by Tim Green
By the time he finished, Tate's forehead was wrinkled with concern.
"These people are, like, criminals?" Tate asked.
"I guess they are."
"But if you help, then they'll help your dad?"
"Yes."
"We have to get that thing back in there," she said as if speaking to herself.
"How?" Troy said, huffing. "I can't just walk back in there. That guy's scary. He's dangerous; that's what the FBI said. You see the way he looks at me?"
"No, you can't," Tate said, distracted by her thoughts until she looked up at him. "But I can."
"You can?" Troy asked. "How?"
CHAPTER SIXTY
TATE'S EYES FLASHED IN the direction of the bar. She leaned forward and said, "Your dad's coming. Give it to me, quick."
"How, Tate?"
She growled at him and said, "When a girl's gotta go, a girl's gotta go; now give me that."
Troy reached in his pocket, removed the quarter, and held it out across the table. He hesitated, looking into Tate's dark brown eyes. He dropped the coin into her hand. She snapped her hand shut and jumped up, brushing past Troy's dad and his drinks.
"Where you going, Tate?" Troy's dad asked.
"The facilities," Tate said.
Troy's dad looked away and nodded, and Troy thought that she just might be right. He knew that whenever a girl he'd been around mentioned anything having to do with the bathroom, the mind of every guy within ear-shot would go blank. It was like a stun gun, rendering them useless.
From his spot, Troy could see Tate working her way through the maze of shrubbery, past the pool. She was headed right for the sliding doors of the great room, even though the small cluster of men around the zebra couch was clear to see.
"She's a fireball," Troy's dad said, sitting beside him and plunking down the sodas on the big round table.
His dad's appreciation of Tate only made Troy sad.
"Dad?" Troy said.
"Yeah? Oh, wait," his father said, raising his soda can. "Here's to five million dollars. Right?"
Troy clinked his can against his father's and took a swig.
"What'd you want to tell me?" his father asked.
"If I could help you," Troy said, "I would, you know."
His father's face twisted up for an instant as if he might cry, but then the pained look was gone. And when his father grinned hard at him and winked, Troy wasn't sure it had ever happened. Maybe he'd imagined it.
"I know you would," his father said, clapping his shoulder. "I'm your dad. I don't doubt it. You're a good kid, Troy."
"And I'd never do anything to hurt you, Dad," Troy said, looking away because he didn't trust his own emotions to stay in check the way his father's had.
"Is there something you've got to tell me, Troy?" his father asked. "You're not going to ask me to back out of the deal? It's too late for that, Troy."
Troy sighed and said, "No, it's a great deal."
"It sure is. So, we're good?" his father said, raising his can again as if they were toasting all over.
"Good," Troy said, and he dared a peek at the big window where he could clearly see Tate standing inside the zoo room with her back to him. The group of suspicious-looking men stared at her, astonished. Tate's arms flew about with her hands flitting through the air to assist in the telling of what Troy knew must be some crazy story.
Troy cleared his throat, looked into his father's eyes, and said, "I just wanted to see you. It's still pretty cool for me to just see you. I thought about you for a long time."
His father's grin went slack, and in a sad way he said, "And I've thought about you, Troy."
Troy's insides froze.
"But," he said, "I...thought you didn't know about me?"
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
THE SMILE FLASHED BACK onto his father's face instantly.
"The idea of you," his father said, "of having a son. I told you. I always wanted that. That's all I meant, not that I knew you really existed. I thought a lot about having a son. Just the idea."
"Oh," Troy said.
Tate appeared, marching up onto the terrace and crossing her arms over her chest.
"How you two doing?" she asked, grabbing her soda from the table, cracking open the can with a hiss, and swigging some down. As she drank, she flashed a thumbs-up behind her back, a signal only Troy could see, that told him she'd done her job.
"Great," Troy's dad said, answering Tate's question. "One of those father-and-son talks."
"You want me to let you guys talk?" Tate asked. "I can."
"No, that's okay, Tate," Troy said. "We've got to get back anyway."
"You don't want to finish your sodas?" his dad asked.
"We can take them," Troy said, standing. "I know you've got things going on."
As if on cue, the glass doors slid open and someone Troy had never seen before, with tan skin and a pencil-thin mustache, stepped out onto the deck and shouted, "Edinger! We need you! The big man does!"
He disappeared back inside, and one of the guards from the front of the house came out, heading their way. Troy's dad gave him a sheepish look.
"Well," his dad said, "you're right about the business part of it. Okay, well, you two get back home. And, Troy, if I don't see you tomorrow, it's because your mom is being a crank and I might have to shoot back to Chicago quick to take care of some things, but don't worry. Everything will smooth out soon, and we'll be hanging out again. I'm not only your dad; I'm your lawyer. You can't go wrong."
Troy thought it sounded like his dad was trying to sell him a car, but he let Drew hug him before they stepped apart. The guard muttered to them that Luther had asked him to escort the kids to the front gate. Troy and Tate said good-bye to Troy's dad and followed the guard down a path that took them around the house instead of through it. When they reached the driveway, Troy looked back at the huge white mansion to see that two white stretch limos now waited in the glow of the lights right in front of the grand front steps leading to the door.
When the gates hummed open, Troy took Tate's arm and hurried her through. He said thanks to the guard, using all his determination not to break out into a full sprint and run away as fast as his legs would take him.
"I did it," Tate said before they had even rounded the corner.
"Shhhh!" Troy said, clutching her arm as the gates swung slowly closed.
"You're hurting me," she said under her breath.
"Don't run," he said, glancing back as they rounded the corner beneath the glow of a street lamp. "Nothing suspicious."
"When can we?" Tate said as they reached the next stop sign and a bit of darkness, where they could take another turn.
Just then Troy glanced back again and saw a man beneath the streetlight, wearing a dark suit and holding a radio in one hand, sprinting their way.
"Now!" Troy said, and they took off.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
TROY TOOK A RIGHT at the next stop sign and bolted in between a grassy stretch separating two big homes. Even in the dark he knew that the secret path he'd followed through the trees and underbrush behind the homes to get to Seth's place wasn't far. Tate kept up, but Troy could feel that the shadowy man--who remained frighteningly silent--was gaining on them. On a hunch, Troy broke through a line of shrubs, but when he came out the other side, he slammed full speed into a chain-link fence.
He recovered quickly and sprinted up the fence line and into a stand of pine trees, where the glow of a nearby pool let him see. The bushes swished behind him, and he heard the man crash into the fence just as he had. The undergrowth got suddenly thick and dark; Troy grabbed Tate by the arm and pulled her straight into it with him, the branches and brambles whipping their faces and cutting their hands.
Then it ended. They broke free into a swath of grass that bordered the concrete wall surrounding Cotton Wood. Troy sensed the spot and took a hard right. When he glanced back, he saw nothing of the man's dark shape. With his lungs on fire, he put his head down
and ran even faster. The ladder wasn't too far.
When they reached it, Troy had to use all his inner strength and every lesson his mom had taught him not to just scramble up and drop down over the other side. Instead, the noble side of him won out, and he handed Tate up the ladder so she could climb up to the top of the wall. When she did, she looked down the way they'd come, and a muffled whine escaped her.
"Troy," she said, "hurry! He's coming!"
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
TROY NEVER LOOKED BACK; he bolted up the ladder, spun, and grabbed it. The shadowy man closed in. Full speed he ran. The man grunted something that sounded like "ate." The sound sent a shiver through Troy.
"Stop!" the man shouted in a deep, husky voice.
Troy heaved the ladder up and over the wall and sent it crashing down the other side. Tate already hung from the edge of the wall by her fingertips, and she dropped down beside the ladder. Troy crouched down, too, aware of the man closing in. He gripped the rim of the wall as Tate had, then dropped to the ground with a thud.
Together they looked up at the top of the wall, listening silently as the man on the other side grunted for them to come back and scraped at the concrete as he leaped over and over again for the top of the wall, straining for a grip on its peak so he could finish the chase.
"Let's go," Troy said, not giving one hoot about the ladder lying in the brush.
He took Tate's hand and led her down toward the tracks, up and over them, and straight through the pine needle path toward his house.
"How'd you even do it, Tate?" he asked. "How'd you follow me in the first place. Even that guy--who moved like a doggone ninja--couldn't get over that wall. How did you?"
"Simple," Tate said, dusting her hands with a clip clap. "I climbed a tree."
"A tree?"
"There's a pine tree right up close to the outside of the wall," she said. "I shinnied up and climbed far enough onto a branch for it to droop right down over the wall. I only had to jump about six feet. It was easy."
Troy wiped some sweat from his brow and said, "I said it before, Tate, you're like a monkey."
"In a good way, right?" she said.
"Monkeys are cool," Troy said. "You planted the quarter?"
"I gave you the thumbs-up," she said.
"So, how'd you do it?" Troy asked, the glow of his house appearing through the trees. "You just asked for the bathroom and they all looked away?"
"I just pretended like I was a ditz," she said. "I kept talking. I told them the story about my aunt Mary Ann getting arrested for throwing paint on women walking down Park Avenue."
"What?" Troy said.
"She's with PETA," Tate said. "She's kind of nutty, but I figured, you know, that with all those dead animal skins, at least they'd think I had a point. So I'm telling the story, and I kneel down on that bear rug to explain how my aunt says you can see the pain on the animal's face even after it's stuffed, and I slip that quarter right into his mouth. You think it worked?"
Troy shook his head. "You're crazy. Yeah, I'm sure it worked. But something must have gone wrong. Otherwise, who was that guy?"
"Well," Tate said, hanging her head. "I tried, Troy. I'm sorry if I blew it."
Troy put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze.
"It's okay, Tate," he said. "Don't worry. I think all this stuff is just going to turn out however it was meant to be. My mom says that all the time and it drives me crazy, but I'm starting to think it's really true. Some things are just meant to be."
"So, what do we do now?" Tate asked.
"My house," Troy said, and they followed the familiar path to his front door.
When Troy swung the door open, he could tell by the look on his mom's face that something had happened--and it wasn't something good.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
"TROY, HONEY," HIS MOM said, rushing to him and hugging him tight.
"What happened, Mom?" he asked, separating from her.
"You're okay," she said. "That's the important thing."
"Of course I'm okay," he said, nudging Tate so she wouldn't give away the fact that they'd been chased. There was no reason to worry his mom.
"They sent an agent after you, but I guess he didn't catch you," she said.
"Agent?" Troy said, glancing at Tate. She raised her eyebrows and shrugged.
"From the FBI," she said, taking the cell phone back from him and dialing as she spoke. "It happened fast, Troy. They called to tell me. They wanted me to let them know if you got back. The FBI got what they needed on tape right after Tate dropped the quarter. The agents rushed right in, but a couple got away. I guess it was hectic, and they wanted to make sure you and Tate were okay."
"A couple of who?" Troy asked, but his mom was on with an FBI agent, explaining that she had Troy and Tate and that they were fine. Then she hung up.
"Those men," she said, her attention now fully on Troy. "Your father was one of them. G Money had a tunnel the FBI didn't know about. It goes between the main house and a guesthouse behind the pool. From there they got away into the trees. The FBI has a helicopter on its way. Tate must have interrupted their meeting at the perfect time, because the FBI said that the minute she was gone, the men kept right on talking about a money-laundering deal."
"But that's good," Troy said. "I did what they asked me to do, and now they have to help my dad. They got what they want. What's wrong? Why do you look like that, Mom?"
"Well," she said with a pained expression, "it's the money, Troy. The plan was to take it."
"What do you mean?" Troy asked. "What money?"
"The five million dollars from the Jets," she said. "Your money. Your father was going to take it, Troy. He was going to give it to those men. He was taking their cash to pay back his investors, then giving them your clean money in return. I'm sorry."
"That can't be," Troy said, the look on his mom's face making him sick because he knew she believed it to be true.
"I blame myself," she said, shaking her head. "People don't change. I know better."
"You can't just take someone's money, Mom," he said, studying her face for the punch line.
"I thought the same thing," she said. "I was going to let him handle it--sign the contract and set up an account for you. I trusted him. I'm sorry I have to tell you this, Troy, but I just think you need to know."
Troy's mom took a deep breath. "He told them he would wire your money into an offshore account. That's how they do it, these criminals. It's as fast as pushing the right button on a computer. The FBI can't stop them. Everything happens too fast."
"He wouldn't do that," Troy said, his voice weak and pathetic. "Not to me."
"I'm sorry, Troy," she said, rubbing the back of his head. "He was, but he's going to pay for it now. That wasn't part of the deal."
"But I did this to help him," Troy said, glancing back at Tate, who nodded vigorously. "Mom, don't you get it?"
He stared at her, searching.
"I don't want him to go to jail," he said, the word dying on his tongue.
"You're a good boy, Troy," she said, touching his cheek. Then she turned and bolted out of the living room. Troy heard her bedroom door rattle closed, and he turned to Tate.
"Sorry," he said.
Tate shrugged. "It's okay. I understand."
"I wish I did," Troy said.
"She loves you, Troy," Tate said. "A lot. Everything that happened she feels bad about. I think she feels guilty."
"Why?" Troy said, his face screwing up with frustration.
"I think it's a girl thing," Tate said. "It's hard to explain."
Troy grabbed two handfuls of hair and twisted. "I'm going crazy, Tate. This whole thing is a nightmare."
"I'm sorry, Troy," she said in a whisper. "I wish I could help."
Troy let his hands fall to his sides and said, "No one can help."
"Maybe you should call him, Troy," Tate said. "I know this all looks really bad, but maybe there's a reason. I know my mom is p
retty extreme with her religion and all that, but she always says God has a reason, and things always work out the way they're supposed to."
Troy looked at her big brown eyes.
"You think my life was supposed to turn into a complete disaster?" he asked quietly. "Famous for something that gets everyone around me acting crazy? My father finally showing up, but it would have been better if he never had? Why would all that happen, Tate?"
Tate shrugged and looked at her feet. Her voice came in a whisper. "I don't know. Maybe it will still be okay. Things happen."
The phone on the kitchen wall rang, and Troy ran to snap it up before his mother could answer from the bedroom.
"Hello?" Troy said.
"Troy? It's me, your dad."
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
TROY COULDN'T SPEAK.
"Are you there?"
"Yes," Troy said in a whisper.
"Did you hear?"
"Yes," Troy said.
"I can explain, Troy," his dad said. "I want to. That's why I ran. I need to see you. I need to tell you. Not the police, not your mom--me. Please, Troy."
"Were you really going to take it?" Troy asked.
There was silence before his father said, "I need to talk to you about that. Can you meet me on your bridge?"
"The FBI are looking for you," Troy said. "There's a helicopter."
"I know," his father said. "But I need to see you first. I never wanted things to be this way. You have to believe me. Will you meet me?"
Troy looked at Tate. She shook her head slowly, no.
"Yes," Troy said. "I'm coming."
He hung up, and his mom appeared in the hallway, asking, "Was that the FBI?"
"No," Troy said, looking directly at her, the words slipping out of his mouth like snakes slithering out of a plastic bucket. "Wrong number."
"I thought you were talking," she said.
"They wanted to know what number they called," he said, the words still slipping past his lips, "and if a Robert lived here. I thought maybe they were looking for Gramps or something."