by Tim Kehoe
“Please,” I begged like a little kid. “Please just call the police, Grandpa.”
“I am the police,” he said as he slipped out of my room.
I sat on the floor and held my breath as I listened to him walking down the stairwell. And then there was silence. Five minutes passed with nothing but the sound of my heart pounding. Ten minutes. Fifteen. I could feel panic sweeping over me as I inched toward the window. I got to my knees and looked out onto the driveway. Miller’s squad car was still running, but it was too dark to see inside it. And there was no sign of my grandpa anywhere.
I thought I heard something coming from the hallway, but it was hard to be sure. The sound of my thumping heart now made it nearly impossible to hear anything. I took a couple of deep breaths and called out into the dark.
“Grandpa? Is that you?”
Nothing.
Then I thought I heard a noise coming from the driveway. I looked out the window. Miller’s driver’s-side door was open. It was dark, but it looked like my grandpa was leaning into the squad. Maybe he was using the radio? Or maybe Miller was still in the car. I took several deep breaths and watched as my grandpa continued to lean into the squad car. Then the dome light came on and I could see my grandpa’s face. It was inches from Lieutenant Miller’s. Miller looked lifeless. I was about to stand up and go help my grandpa when a pair of bright lights suddenly lit the entire vehicle. A dark sedan pulled up inches from the back of Miller’s squad car. Maybe it was Moralesse. The car easily could have been an unmarked cop car. But now I could make out the silhouette of two people inside.
A large man in a long leather trench coat got out of the sedan’s passenger side and started slowly walking between his car and Miller’s squad. I saw the reflection of a knife in his hand as he stepped into the beam from his headlights. I looked back at my grandpa. He was out of the car and on his knees. He looked like he was fumbling with something on the ground.
“GET UP!” I yelled. “GET UP!”
As my grandpa turned to look at me, I could see it was Miller that he was fumbling with. Miller was bleeding on the ground in front of him. My grandpa was trying to stop the bleeding. I pointed frantically to the car in the driveway, but the guy in the trench coat was nowhere to be seen. And then the driveway went dark as the sedan’s headlights shut off.
Where did the man in the trench coat go? I pounded on the window as the driver of the sedan slowly got out. I needed to warn my grandpa that there were two men.
My grandpa picked up the shotgun at his side and stood up. He began to point it toward the driver. That’s when I saw the man in the trench coat reappear. He had circled around Miller’s squad and was now walking up behind my grandpa. I screamed and pounded on the window. But it was too late. The man in the trench coat slid the knife across my grandpa’s throat, and my grandpa dropped to the ground.
Then the two men looked up at me.
CHAPTER NINE
* * *
I turned and ran toward the stairs. My legs felt like they were in quicksand. I tried to move fast. I tried to focus on each step but couldn’t. I missed one of the stairs with my left foot and tumbled to the bottom.
Oh, god! Get up! Get up!
I reached out, grabbed the end of the railing, and pulled myself up. Time seemed to slow again. Just like it had in the ballroom. I stood at the bottom of the stairs, not knowing what to do.
Where are they now? Are they in the house? Can I hide?
I walked down the hall, into the kitchen. The back door was wide open.
I felt sick. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t have the guts to go through the open door.
I sank to the floor next to the sink. I needed a weapon. I needed to protect myself. I fumbled through the cupboard under the sink and found cleaners, tools, and old cookie tins. I opened one of the tins hoping to find one of my grandpa’s guns. There was no gun. The tin was full of cash. I grabbed a fistful of money, shoved it in my pocket, and then grabbed a bottle of Raid. Maybe I could run out of the door spraying the Raid? Maybe it would blind them?
I inched toward the open door trying desperately to hear something, anything, other than the thumping of my heart. I put my finger on the top of the bottle and prepared to spray.
On three!
Come on, Furious, you can do this!
Get ready.
Get set.
But I couldn’t move. They were there. They had to be there. This was suicide for sure. Bug spray? Against killers?
I started to cry. I was stuck. There was nothing I could do.
I stepped back toward the sink. Toward the microwave.
The microwave. I could use the microwave. Maybe I could distract them and get out.
I opened the microwave, placed the bottle of Raid in it, pushed 2:22, and hit start. The metal bottle started to spark immediately, and I ran back down the hallway to my grandpa’s den. I unlocked the window in the corner of the room and crouched down in the dark. I couldn’t hear anything over the thumping in my ears, but I could already smell the pesticide. And then there was a sudden flash of light and a huge explosion.
The bright-white light dimmed to an orange glow, and smoke started to fill the den. I stood to open the window. I dove out headfirst and landed on the little service sidewalk that ran between my grandpa’s house and the McMahons’. I thought briefly about pounding on Andy’s door but decided it was best to keep moving. I ran through the McMahons’ backyard and jumped the fence into the Gunneruds’ yard. I continued to cut through backyards until I got to the train station. The first train out of New Canaan left at 5:30 a.m. I pulled out my phone. I had an hour to wait. I walked across the street to a small park and sat behind a bush.
CHAPTER TEN
* * *
I sat in the bushes for the better part of an hour, listening to what sounded like dozens of fire trucks racing to my grandpa’s house. Then I used some of my grandpa’s money to get on the train and head toward New York. I figured I was safest riding the subway around New York for a couple of hours while I figured out what to do. I needed to get help but had no idea who to trust. If I went to the police, I was afraid that the CIA would find out. And Director Douglas and the CIA were probably higher up the food chain than the police when it came to crimes. What if they handed me over to Douglas? My grandpa didn’t trust Douglas, and neither did I. Maybe he was in on my mom’s murder. And my dad’s and grandpa’s. Maybe he was working for the Salvatores.
I finally got off the train at Grand Central station and sat down on a bench in the main terminal, next to a guy who looked like he probably ran some big bank or something. He was reading the New York Times. Dad’s face was taking up most of the front page, and my grandpa’s would probably be on there tomorrow. I hung my head in my lap and tried not to cry. I loved my grandpa. He was a good guy. A great guy. And he died trying to protect me.
I sat on the bench staring at the crowd. All of these people had someone. Friends. Family. People in their life. I had no one. They were all gone. All killed. I was absolutely alone on the planet. I breathed deep and stared. I tried to think of someone I could trust.
The banker man got up after twenty minutes and left his paper on the bench. I picked it up. The front page featured a picture of my dad that I had never seen. He was wearing some sort of hunting jacket with a leather patch on the shoulder. He looked like he was on a safari. Maybe in Africa. Man, he was so tough. I never would’ve imagined anything could have hurt him. I stared at the photo and thought about life without him. All the little things we’d never get to do together. All the conversations we’d never have.
I wiped my eyes and thumbed through the paper, looking for more photos of my dad. There were several articles about him. One was an in-depth obituary chronicling his life. There was a long story detailing his murder, and a short interview about his yet-to-be-released book Double Crossed.
I read the interview:
Double Crossed, the sixth installment in the series about hard-hitting CIA agent Carson Ki
dd becomes available next Thursday. Below are excerpts from an interview with Robert Jones about the book, his life, and his preparations for its sale.
REPORTER: Your books have become wildly popular. Worldwide, you sell something like one book every minute of the day. That’s astonishing!
JONES: Yeah, I’ve heard that number before.
REPORTER: What do you make of that?
JONES: What do I make of it? Well, it’s great. I’m incredibly grateful to all the Kidd fans. We’re having a good time together.
REPORTER: The sixth book is coming out in a week, and you and/or your publisher insist on keeping incredible security surrounding the book, right?
JONES: That’s right.
REPORTER: Why the secrecy, Robert?
JONES: This book is very different from all the others. I’m certain when this is all said and done, everyone will understand the unique situation driving the unique launch.
REPORTER: Yes, I’m glad you said it. The circumstances have been unorthodox, to say the least. I understand you wrote this book in a very short period of time and pushed your publisher hard for a quick release.
JONES: That’s right.
REPORTER: Why the urgency with this book?
JONES: What do you mean?
REPORTER: I mean, I’ve heard reports that you wrote this book in about a month and insisted on a previously unheard-of publication schedule. Why the rush?
JONES: Like I said, a lot of this will make sense after the release. There is nothing traditional or normal about this Kidd book.
REPORTER: Robert, don’t you find all of this a bit ridiculous? A little over the top?
JONES: No, not at all.
REPORTER: Is it just a marketing ploy?
JONES: Not at all. This is real. This is real life. This book, more than any of my previous books, is real life. You understand that? People’s lives are at stake. You need to understand that.
REPORTER: What do you mean, “Lives are at stake”?
JONES: There are many people counting on me to tell the story.
REPORTER: That’s true, you do have a massive fan base. Are you at all worried that in your rush to publish this book that you might not have taken the care you took with the previous Kidd books?
JONES: No.
REPORTER: Are there more Carson Kidd books in your future? This isn’t the end of the series, is it? You don’t kill off Carson Kidd?
JONES: I don’t kill him. But that doesn’t mean he’s not dead.
REPORTER: Well, that kind of leads me to my next question. Let’s talk about the title. The new book is titled Double Crossed.
JONES: That’s right.
REPORTER: What can you tell us about the title? What does “double crossed” refer to?
JONES: I think the title speaks for itself. It’s about betrayal. Betrayal of trust.
REPORTER: Can you tell us more?
JONES: You’ll have to read it with everyone else next Thursday.
REPORTER: Why release the book on a Thursday? As you know, most books come out on Tuesdays.
JONES: I was told that was the soonest they could get the books out.
REPORTER: Okay, one final question. Is this book dedicated to anyone?
JONES: This one is dedicated to my son, Furious, and my agent, Sloan Harrison. Sloan has always stood by my side. And he moved mountains to help me pull off this new book. We were set to publish a different book, but he knew how important this project was to me.
I closed the paper. Sloan Harrison was my dad’s agent, and his best friend, too. I hadn’t seen Sloan since my mom’s funeral. My dad and Sloan had been best friends since they were kids back in Minnesota. They were best men at each other’s weddings. And Sloan was my godfather. My mother never liked Sloan, but she always said he was the brain behind my father’s success. And no matter where we were in the world, Sloan had always found a way to send me a present on my birthday. Always.
I turned my phone back on and searched for my dad’s website. I clicked Contact Us, and Sloan’s office address and phone number came up on the screen. Maybe Sloan could help. Sloan had to know about the book being real and about my mom’s murder. He was a successful, powerful guy, and the closest thing I had left to a relative—maybe he could help.
I needed to talk to Sloan.
I used some more of my grandpa’s money to take a cab uptown to Sloan’s office. The security guard stopped me in the lobby.
“May I help you?”
“I’m here to see Sloan Harrison from Harrison, Smythe, and Moore.”
“Do you have an appointment?” he asked.
“No. But I think he’ll see me. I’m Furious Jones. Robert Jones’s son.”
He looked shocked. Or concerned. He either knew my dad or was reacting to my stupid name.
“Ah, hang on just one minute,” he said and picked up the phone. I couldn’t hear his conversation, but it was brief.
“I’m so sorry for your loss. Please take the elevator to the fifteenth floor. Kristyn . . . ah . . . Mr. Harrison’s assistant will help you.”
“Thank you,” I replied.
He pushed a button under the counter, and I walked through the turnstile to the bank of elevators. I stepped into an open elevator and punched 15. I stepped out into a lavish mahogany-paneled lobby. Kristyn was waiting for me. And so was Director Douglas.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
* * *
Hello again, Furious,” Douglas said.
Douglas? What was he doing here?
“Hi, Furious, my name is Kristyn. I was one of Mr. Harrison’s assistants.” She stuck her hand out and I shook it.
“We’re all so sorry for the loss of your—” She started crying before she could finish. This was a mistake.
“You’ll have to excuse Kristyn,” Douglas said. “These guys have had a rough couple of days.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. They’ve had a rough couple of days?
I looked around the lobby. There was a woman sitting behind the desk and six or seven uniformed cops standing in the lobby talking to one another. They were clearly pulling out all the stops for my dad.
“I stopped by to talk to Sloan. Is he around?” I asked.
“I’m glad you’re here, Furious. Let’s find a place to talk.” Douglas stepped aside and gestured down the hallway. “Kristyn, is there some place Furious and I can talk in private?”
“Sure,” Kristyn replied. “You can use the conference room. Follow me.” “Where’s Sloan?” I asked again.
“Mr. Harrison is dead,” Douglas said as he put his hand on my shoulder and started guiding me down the hall.
Dead? Did he say dead?
As I tried to process what he’d just told me, Douglas and I followed Kristyn down a long hallway with offices on both sides. They were mostly empty. But I could hear voices and noises from an office on the right. There was a cop standing in the doorway. The voices grew louder.
“Don’t look,” Douglas said.
But it was too late. I’d already looked. And I saw Sloan’s body on the floor of his office. I looked away, but the snapshot was already there. Etched in my mind. And it would be there forever.
We kept walking, and I didn’t say anything. Sloan was truly the last person I could count on to help me and now he was dead. Gone. Clearly these guys could get to anyone. Were they killing everyone who knew my dad’s new book was a true story? As far as I knew, I was the last one on the list. The last living person to know that whatever was happening in Galena, Illinois, was nonfiction. If they killed me, it would stop here. The book would come out next Thursday, and the world would assume that it was just a fictional story. Like they had assumed with all the previous Kidd books. And the Salvatore crime syndicate, and whoever else, would get away with murder. Or, more accurately, murders.
Kristyn led us to a large glass-walled conference room at the end of the hall. I noticed an EXIT sign above a door next to the conference room. Maybe I’d get a chance to run. My gr
andpa thought Douglas might be mixed up in my mom’s death, and my dad had made it clear that the Salvatores had infiltrated the CIA, so I couldn’t trust Douglas. Or anyone in the CIA.
“In here,” Kristyn said, motioning with her left hand.
I circled around the large conference-room table. I wanted to sit as far away from Douglas as I could. A wall at the far end of the room was lined with dozens of books, carefully lit and displayed on glass shelves. Most of them were my dad’s.
I walked up and grabbed a copy of Miss Fire, my dad’s fifth book. The one I had read so many great reviews about.
“I hear this is the best one in the series,” I said.
“Yes, it’s very popular. But I guess they’re all popular,” Kristyn said with a smile.
I looked at the cover. It had a silhouette of a man in the foreground looking at the Eiffel Tower. I wondered what adventure my mom went on in this book. I knew my mom could speak a little French. She could actually speak several languages in addition to Italian. I guess now I knew why. And my mom and I had spent a couple of months in Paris about a year and a half ago. Was she there killing people? I wondered.
There was a sticker on the cover that said GET A SNEAK PEEK AT DOUBLE CROSSED.
“What’s this sticker?” I asked Kristyn.
“Oh, that was the publisher’s idea. They placed those stickers on his other books. There is a code on the back of the sticker that allows you to get excerpts leading up to the book’s launch next Thursday. Can I get either of you something to eat or drink?”
I hadn’t thought of it until she mentioned food, but I was starving. I hadn’t eaten since late yesterday afternoon.
“I’d love something to eat, if it isn’t too much trouble,” I said.
“Oh, no trouble at all. Do you like scones? There’s a coffee shop downstairs, and they make killer sco—” She paused halfway through the word “scone,” and her cheeks reddened. “They make great scones,” she finished.
“That would be great,” I said.