shirt pockets, then reached into the right one and pulled out a piece of paper. “Oh, and I’ve got a note for you from a young man. Didn’t tell me his name, but he was very helpful.”
I unfolded the note.
I know what’s happening. Don’t trust your cell or any phone. Go to the game tonight and let me find you.
Another member of the string under surveillance? Or a sick trick like the gift-wrapped tablet? I shoved the note into my pocket. The conductor could be watching.
A bluff, a twisted prank—none of my conjecture about him had proved true. The conductor had done exactly what he’d said he’d do.
I recalled dialing Steph. Had the conductor kidnapped her, stolen her cell? Or had he redirected my call somehow? My head ached. I needed to reach Steph and the girls. But how? I couldn’t call and risk worse retaliation, especially with the direct warning not to trust phones. Could the conductor really have pulled off such elaborate wiretapping? It didn’t matter. I couldn’t go against him again until I knew the girls were safe.
Steph didn’t check email or her social media accounts but a handful of times per week, and the conductor would surely be tracking those too. With calls ruled out, that left the lone option of borrowing a car and driving straight to her house, about twenty-five minutes away. But the conductor had said he was always watching and had credibly proven it. He’d know where I was headed the moment I got in the car, giving him nearly twenty minutes to do what he willed with the girls even if I floored it.
I shook the fireman’s hand and stepped out of the ambulance. The smell of burnt metal wafted about the red-bricked courtyard, scattering most of those who remained from the orientation festivities. A dozen university employees were still mingling around the charred 4Runner, most likely discussing how to fry me next for what they would perceive as gross irresponsibility, if they believed the grill blew on its own. Would they bring in a forensic unit to get to the truth of it? Or would the conductor meddle in that too?
Realization then hit me smack in the face. How could I convince the chief that this wasn’t an accident? Renfroe was probably salivating at the opportunity to rip me a new one.
Didn’t matter. Steph and the girls were what mattered.
First priority, vehicle.
The ambulance’s strobe lights crossed my face in a repetitive pattern. I squinted at the blackness of what was left of my tailgate, then cursed. Everything was stretched and jumbled in my head. I needed to process.
“You okay?” an unmistakably deep voice said.
I turned to find Doug, the university’s bou
lder-shouldered maintenance chief, along with his friend and the university gardener, Serge. I nodded. “Yeah, fine.”
Doug dipped his chin the way he always did when exiting a conversation, and Serge followed suit.
It wasn’t five seconds later I heard another voice addressing me. “Heard something was cookin’ over the radio, so I came to rescue you, Haasy.”
Cody. Could I talk to him? Would the conductor know? Yes, he’d know. He’d been watching since before the explosion. Why wouldn’t he be watching after it?
“Already convinced the spectators that you need space, and if we upgrade that to mental health space, I bet we can put off that tasty report you gotta write till tomorrow’s second java.” Cody swung his arm around me and turned me away from the 4Runner. “Let’s get your feet up, brother.”
We walked away from the campus hub, past the student marketplace, and found a bench between the humanities and biology buildings, shaded by thick greenery. I couldn’t help but glance at every vantage point I myself would be drawn to if tasked with inconspicuous surveillance. The conductor was out here, somewhere.
“Didn’t you hear, Waldo’s been found. It’s just me.” Cody sat and tapped the space on the seat next to him. “Dare I ask what happened? I knew you wanted more action, but this . . . Wow, Haas, you stoop low, you and your atomic kebabs.” He stared at me, eyebrows playfully raised.
I let a few moments pass in silence—probably a mistake. As much as my instincts were telling me to keep Cody out of the hell I’d just entered, at least until I’d had time to think through the ramifications, I couldn’t hide the trauma I was feeling.
Cody switched into his other self, the one that made him such a great sheriff’s detective. “What’s wrong?”
My cell buzzed in my pocket and I reached for it.
You hung up before my addendum.
Speak of the string and loud-mouthed Cody is finished.
I held up my index finger to Cody as the texts kept pinging.
You got a warning shot, and you only get one.
The String Page 3