The long way home h-2

by Andrew Klavan

  I was in a small foyer. The stairs were right in front of me. To my left, I could see a hall and the kitchen at the end of it. To my right, there was a living room. Even with the daylight coming through the windows, it was all mostly in shadow. All the lights in the house were off.

  I went to the stairs and started up. I figured if Mr. Sherman had a home office it would be on the second floor somewhere.

  Sure enough, when I got to the second-floor landing, I turned and saw the room I wanted at the end of the hall. The door was open. I could see right into it, could see the desk with the computer on it and part of a shelf of books.

  I went toward it, past a bedroom, past a bathroom, past some sort of exercise room with a stationary bicycle and some free weights and a TV and stuff. Then I was there.

  Sherman's office looked pretty much the way you'd expect a teacher's office to look. It was cramped and messy with shelves on every wall and books on every shelf, some of them stuck in on top of other books because there were too many to fit. There was a big wooden desk against one wall. The computer was there. The computer was off, the screen dark.

  I went to the window first. The window looked out on the side of the house, at a big oak tree and a strip of grass. You could see a section of the street and sidewalk too. When you were close to the glass, you could see about half of the house's driveway. I could still hear the lawn mower going down the block, but I couldn't see anyone out there.

  I went to Sherman's computer and turned it on.

  With a whispered whir, the computer booted-and then stopped. A password screen came on, just the way I'd figured it would. I took the disk with the Private Eye program out of my fleece pocket. I opened the computer's disk drive and slipped the disk in.

  The program started playing automatically. It fed directly into the computer's operating system. Some prompts came up. I'd read the instructions earlier and I typed in the proper commands quickly. There was a pause-then the program started to upload into the computer.

  A message came onscreen, blinking white letters. It said that 0% of the program had loaded so far-then 1%, 2%, 3%… 5%… The numbers increased slowly but steadily.

  While they climbed, I searched the room.

  I went through the desk drawers first. They were all unlocked. I found papers, files-some school stuff, some personal papers, insurance, bank accounts-but nothing that was helpful.

  I checked the computer. Ten percent of the Private Eye program had loaded.

  I found a filing drawer and looked in there. More papers, more notes. There were files with various names on them. Hotchkiss. Jefferson. Parker. I glanced inside a couple of them, but it just looked like research for some kind of history project.

  Fifteen percent of the program had loaded now.

  I moved to the bookshelves. I didn't know where to begin looking. I didn't even really know what I was looking for. Something about Alex. Something about me. Anything that would suggest there was some link between Mr. Sherman and that "Real True America" article.

  I moved a couple of books aside. Looked behind them. There was nothing. Just a lot of dust.

  Then something caught my eye. It was kind of silly, really, nothing important. It was just a book-a book of short stories. But the title of it was Homeland. I pulled it off the shelf. The second I did, I knew I had found something. The book didn't feel right. It didn't feel heavy enough. It felt hollow. I opened it.

  Sure enough, the pages inside had been cut away to make a hiding place. In the hiding place, there were photographs.

  I lifted them out. They were snapshots. They all showed one man. A tall man, bald, serious-looking. I don't know how old-forty or fifty maybe. He was wearing a black suit and a dark tie. He looked as if he didn't know someone was taking his picture.

  In the first few pictures he was just pushing through the door of what looked like a big office building. Then there were more pictures of him walking away. He was on the sidewalk of a busy street, a street in a big city. I could see the tall buildings all around him. In one picture I could even see the street signs on the corner. One sign said Madison Avenue, the other said 54th Street.

  There was nothing particularly strange about these photographs, not on the surface anyway. But something about them held me. I had this faint, strange feeling that I knew this man. I went through the pictures again. The first one of him coming through the door, then the second, then the third… and on the third, I froze, staring.

  There was something reflected on the dark glass of the door. Some letters from a sign in the office building's foyer. A-M-R-E-T-A-W. For a second, the letters meant nothing to me. But then, realizing they were backward in the reflection, I turned them around in my mind: W-AT-E-R-M-A… The last letter was at the very edge of the door. But I was willing to bet there was another letter after it. N-it must've been N. The sign in the foyer said WATERMAN.

  I remembered the stranger who had whispered to me just before he freed me from police handcuffs:

  You're a better man than you know. Find Waterman.

  I stared at the face of the man in the picture. That strange sense that I knew him came back to me. Was this the man I had to find? And if I did find him, would he be an enemy or a friend?

  I was still standing there, staring at the photograph, when I heard the front door open downstairs.

  I stopped breathing. My whole body went rigid, vibrating like a plucked string.

  I heard a soft bang. It was the screen door swinging shut. Then there were footsteps.

  I came back to my senses. Quickly, I fumbled the photographs back into the book. I fumbled the book back onto the shelf. I listened, my heart hammering hard.

  The footsteps sounded like they were going down the hallway to the kitchen. They sounded like a woman's footsteps because of the way the heels hit the floor-they sounded like a woman's heels. The footsteps went into the kitchen and stopped.

  My teeth gritted with care, every muscle tight with fear, I tiptoed across the room, back to the desk. I checked on the computer screen.

  The message was now reading 21%, 22%, 23%… It seemed to take forever to move from number to number.

  The footsteps downstairs started again. They were coming back down the hallway. Coming back toward the front door and the foyer… and the stairs.

  I stayed very still, my eyes darting back and forth between the office door and the computer. The download reached 25 percent as the footsteps reached the foyer again. They seemed to stop at the bottom of the stairs.

  But whoever she was, she didn't come up. Instead I heard the screen door open again and bang shut.

  Quickly, I moved back to the window. I looked out, pressing my face to the glass so I could see as much of the street and the driveway as possible.

  There was a car in the driveway now. A blue hatchback. The back was open. As I watched, a woman came from the house and moved behind the car. She reached in and when she came out, she was holding a shopping bag. She was bringing groceries into the house.

  Sherman's wife. I don't know why, but it had never occurred to me he might be married. He'd never mentioned having a family. I guess I just never thought about it. It's like that with teachers sometimes. You don't think about their private lives. You figure once they leave school for the day, they just sort of disappear until the next day. I guess I figured if Mr. Sherman was at school, then his house would be empty. It was a stupid mistake.

  I looked out the window, watching as Mrs. Sherman shut the car's hatchback with her free hand. That must've been the last bag of groceries she was carrying. The car was probably empty now.

  She started moving toward the house again.

  I stepped back to the desk, back to the computer. The number on the screen was now 32%… 33%… 34%… The Private Eye program kept loading slowly.

  I tensed as the screen door banged shut downstairs again. I stood listening helplessly as the footsteps traveled down the hall, as Mrs. Sherman carried her last bag of groceries into the kitchen.<
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  I watched the numbers moving on the computer screen. It was cool in the house, but sweat had begun to gather on my forehead. Now, one drop ran down my temple toward my cheek. I brushed it away quickly.

  The Private Eye program was 40 percent downloaded.

  I could hear Mrs. Sherman in the kitchen now. I could hear the refrigerator door open. Sure, she'd be putting away the stuff that would spoil first. That's what my mom always did. At least that meant she wouldn't come upstairs right away.

  44%… 45%…

  Now I could hear other noises down below in the kitchen. Cabinet doors banging as they opened and closed. Mrs. Sherman was putting the rest of the groceries away, the stuff that wouldn't spoil. What would she do when she was finished? Would she come upstairs?

  More sweat was gathering on my forehead and my neck. I couldn't figure out what to do. There was no closet in the room, no place to hide. The only way out was through the window. It wasn't that high. I could probably lower myself down and drop without breaking my leg. But the window was shut. If I opened it, it was sure to make a noise, a rumble. Then Mrs. Sherman would know I was here. On the other hand, if I waited and she came upstairs, I'd have no time to get away.

  What then?

  I looked at the screen. Fifty percent. Half done. I wiped the beaded sweat off my face and neck with my hand, but I felt more sweat dampening my armpits, streaming down my sides.

  And what if Mrs. Sherman caught me-what about that? I'd just have to get past her somehow and run for it. What else could I do? But then Sherman would know I'd been here, trying to get into his computer. If he suspected I'd downloaded Private Eye, he'd be able to trace me the second I used it, find me at the Ghost Mansion. The program would be useless-and if there was something in Sherman's computer that would help me find out who killed Alex, it would be lost to me.

  More noises from the kitchen below. I couldn't figure out what they were at first. Then I could: paper crunching. She was folding up the grocery bags, probably saving them to use for recycling and stuff like my mom did. A few more cabinets opened and closed.

  Then the footsteps started again.

  Mrs. Sherman came back down the hall, back toward the foyer. My stomach twisted. I was sure she was going to come upstairs this time.

  I glanced at the screen: 61%… 62%… How complicated a program was this? It seemed to be taking forever.

  Mrs. Sherman reached the foyer and-just as I feared-she started up the stairs. I heard her softened footsteps on the carpeted runners as she climbed.

  My heart was beating so fast now, my head felt light. But I had to do something. Where I was, at the desk, at the computer, she'd be able simply to turn her head and see me when she reached the second-floor landing. Even if I hid myself from sight, she'd be able to see that the computer was on.

  I had to close the door-or at least close it a little. She might notice that. She might remember that it had been open. But it was a chance I had to take.

  She was about halfway up the stairs when I started moving. I was at the door in a second. I figured I had to swing the door about two-thirds of the way shut to block her view of the room from the top of the stairs.

  I swung the door in as quickly as I could.

  It creaked.

  The footsteps on the stairs stopped.

  There was a moment of silence. I sensed Mrs. Sherman out there on the stairway, listening.

  I pressed myself close to a bookshelf, out of sight of the hallway. I stood as still as stone. I felt my breath trapped in my throat as if it were a lead ball. I felt my heart hammering as if it wanted to break free.

  "Bill?" Mrs. Sherman called. "Bill, are you home?"

  Another moment of silence went by. Come on, I thought. Houses creak all the time. It was nothing. Just the wood settling. I tried to force the thoughts from my brain into hers.

  Maybe it worked. I don't know. But the next moment, Mrs. Sherman started coming up the stairs again.

  I heard her footsteps reach the landing. Then they stopped. Was she looking this way? Would she notice that the door had been shut?

  I stood where I was, pressed close to the bookshelf, barely breathing, all heartbeat and sweat and waiting.

  Another footstep-this one coming toward me.

  Then the doorbell rang.

  The next moment, Mrs. Sherman's footsteps were headed down the stairs again.

  I practically leapt away from the wall, leapt back to the computer.

  Eighty-five percent of the program had loaded.

  Come on! I thought frantically. Come on! I wanted to strangle Josh for giving me such a slow program. It was all my fault for not thinking there might be a Mrs. Sherman, but that didn't matter. I couldn't strangle myself, so I wanted to strangle Josh.

  Downstairs, I heard the door open. I heard Mrs. Sherman say, "Oh, hi!" in a friendly voice.

  A man answered her, "How you doing? I just need you to sign for this."

  It was the mailman. I'd seen him coming toward the house.

  "Nice day to work outdoors," Mrs. Sherman said. I could tell she was making conversation while she signed whatever he needed her to sign.

  "A lot better than some, that's for sure," the mailman answered.

  I watched the numbers on the computer screen climbing: 90%… 92%… 93%…

  "There you go. Thanks," I heard Mrs. Sherman say.

  "You have a nice day now," said the mailman.

  Then the numbers on the screen took a sort of leap- right to 100%. The last bit of the Private Eye program had loaded.

  I heard the door shut downstairs. I heard Mrs. Sherman tearing open a package in the foyer.

  Moving as fast as I could, I opened the computer's disk drive. Recovered my disk. Slipped it into the pocket of my fleece with one hand and turned off the computer with the other.

  I heard Mrs. Sherman's footsteps moving again-but she wasn't coming back up the stairs, she was heading back down the hall, carrying her package toward the kitchen.

  I rushed out of the room. Rushed to the top of the stairs. I went down as fast as I could, keeping on the balls of my feet to stay silent, praying the runners wouldn't creak beneath me.

  I could hear Mrs. Sherman in the kitchen when I reached the bottom of the stairs. I ducked quickly into the living room. Now she was coming back my way again, headed up the stairs again.

  I heard her on the upstairs landing. Heard her moving down the hall toward her husband's office.

  And I was moving too. Moving through the rooms until I reached the back door. Moving out into the yard. Moving around the side of the house to the front.

  Moving across the lawn to my car, just as fast as I could go.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Private Eye It was dark when the first signal came. I was back in the upstairs parlor of the Ghost Mansion. I was lying in the sleeping bag, my eyes closed, my thoughts drifting in and out of dreams.

  For moments at a time, I would think I was home again, in my own bed, the blankets pulled up around my chin as I waited for my mom to call me and tell me it was time to wake up for school. I had that dream a lot these days. It was always pretty depressing when I woke up and realized it wasn't true, when the reality came back to me-that I was on the run, alone.

  I was sinking deeper into sleep, deeper into my dream when the laptop made a noise beside me.

  It was a soft two-note musical tone. I knew right away that it was the Private Eye program. It was alerting me that Mr. Sherman had signed on to his home computer.

  I sat up quickly. I pulled the laptop to me. It had come out of sleep mode automatically. The monitor had come on and the Private Eye screen had opened. It was a blank blue screen. A moment later, shimmering white letters began appearing there as if they were being typed by an invisible hand. Everything that Mr. Sherman typed on his computer was appearing here on mine. It was kind of a weird feeling to be spying on someone like that. But it was the only way I'd be able to get the password I needed to break into his mac
hine and find out what he knew about Alex and me.

  Strikeback.

  That was the first word that appeared on the Private Eye screen. It must've been Sherman's password. Strikeback.

  There was a pause after that. Then more words began appearing, rolling out fast, then faster, white against the blue background.

  At first, there was nothing very interesting. Mr. Sherman seemed to sign on to some kind of e-mail or instant-messaging program. Then he wrote a few messages about appointments and homework and conferences.

  Have to re-sked for Monday.

  Papers are now back in the system, with comments.

  Stuff like that. It went on for another ten minutes or so. Ordinary messages a teacher might send to his students or colleagues or friends. The Private Eye program only intercepted Sherman's keystrokes, so I couldn't see any answers that came back, but I didn't figure they were anything more interesting than what I could see.

  Which was pretty much what I was expecting. I didn't really think I was going to learn anything important just sitting here, watching Mr. Sherman's keystrokes. I figured if there was any important information on his computer, I would have to break into his house again and get into the computer using his password and find it myself. I didn't really believe he was going to be sending any e-mails or IMs with any deep, dark secret messages in them.

  As it turned out, I was wrong.

  After about ten minutes, there was a pause. The messages stopped coming. A white cursor blinked on the blue screen. Then…

  What are we going to do about West?

  My lips parted. I sat up straighter. I stared. I couldn't believe it. Was Sherman sending an IM about me?

  I guess there was an answer of some kind, which I couldn't see. Then, a moment later, Sherman typed a message back:

  If he was ever in Spring Hill, I think he's gone. It's too hot here with the police after him.

  I felt the breath go out of me in a long hiss, as if I were a tire losing its air. It was me they were talking about.

  My best guess is he's heading out to Chicago. He must have figured out about our operations there.