Out on the street, I called Matt, told him what we’d found, and asked if he was willing to meet me. His nonchalance when he said he could was less than convincing. We agreed on the high school parking lot, and I told him to give me twenty minutes or so to get across the lake. The street bore the usual stream of traffic common at that time of evening around the U District. Knots of pedestrians clotted the sidewalks, students mostly, laughing and talking. Solo professionals on their way home from working late race-walked around them, heads down, eyes front. No suspicious characters lurked in doorways, but I executed three ungainly pirouettes on the way to the car to see if anyone had followed me.
Paranoia still skulked around my head when I reached the high school. I pulled in to the nearly empty lot, parked, and sat there a moment, checking for signs of a tail. When Matt stepped out of some shadows and rapped on my window, my heart tried to leap out of my chest.
“You trying to kill me?” I said as I climbed out.
“What’s wrong with you?”
The funny smile he wore faded as I told him what had happened since we’d dropped him off earlier. By the end of it he looked a little green around the gills.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said.
“No, I’m in.” He shrugged. “Nothing else to do.”
A door banged open loudly. Voices floated across the parking lot. Several figures stepped through the rectangle of light at the far end of the gym and came through the darkness toward us. Baseball players leaving after a game.
“Woof, woof,” called a voice as they approached. “If it isn’t the seeing-eye dog.”
Hoots of laughter followed as Carl and three friends walked into a pool of light.
“Trouble,” Matt muttered.
“Where’s your bitch?” Carl said to me. “Tsang, are you his bitch now?”
My hands balled into fists, but more laughter from Carl’s buddies reminded me the odds were against me.
A tall blond kid I remembered from the jock table at lunch took a step. “Yeah, Tsang, you his biatch?”
“Shut up, Tad,” Carl growled.
“You should learn some manners, Carl,” I said.
“Who‘s going to teach me? You?”
“You want to go, just you and me?” I said evenly. “Come on, then, let’s go. Or do you need your friends there to help you?”
He hesitated, unused to being challenged. A brief look of uncertainty crossed his face, but his friends were watching. His gaze darted, looking for a way to save face, and landed on the BMW behind me. His eyes lit up.
“Nah,” he said. “You want manners? How’s this? Give me the keys to your ride before we stomp your face into the pavement, please.”
I hesitated, then tossed him the key fob. “Oh, what the hell. It’s not my car.”
Carl plucked the key out of the air and stared at it for a moment. His buddies hooted. I couldn’t tell if he was disappointed he wouldn’t get to rough us up or elated I’d just handed over an $80,000 car.
“Guess you’re my bitch now, huh?” he said, eyes gleaming.
He strutted past me, key fob held high, buddies circling around him, clamoring for a ride. He shrugged them off, too selfish, apparently, to share ill-gotten gains, and climbed in the driver’s seat. He started it up and backed out with a chirp of tires. Throwing it in gear, he roared out of the lot. The others eyed us angrily, muttering, but slowly wandered off.
“What did you do that for?” Matt said.
“You liked the alternative more?”
“No, I mean . . . He just stole Tess’s car.”
“Let him have his jollies. We’ll report it later. Have you got wheels?”
“Sure.” He nodded toward an old, beat-up, compact car.
“Nice to see not all the kids here get a Mercedes when they turn sixteen. Let’s go.”
I directed him into the city, and a short time later I let us into my apartment. Matt headed straight for the laptop on the kitchen table.
“Oliver?” Tess said in a small voice.
“Yeah, we’re back. Are you okay?”
“What took you so long?”
“We ran into Carl,” I said. “It was no big deal. We didn’t get into a fight or anything, but I sort of let him borrow the BMW.”
“My mom’s car? You let him take the car?”
“He won’t go far with it. I’ll get it back later.”
“Uh, guys?” Matt said. “I can’t help you much here.”
“Why not?” I said, looking over his shoulder. “I thought you were the expert.”
“I am. What you’ve got here is source code for a program of some sort.”
“What does it do?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It doesn’t do anything. It’s only part of a program.”
“Great. Now what?”
“You didn’t get any instructions?” Matt said. “Tess, have you checked your e-mail lately?”
“No, I usually get alerts on my phone. I haven’t heard anything.”
“Give me your address and password,” he said. “I can get it faster.”
She hesitated.
“Look,” Matt said quickly, “Carl saw me with Oliver here, so my rep as an indie spirit with no allegiances is pretty much out the window at this point. And I could hack all your accounts anyway if I wanted to. Right now, I don’t have time.”
“You’ve got a point.” She gave him the information.
“Okay,” he said a moment later. “You’ve got a new e-mail from your dad. It says to upload the file to a web address. What do you think?”
“We’ve come this far,” I said. “I think we do what it says. Tess?”
She nodded. Matt turned back to the laptop and played the keys like a concert pianist. He raised his right hand and hit “Enter” with a flourish. The smile on his face sank into a frown.
“What the—?” He typed something and peered at the screen.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“I uploaded the file,” Matt said, “and it disappeared. Like, completely. Took the copy here on the laptop with it.”
“You still have the original on the memory card, right?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Deleted that one, too.”
“Can you download a copy from the site you just sent it to?”
Matt typed furiously again. “Damn, this guy’s good, whoever he is. The website is gone already. And I checked the e-mail sender’s IP address. It’s not the same one he used to send the other e-mails.”
“This didn’t come from inside MondoHard?” I said.
“No. It was bounced halfway around the world and back. The guy could be next door and I wouldn’t know it.”
A phone rang, startling me. A female voice said in hitched, robotic tones, “Call from Tad Cooper.”
Tess groped for her phone and connected the call.
Tad’s voice came through loud and shrill. “Where is he? Where’s your boyfriend?”
“Who?” Tess said “My what?”
“That son-of-a-bitch seeing-eye dog of yours!” Tad screamed. “Carl’s dead! They shot him! In your car, bitch! He wasn’t supposed to be there. They killed the wrong guy! Where is he?”
“Carl’s dead?” Tess shook her head in shock.
We could hear Tad crying. “I’ll kill him! You tell Oliver if I find him, I’ll kill him! You hear me?”
The phone went dead, leaving the room quiet as a tomb. Whoever they were, these people were serious. My thoughts raced. I’d forgotten something. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I had it.
“Oh, crap,” I said. “Tess—your phone! Turn it off! They can track it just as easily as the license plates.”
She quickly powered it down. Matt powered the laptop down, too. I hustled around the room and shut off the lights.
“Come on,” I said. “We have to get out of here. Out the back, Matt.”
I pointed to the sliding-glass door, and went to get Tess. Matt slid the door ope
n silently and slipped out into the darkness. I grabbed my backpack and guided Tess out after him. He’d already swung a leg over the railing and jumped down to the grass yard four feet below. He set the laptop down as I led Tess to the railing. I told her what she had to do. She quickly swung one leg over, then the other and teetered on the edge, holding on to the railing.
“Ready,” Matt said, holding his hands up.
Tess stepped into space and let go of the railing, falling right into Matt’s arms. He set her down gently, and I vaulted over the railing after them, then stuffed the laptop in my backpack. Matt and I each took one of Tess’s arms and walked her briskly out the back gate and down the alley to the street. As we rounded the corner, two men I didn’t recognize strode up the walk to the front of the house down the block. I stopped and backpedaled, taking Tess and Matt with me. Too late.
“Hey you!” one of the men shouted.
“What’s going on?” Tess said.
“Shit! They already found the apartment,” I whispered. “We better split up. Matt, you better take off. I’m sorry we got you into this.”
“Nobody twisted my arm, man. You guys cool?”
“Yeah, we’re good,” I said. “I’ve got a friend I think we can stay with.”
“Later, then.” He broke into a trot.
I hustled Tess to the corner, heading away from my apartment, and crossed the street.
“What are we doing?” she said.
“Getting the hell out of here,” I muttered.
“Hey! Hey, you two!” A block behind, one of the men ran toward us.
“Run!”
I yanked Tess’s arm and half dragged her up the street until she got her feet under her and nearly kept pace. The man gained on us, and the other one appeared behind him down the street. I cut left off the sidewalk onto a lawn, taking Tess with me. She managed to stay upright as we ran between two houses. I banged open a wooden gate into the backyard and kept going past a detached garage into the alley.
“Oliver!” Tess cried. “Slow down!”
“We have to keep moving!” I said. “Come on!”
I heard the gate bang open behind us and pulled Tess onto a walkway that led between two apartment buildings. Halfway through the passageway, I heard a funny thwack and whine, once, twice, and chips of stone exploded off the wall next to me, one grazing my cheek.
“Faster, Tess!” I pleaded.
I heard a muffled shout behind us, and the bullets stopped flying. We burst out onto the street and I pulled Tess away from the mouth of the passageway. A bus pulled up to the curb at the corner, and I tugged Tess’s hand harder.
“Bus, Tess! We’re getting on! Twenty feet. Almost there! Stop! Three steps. Up you go.”
I shoved her up the steps and clambered on after her. She latched onto a handrail, chest heaving for breath.
“Let’s go!” I told the driver.
“Is she—?”
“She’s fine!” I said through gritted teeth, pulling change out of my pocket. “Just go!”
The driver closed the door and pulled away from the curb.
I grabbed Tess’s hand and led her to a seat near the rear exit door. Nervously, I glanced out the window down the street, but there was no sign of the two men.
CHAPTER 25
Tess planted her feet. Oliver grabbed her hand and tugged, but she refused to budge.
“Come on, Tess,” he said. “We have to move.”
“I’m not moving! You can’t make me.”
On the bus, she’d barely caught her breath when Oliver had made her get off and start walking again. Now she was tired and not a little frightened.
“Tess, please! Let’s go!”
Panic wrapped its arms around her, closing her throat and twisting her bra strap tight around her chest like a tourniquet, squeezing the breath out of her.
“I don’t even know you! Why should I go anywhere with you?”
“Would you lower your voice? You’re going to get us killed. Now, come on!”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on. Where are we going? What are we doing?”
“I don’t know what’s happening. This is your life that’s messed up, not mine.”
“What do you mean?” she said, her voice sounding shrill in her ears. “I didn’t have anything to do with this. I didn’t ask for this.”
“Tess, we can discuss it all you want. But can we please move?”
“Why should I?”
“Look, I know how this works. I’ve seen enough movies. Those two guys outside my place? The ones who were shooting at us? First, they go back and check out the apartment. They trash it looking for the memory card or anything else that might lead to us. Next, they get reinforcements and start hunting us down. And how hard can it be to find a guy leading a blind girl? So, can we please keep moving and get off the street?”
“Okay, okay. You don’t have to yell.”
He took her hand again.
“I’m not yelling. I’m imploring you. I want to keep breathing for as long as possible.”
“For all I know, you made up that story about those guys shooting at us,” she muttered.
Oliver squeezed her hand more tightly in response. She stumbled after him as he set a fast pace. Quiet at first, their way grew noisier with sounds of traffic as they walked along a commercial street for a while. Then it grew quiet again as they moved away from the thoroughfare and into a residential neighborhood. Her legs grew heavy, and her feet complained in the flats she’d put on after school. That seemed so long ago.
Has it really only been a few hours? The same day, even?
“How much farther?” she said.
“Not much,” he said. “ A few more blocks.”
“Where are we?”
“Someplace safe, I hope.”
She trudged along in silence, head whirling with questions.
Why now? Why did Dad wait a year to send me on this quest? What could be so important that he would risk my life in what was obviously dangerous business? Had he somehow foreseen his own death? And if so, how? If so . . .
An even more horrible question popped into her head.
Was the accident that killed them and blinded me really an accident? Or had it been something else, something deliberate?
Tess shuddered.
“Okay, we’re here,” Oliver said softly. “Stay put a minute and let me check things out.”
She pawed the air before latching onto him. “Where are you going?”
“Just up the walk to the door. I’ll just be a few feet away. I won’t let you out of my sight, I promise.”
Reluctantly, she let his arm slip from her fingers. His footsteps moved away, the soft tread of sneakers on concrete giving way to a dull thunk on wooden steps. A bell bonged faintly from inside. A moment later, a door opened and she heard a man’s voice. He and Oliver spoke in low tones. She only caught snippets of their conversation.
“No place else to go,” Oliver said.
“Trouble . . . go to the police,” the man said.
“I don’t trust them!” Oliver said, his voice a little louder. He lowered it, saying, “They’d take her home. It’s too dangerous . . .”
So tired her bones ached, Tess tuned them out and thought of her own bed, soft and cozy. She pictured her room the way she remembered it from before the accident. The walls were pale blue, the color of a summer sky, the dresser and makeup table white. A bright yellow, floral print quilt lay on the bed, along with several throw pillows. The same fabric covered an easy chair in the corner near the window, where she used to curl up and read on rainy days.
Her cherished books still lined the bookshelves, along with the many trophies she’d brought home from her days on club teams in elementary and middle school—soccer and basketball, mostly. Her favorite was the one she’d earned for a first-place finish in snowboarding. She’d beaten out one other girl and five boys in the half-pipe during that competition. The boys had been so pissed, she’d never c
ompeted again—but she didn’t have to. She knew she was good. Those days were long gone. She wouldn’t be doing any aerials on a board anytime soon.
Oliver’s voice intruded on her thoughts. “Hey, it’s okay. We can stay.”
She felt his hand in the small of her back, its light touch telling her which way to walk.
“Steps,” he said. “Six.”
She marched up without help. She felt a breath of warm air welling from the house, carrying scents of browned meat, fragrant spices, and a lingering trace of a cigarette. She sensed the presence of the man at the door and stood there, awkwardly.
The man took her hand warmly in his. “Eric. Eric Webster.”
“Tess Barrett.” Tess took her hand back, dropped it to her side, and squirmed. Her face flushed. Her parents would be disappointed she hadn’t remembered her manners.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” the man said. “Come on in.”
She stepped forward hesitantly, but Oliver was right there to guide her into the house.
“Excuse the mess,” Eric said. “My father passed away not long ago. This was his house, and I’ve been trying to sort through his things.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Tess said. He didn’t know what loss was, she decided.
“I finished dinner a while ago, but there’s plenty left over if you’re hungry.”
“No, thank you,” Tess said. “I already ate, but it smells delicious.”
“Moroccan lamb stew,” Eric said. “My favorite. Sit down and make yourself comfortable.”
Oliver led her to an easy chair. She felt its contours, turned, and lowered herself into it. Music played softly in the background. Jazz. She recognized it as something her father used to listen to—Miles Davis.
“Oliver tells me you two are in some sort of trouble,” Eric said.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Tess cried.
“Doesn’t mean trouble won’t find you,” Eric said. “I know a thing or two about trouble. Want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” Tess said. Her head hurt from all the thoughts and images crammed in there.
“Fair enough. But trouble sometimes ends up being a good thing.”
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