At one point I said, “The TV cabinet looks nice.” The doors had been fixed some time during the day.
She responded with, “Stay away from Cullen Henking.” The tiny flick of her eyes signaled it was not up for discussion. That was the only eye contact we had all evening.
The faucet runs upstairs. She’s washing her face, brushing her teeth—the last of her ritual before climbing in bed and reading until she passes out well before nine o’clock.
Grabbing the printouts from my bag, I sneak into my dad’s office, thankful the floorboards downstairs don’t make a sound. I pull the picture of old Chicago off the wall and flip it around. Leaning it against the wall, I sit cross-legged on the oriental rug in the middle of the room. Even though I’ve reviewed my crime collage hundreds of times, I scan it for any connection to Daniel London or Harry Hewitt I somehow missed.
If Bill Morrell was a fall guy like Emi said, which of the men from the picture are in charge? And why are London’s and Hewitt’s kids a part of the Swarm even though they don’t seem to want to be in it?
I pick up the Hewitt family photo, taken a few years back. Ryan’s face is rounder, young—not so hard and angular. His gray eyes are captivating. Maybe it’s the way the sunlight hits them, but they look warmer—not so metallic. His smile lights up his face in a way that makes him seem like the kid everyone always wants to be around. It’s weird seeing him this way. I wonder what it would’ve been like to meet the kid in this picture. Would I have liked him? Had a crush on him? Would I have felt that jittery rush of nerves and excitement every time we talked? This kid is nothing like the guy who threw me off Navy Pier. Something happened after this picture that turned him into a cold, distant killer.
I tape the printouts of Ryan’s family photo and the Lakefront Project men in the upper corner and rehang the picture on the wall.
Other than the whirling hum coming from the vents, our house is still, filling me with unease, activating every nerve in my body. My mom must be reading or already asleep. Either way, the silence is suffocating—especially in the office, where my dad’s ghost lingers.
I grab my ratty slippers from the hall closet. Pushing aside the curtains on our French doors, I scan the blackened space for any sign of a scum reporter trying to snap a shot or a disguised teenager waiting to murder me. When I see nothing, I crack the door and peer into the night. Sconces shine over the scattered garage doors, filling the alley with cones of light. I flip on our floodlights, illuminating the square patch of land constituting our backyard. Our Japanese maple shivers in the breeze. Its leaves have turned bright red—a sign that fall has set in.
A car drives along the side street a few houses down. Its tires roll across the gravel. Other than that, nothing. Everything looks quiet. Safe.
Back inside, I grab a quilt from the couch. My cell sits on the coffee table. A few days ago, I never went anywhere without it. Now, the threat of anyone hacking into my phone and stalking my activity makes it a liability. If checked tonight, someone would find hits on Dopney’s condition, local news reporting about Cullen and me, and my social media sites, which I hadn’t touched since I set them up years ago. But tonight, I added my first post to each—a picture of Cullen and me from today’s interview. Within a couple hours, I had six hundred and eighty-two new followers on one account, three hundred and eighty friend requests on another, and just like that, I have an audience. Of course, the fact that anyone in Chicago cares about me or my love life with everything else going on is disturbing. Though not as disturbing as Dopney still in the ICU. He isn’t improving.
Refusing to be a caged rat in my own house, I leave the phone and head up to our rooftop deck.
My dad used to say the view from our roof was the reason he bought the house. At night, the city’s skyline towers over our home, sparkling like Emerald City and shrouding me in commotion. A CTA rattles as it slides around the elevated tracks. A city bus squeaks and hisses as it stops to pick up passengers. A siren wails as a fire truck pulls out of its station a few blocks away. The city never sleeps, which is reassuring. Out here, I’m never alone. I wrap the quilt around my shoulders and fall into a swivel chair at our outdoor table, letting the tension melt away as I watch the city’s shifting lights.
I’m twisting my necklace around my index finger until the blood drains from it when something scrapes the concrete next to me. I inhale a sharp, raspy breath, trapping the scream in my throat as Ryan pulls a chair away from the table and sits down like he’s having lunch with a friend.
Somehow, he crossed our gravel-strewn alley, walked through the gate of our back fence, and climbed three flights of metal stairs without making a sound. His ability to sneak up on me makes me shudder. Even Charlie is quiet.
Ryan wears workout pants and a hooded sweatshirt—different from the one he wore at Navy Pier. Once again, he looks massive. Tonight, he looks like part of the Swarm.
He watches the skyline. “You’ve been busy.”
Somewhere on the street below a car door slams. I twist my necklace another turn and bite the inside of my cheek. I hear a car door slam a block away just fine, but I can’t hear a hundred-and-seventy-pound guy walk up three flights of metal stairs?
“I don’t trust him.” Ryan’s reference to Cullen Henking is clear.
I shrug. “I thought it might distract from Emi Vega calling me a Death Mob stalker.” I lean my head back against the chair.
“You could just leave the Swarm alone.”
“Before I find out how your dad’s involved?” It has more bite than I intend.
Ryan snorts. Several minutes pass before he says, “You just don’t quit, do you?” Standing, he tucks his hands into the front pouch of his sweatshirt. I’m sure he’s leaving, but instead he walks to the porch’s brick ledge that faces the city.
I tighten the quilt around my shoulders.
The side door of a van rolls before snapping shut on the street below. My head swivels toward the front of our house. If news crews are down there, they could see Ryan.
I shuffle to the ledge. Somehow, he’s standing in the perfect spot—the only spot on our roof blocked by a corner where the bricks stack a little higher than the rest. I lean back and forth, gauging whether someone might glimpse his hand on the ledge from the street below, but he’s concealed. I wonder if he knows that.
Three floors down, a narrow space of grass squeezes between our house and the neighbor’s. Flashes of water crashing against the cement wall at Navy Pier reel through my head. The way Ryan held me against the railing before throwing me in. I step back.
“Your dad was the one who found me.”
I turn toward him, tensing, anticipating what he’s about to tell me. Several wisps of hair fallen from my ponytail whip across my face.
Ryan clears his throat. “I was in a pretty bad place when I met him. A good friend of mine had died. Suicide.”
The newspaper article I read earlier today mentioned Jamie Cunnings, his suicide. Jamie’s father was part of the Lakefront Project too. It can’t be coincidental.
Ryan stares at the city like he’s talking to himself. “Every night, I’d pass him while walking my dog. No matter which way I’d walk, he always seemed to take the path that crossed mine. He’d nod, and that was it.”
“You live by me,” I whisper.
Ryan shrugs his left shoulder, not confirming or denying it.
“One night, we ended up at a light, waiting for it to change. Without looking at me, he told me where I could find him if I ever wanted to ‘do something about it.’ He wasn’t specific, but he didn’t need to be. I knew exactly what he was talking about.”
Ryan turns toward me. The city lights catch his eyes, turning them silver beneath the lip of his cap. “He risked his life by approaching me. For all he knew, I could’ve turned him over to the Swarm and had him killed the next day. I never figured out why he trusted me or how he knew who I was.”
His gaze holds such intensity. I lean in like some magnetic p
ull is drawing me toward him. The air buzzes with it, like yesterday, when he held my ankle, pulled the glass out of my foot.
My dad had razor-sharp instincts. I trusted his decisions, relied on them. And for whatever reason, he believed in Ryan.
“How long have you been following me?”
It’s a silly question. Still, I watch his eyes like his response matters.
“I check in on you.”
The wind picks up, blowing more strands of hair across my face. Ryan stares at a wisp caught on my lip. Pinned beneath his gaze, I do nothing to move it.
“Two years,” he says.
A few days ago, that might have scared me. But seeing how far the Swarm goes to cover themselves complicates things. If my dad meant as much to him as he claims—I would have done the same had I been in his place.
“How is your dad involved?” I ask.
Ryan’s quiet. Minutes pass, and I wonder if he’s stopped talking. Or maybe he’s searching for the best way to tell me his dad runs the whole thing.
“My dad did something illegal,” he says at last.
Adrenaline pumps in through my veins, making me alert, desperate.
“The Swarm used it as blackmail. Either my parents would go to jail or end up dead, or I’d participate.”
My shoulders drop as I slowly accept what that means. If he’s telling the truth, if he knows the truth, his dad isn’t in charge. “And your parents were okay with that?”
“They don’t know.”
I think of everything my mom doesn’t know and the rift that’s caused between us. I wonder if he feels as alone as I do sometimes.
“They blackmail others?” Amy London. It has to be the same for her too.
Ryan nods. “Not all of us, but a lot of us. They make it sound simple at first, like we just stand there while other people do the hitting, but it’s horrible watching people beaten to death. So the Swarm set up a system. Punch the victim, and it shortens your indentured servitude. Deliver the final blow and you’re out—no strings attached.”
Ryan talks in an emotionless voice like he’s detached from what he’s saying. The look behind his eyes as he stares at my lips turns blank. “The Swarm becomes rabid after those first few hits. There’s this crazed shift. People lose their inhibitions.”
Mob mentality. I think of Bird Man from the library. His creepy books.
“My friend couldn’t take it anymore,” Ryan continues. “He hit a victim. He didn’t mean to, but his hit was the final blow. The Swarm released him. Three months later, he took his own life—couldn’t live with what he’d done.”
“Jamie Cunnings.”
As if snapping out of it, his eyes meet mine. “The Swarm takes a toll on all of us.”
“How do you do it?”
He leans toward me, narrowing the space between us. “I’ve grown numb to it all. The attacks. The nightmares. I don’t have another option.” His sweatshirt brushes against the blanket I have around my shoulders, prickling my skin beneath it, and I wonder if he’s haunted during the daytime as well. Like me. “Too many people I’ve cared about have died. I guess at some point you’re willing to risk everything to protect the ones left, regardless of the cost.”
“Your brother and your friend,” I whisper.
“Your dad.”
The guilt and the constant drive to make up for the fact he’s still here—it controls him and every decision he makes. He doesn’t need to say it for me to understand it well.
I inch closer, like we’re trading secrets. “It’s connected to the Lakefront Project, isn’t it?”
The light catches his eyes again. Deep silver. Ryan brushes away the strand of hair still caught against my bottom lip with his index finger. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Save the Parks protesters have been getting a lot of press lately.”
The world spins. Flips upside down. My head grows light, and I think of Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, sure that this is the moment everything changes.
“I think your dad knew that,” Ryan says, pain etched across his face. I can’t tell who it’s for—me, my dad, himself? He looks like the boy in the picture—a guy who plays soccer, a guy I can trust.
“I think he was pretty close to figuring out who ran the Swarm when they killed him.”
He talks so softly. The space between us grows smaller.
“Lia, your dad—” he starts, but he’s interrupted.
Someone is coming up the stairs leading to the rooftop.
Ryan’s head snaps. He jumps in front of me, shielding me from the stairs.
“Get out,” my mom growls.
Ryan’s back turns rigid.
I step out from behind him. “Mom, it’s fine. He’s—”
She cuts me off, ignoring the fact I’m talking. “Stay away from her.” My mom’s voice is strong, threatening. Her hair dances frenetically around her head in the wind, but her eyes are narrow and forceful. I doubt Ryan even notices the way she grasps either side of our rooftop ledge like she might blow over if she doesn’t hold on.
Ryan’s hands dangle at his sides. I consider grabbing one and telling my mom who he is, but I don’t know how to describe him.
Her voice drops. “Don’t think I don’t know who you are and what you did.”
Ryan jams his hands into his hoodie, drops his head, and heads down our back stairs.
My mom leans over the rooftop ledge to make sure he’s gone, clutching the metal rail for support.
I step forward, squeezing the blanket around my shoulders. “I know him, he’s . . .”
Her head snaps in my direction. Her eyes flash. “He’s the reason your father’s dead.”
CHAPTER 21
I walk into class well after the bell has rung and throw my bag down on my desk in the back row. Mr. Mater’s showing everyone how to balance equations on the SmartBoard. He doesn’t acknowledge my tardy arrival.
Adam looks up from his iPad, where he’s pretending to take notes. “No sign of your stalker last night, I take it?”
I cock my head and give him the best pissed-off face I’m able to muster at eight thirty in the morning. “Did someone leave his clothes in the dryer too long?”
Adam’s white long-sleeve shirt and leather pants are so tight, I’m surprised he hasn’t lost circulation. He rounds it off with combat boots and a tiny smirk, indicating he knows he can pull it off. And he can. For as skinny as he is, he’s fairly defined, which is beside the point.
Adam shakes his head. “You’re dodging the question.”
I rifle through my bag for my science binder so I can at least pretend to participate. “It was a stupid question.”
“Why are you so overly sensitive?”
A girl a couple rows in front of us turns around and gives us an irritated look. She sports a ponytail too high on her head for a high schooler. I’m tempted to point this out to her when Mr. Mater stops his lesson to look our way. Of course, when he sees that it’s me disrupting his class, his glance skims past me. He continues his lesson as if nothing happened.
Katie sits with perfect posture on the other side of the room, doodling in her sketchbook. Whatever she’s drawing, I’m sure I’m a part of it, and I wonder how she’s depicting me. Every time I’ve texted her, she’s taken a while to respond, and I’m not sure why. Or when it began. Is it because of the whole Cullen Henking charade? Is she still upset I left her with him when I ditched lunch a few weeks ago? Does she regret helping me find Amy London? Or has she simply started realizing my friendship isn’t worth it? One look at that illustrated diary of hers would either confirm or deny my speculations. I’m kind of glad I can’t see it.
Mr. Mater returns the pen to the SmartBoard tray, marking the end of his lecture. “I posted a handout online.” Students begin rumbling before he finishes speaking. “Whatever you don’t get done in class, complete for homework. Make sure you submit your answers by eight o’clock tomorrow morning.” Mr. Mater shuffles papers on his desk, officially dism
issing us to work for the rest of the period.
I take out my iPad and access Mr. Mater’s home page. I’d be fine working by myself today, but Adam, without invitation, swings his desk around to face mine.
“A delinquent not stalking you anymore is a good thing.” He straightens his cuff, aligning it with the leather band around his wrist. “Even if he is incredibly attractive.”
I glance at Katie, hoping she’ll join us. Instead, she scoots her desk to work with the girl next to her without looking our way. Adam doesn’t address it, almost like he expects it.
“I’m doing number one without you,” I say, like Adam cares that I don’t wait for him. He could balance these equations while writing his research paper for English and get an A on both.
Adam leans over his desk. “It’s not like we haven’t all been guilty of letting a hot guy cloud our judgment.”
“Why are we still talking about this?” I snap, burying myself in the first problem on Mater’s stupid assignment. I pretend to care about something that will never serve a real purpose in my life in order to ignore the throbbing nerve Adam just hit.
After my mom kicked Ryan out, I thought he’d show up the next night, at least give an explanation for my mom’s accusation. But he didn’t. For several days, I watched for signs of him following me, but he wasn’t around. And the longer he stayed away, the more I realized how easy I made it for him to lie about everything. What’s sad is that I’d considered him an ally in a world where people want to use me or kill me instead of realizing the alternative: Ryan’s involvement with my dad got him killed.
“If you’d rather talk chemical equations, we can, but then you’ll never find out what I’ve discovered while doing a little of my own research.”
I look up from my iPad. My heart skips. Adam stares at his own tablet with a little grin.
“Shall I go on then?”
I should chastise him for putting himself at risk and refuse to talk about any leads with him. Even I’ve laid off researching anything these last few weeks. Aside from checking my follower status a few times, which continues to grow without me doing anything to encourage it, I’ve stayed off the Internet entirely. I open my mouth to protest, but Adam holds up his index finger, cutting me off.
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