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“What about your mom?”
“My mother?” he asked, with a little smile. “Old. I don’t see her much—haven’t seen her in years. She didn’t like the way my dad was raising me. ”
“She in Denver, too?”
“No,” he said. “Chicago. ”
Aubrey sat upright in her seat.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Haven’t you heard?”
Dan’s face went pale. “Heard what?”
“Where’s the smartphone?”
“Laura took it with her. ”
“You need to find a computer,” Aubrey said, opening the car door. It was dark, and she was incredibly shaky on her feet, but she pointed to the house in front of them. Dan was out the door and at her side, holding her up by the elbow.
“What happened to Chicago?”
“It’s not good. ”
Dan almost carried her the remaining steps up the path. The house was completely dark, and as Dan strode forward the cement porch buckled upward, splintering the wooden door in half.
A man in his underwear ran out into the living room.
“What are you doing?”
“Where’s your computer?” Dan demanded.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Aubrey said. “Please tell us where it is. ”
“I have cash,” the man said. “Just leave us alone. ”
“Tell us where the computer is,” Dan shouted.
The man pointed down the hall.
Dan almost ran, leaving Aubrey to rely on the walls to support herself. She got to the room just as the start-up screen began to glow.
“It’s not good,” Aubrey said again.
“It’s the third-biggest city in the country,” he said, seething. “Second-biggest financial district. Second-largest labor pool. ”
“What are you talking about?” Aubrey sat down in a chair behind him. She heard the man in the other room calling the police.
“Kraft Foods, McDonald’s, Motorola, Sears, United Airlines, Abbott Labs. Railroads. Ports. Tech companies. ”
He opened a browser and began typing into the search bar.
“It was supposed to be off-limits. It was supposed to be off-limits. ”
The pictures were worse than Aubrey had feared. The entire city was on fire. A thousand columns of smoke all merging into one.
“That bastard,” Dan seethed, his teeth clenched. “It was supposed to be off-limits. ” He smashed his hand into the end table, punching the wood over and over until it had broken and his hand was a mess of blood and cuts.
He went back to the search engine, his blood dripping on the keyboard. He pulled up a blog.
It was purple lettering on a pink background: “Susie’s Musings. ”
The posts were all short, and he scrolled through them, his finger leaving a red dribble down the screen.
“There it is,” he said, leaning back in the chair. “I try to save his worthless life, and this is how he repays me. ”
Aubrey read over Dan’s shoulder.
User: SusieMusie
Mood: Pissed off
Have you ever seen that movie Chicago? Erica = Roxie, and Sara = Velma. Both should be locked up ASAP. They’re both crazy and they deserve each other. They are a severe, SEVERE pain in my butt.
He smacked the screen, leaving a handprint. “Seventh word is the target. Eighteenth word is the time frame. Thirty-first word is additional notes. Chicago, ASAP, severe. ”
“What does that mean?” Aubrey said, but Dan was up out of his chair. He pushed past the bewildered man and charged back out the front door. The man tried to grab Aubrey and she disappeared just long enough to slip from his grasp, then reappeared and ran after Dan.
“Where are they?” Dan said to Aubrey.
“I don’t know. ”
“Spray that stuff,” he said. “That perfume. ”
FIFTY-EIGHT
JACK SMELLED IT ALMOST IMMEDIATELY. A strong—a very strong—whiff of Flowerbomb.
“I’ve got to go,” Jack said, turning away from the rocks that overlooked the Coronado Naval Base.
“Do you have a count yet?” Laura asked, peering into the darkness.
“Why are we doing this? I thought we were going for supplies. ”
“We’re doing this first. ” She had hold of his wrist.
“I can smell the perfume,” Jack said. “They need us back there. Didn’t you hear that big crash a couple minutes ago?”
“What big crash?”
“We need to check on them,” Jack said, pleading.
He’d listened to the whole conversation, ever since he heard Aubrey get out of the car. He didn’t want to take any chances, especially leaving Aubrey with Dan.
“How many boats?” Laura said, squeezing his arm.
“I don’t know—a hundred. A hundred and fifty. ”
“Count them,” she said.
“I can count them five minutes from now. ”
Laura got in his face. “You can hear everything going on over there. You tell me why we need to get back. ”
“Because Dan freaked out and someone called the police,” Jack said.
Laura paused. “Why would he freak out?”
“Something about Chicago. ”
“Oh, hell. ”
She shoved Jack back onto the rocky outcrop and he landed with a rough thud. His head wound screamed with pain. With all the strength he could muster, he rolled onto his side and moved to his knees. He could hear Laura running, pushing through trees and smashing through a fence that they’d carefully climbed over only minutes earlier.
He followed, staggering to his feet and pressing one hand to his head as he chased after her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Dan shouted.
Aubrey was there. She was breathing hard.
“Because it was too late. ”
“Too late for what?”
“Too late to save her. ”
“I’m only in this for her. ”
There was a massive thud, and the sound of cracking wood. Aubrey gasped.
Jack pushed through the broken fence and saw them in the front yard of a badly damaged house. A man in his underwear was standing in the street. Aubrey was standing away from the fight, and her eyes connected with his. “We have to get out of here. I’m coming to you. ”
She faded from view.
Laura pointed a finger at Dan. “Alec only followed through on what he’d always promised. You help us or your mother gets it. ”
“Gets it?” Dan said, with an incredulous laugh. The entire lawn, sidewalk, and trees all lifted a foot into the air and collapsed back in a crash. Jack fell on his face, and saw the trees surrounding the house tipping at dangerous angles.
A siren sounded in the distance. No, it was three.
Where was Aubrey?
“My mother ‘gets it’?” Dan said again, walking toward where Laura had fallen. “How dare you? What did she ever—”
Laura leapt forward, smashing into Dan’s chest, and Jack heard the distinct sound of bones breaking.
“You’ve never been committed to anything,” Laura spat at his groaning body. “You know how worthless a team is when you have to blackmail your muscle? What did you think would happen when you tried to kill Alec in an avalanche?”
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