by Tim Kehoe
“Oh, I’m fine. How about you?” I motioned to his foot.
“I’m fine, considering I was shot and all.”
“And your mom?”
“They still don’t know,” Trish said, “but she’s stable now.”
I nodded.
“Look at your hair,” Trish said. “Have you been here all night?”
I ran my good hand through my snarled mess. I needed a haircut. “Yeah. I’ve been waiting to see how you guys are doing.”
“I think she’s going to be okay.” Trish quickly added, “She’s tough.”
“Like someone else I know,” I said.
No one spoke for several minutes. I sat and listened to the beeps and hums of hospital equipment.
I finally said, “I’m heading out.”
“Okay. Are you going to stop back later?” Mike asked.
“No. I mean—I’m leaving.”
Mike said, “Okay, dude. I’d get up and all, but you know.” He pointed to his foot.
“Yeah, I know—you’re lazy.” I smiled, walked over, and shook his hand.
“You’ll be in touch, right?” Mike asked.
“You bet,” I said. And who knew? Maybe I would be.
Trish stood up and I walked to her.
“Thank you,” I said. “You saved my life.”
“I think it’s the other way around, Amos.”
I gave her a long hug and walked out without looking back.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
* * *
I walked outside and sat on a hospital bench. I had nothing. No family. No home. Nothing but an offer from Douglas. And it was tempting. The Salvatores had destroyed my life and countless others. And the guy who’d killed my grandpa right before my eyes was still out there. If I went with Douglas, maybe I’d have a chance to avenge his death. But maybe it was all BS. A twelve-year-old in the CIA? It seemed crazy. And where would I live? In some sort of government foster care? No, thanks.
I pulled out my wallet. I had two bucks. If I was going to leave, I’d have to leave now. Before more CIA showed up. But I’d need money to get away. I searched my phone for a bank. My bank had a Dubuque branch. And it was only a few blocks from the hospital. I guessed that everything was only a few blocks in Dubuque.
I started walking. Maybe they could give me a replacement card. I had, like, $400 in my account. Maybe it would be enough to get out of the Midwest.
I found the branch on the corner of Main and Third. The manager assured me that cards went missing all the time and he would have me up and running in no time. I showed him my ID and he excused himself and returned a minute later with a new card.
“Okay, just go ahead and swipe the card through the machine and enter your PIN.”
I slid the new card through the machine on his desk and entered my code.
“Perfect, Mr. Jones.” He turned the monitor toward him and began typing. “And which accounts would you like associated with the card?”
“I only have one account,” I said. “It’s got, like, four hundred bucks in it.”
“Yes, your primary checking.” He clicked some more keys. “It looks like there are several new accounts listing you as a joint tenant.”
“Joint tenant?” I repeated.
“Yes, accounts you share with Robert Jones?”
“My dad? Go ahead and associate all the accounts,” I said. My dad must have added me to his accounts before he died. Maybe he knew the Salvatore family would never let him and Double Crossed get away with exposing their operation.
“Will do,” the banker said, clicking a few more keys. “There you go, Mr. Jones. It is ready to use any time. Is there anything else I can assist you with today?”
“Is there any way you could raise my daily withdrawal limit to, say, three thousand dollars?” I figured there had to be at least three thousand among all the accounts.
“Sure, no problem. Anything else?”
I stood up. “Yes, does Dubuque have an airport?”
“Oh, yes. You can get most anywhere in the country from Dubuque via Chicago O’Hare.”
“How far away is it?” I asked.
“Oh, just drive right down Highway 61. You can’t miss it. It’s probably a twenty-minute drive.”
Great, I thought. That’s, like, a two-hour walk.
“Thanks,” I said.
I stopped at the bank’s lobby ATM on my way out. I stuck my card in, entered my code, and punched the balance button. I was presented with three account numbers. I touched the first account and saw a balance of $386. My primary checking. I selected the next account, and the machine said I had more than seventy thousand dollars in that account. I selected the final account. Wow! This must have been from my dad’s estate. Or maybe it was his entire estate. It said I had a lifetime of money.
I took out three thousand dollars and walked back to the manager’s desk.
“Excuse me, does Dubuque have a taxi service?”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
* * *
The cab dropped me off at the Dubuque Regional Airport. I tipped the cabbie ten bucks and walked inside. There was a little café directly in front of me. I was starving. I ordered a Coke and scanned the menu for something to eat.
The girl behind the counter brought me my Coke and asked, “Can I get you anything else?”
“Ah, you don’t have any scones, do you?”
“Absolutely. What kind?”
“What do you have?”
“Blueberry, lemon, and cinnamon.”
“Perfect. I’ll take one of each.”
I sat down at a table to eat all three scones when my phone buzzed once. It was Emma.
“Hey, how is my favorite journalist?”
“Pretty awesome, actually.” Emma sounded excited.
“Yeah? Did you write the story of the year?” I asked.
“More like the story of the decade,” she said. “They’re running my story in the Chicago Tribune today, Furious. Can you believe that? On the front page, no less!”
“Of course they are,” I said, smiling. “You’re good.”
“Mrs. Dalton, the woman who runs the program here at Northwestern, she said it was as fine a piece of investigative journalism as she has ever seen from a student.”
“That’s awesome, Em. You deserve it.”
“It’s all thanks to you. How are you doing? How is Trish’s mom?”
“She’s not out of the woods yet, but they think she’s going to be okay,” I said.
“And you?” Emma asked. “How are you doing?”
“I’m all right.” Other than I lost everything in my life, I thought.
“What happens to you now?”
“I’m thinking I might disappear for a while. Think things through a bit,” I said.
“Will you let me know where you disappear to?”
“As long as you don’t report it,” I said.
“Anonymity is part of the craft,” Emma said. “Besides, as far as my readers are concerned, Furious Jones is dead.” She paused and then added, “I can’t believe I have readers!”
“I can. I’ll call you as soon as I settle someplace,” I said.
“Okay. Take care of yourself.”
“You too.”
And then, almost as if on cue, my cheap, crappy phone died. I stood up and threw the Coke can and the cheap phone in the trash.
I passed a newspaper stand on my way to the ticketing counter. Large stacks of my dad’s new book, Double Crossed, were piled out front. I grabbed a copy and handed it to the clerk.
“I hear Carson Kidd actually dies in this book,” the clerk said, pointing to the cover.
“Yeah, I heard something like that too,” I said.
I paid for the book and walked toward the ticketing counter. I stared at the photo of my dad on the back of the book while waiting in line. He looked like the big man. Like a world famous adventurer, fearless explorer, tough-guy author. And in the end, he was. He did the right thing. He stood
up to the bad guys and tried to fix the wrongs.
“Sir? Sir?” The man behind the counter was motioning to me.
“How can I help you?”
“Yes. One ticket, please.”
“To where, sir?”
I looked back down at my dad. I had spent most of my life wanting to make him proud. Wanting him to notice me.
“To where, sir?” the man behind the counter asked again.
“Ahhh . . .”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
* * *
I pushed the door open and walked into Douglas’s room.
“I’ve got one condition,” I said.
Douglas looked shocked to see me. “And what’s that?”
“I’ll do it if you promise that we’ll nail each and every one of those Salvatores.”
Douglas smiled. “With you onboard, Furious, I believe we will.”
“Then I’m in.”
Tim Kehoe is an author and the inventor of numerous toy products, including the world’s first colored bubbles, called Zubbles, and he was recently named one of America’s 100 Best by Reader’s Digest. In 2005 Zubbles was awarded Popular Science’s Best of What’s New Grand Award. He lives with his wife and five children in Minnesota. Visit him online at timkehoe.com.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2014 by Kehoe Companies LLC
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The text for this book is set in Electra.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kehoe, Tim.
Furious Jones and the assassin’s secret / Tim Kehoe.—First edition.
pages cm
Summary: Upon witnessing his famous spy-novelist father’s murder just seven months after his mother’s death, twelve-year-old Furious, now an orphan, seeks clues in his father’s latest novel to stop the murderer before he or she strikes again.
ISBN 978-1-4424-7337-9
ISBN 978-1-4424-7339-3 (eBook)
[1. Murder—Fiction. 2. Spies—Fiction. 3. Authors—Fiction. 4. Assassins—Fiction. 5. Orphans—Fiction. 6. Organized crime—Fiction. 7. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.K25177Fur 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013009281