Fifteen minutes later, the rental car pulls to the curb on the south side of Chestertown. Reeves seems to be in awe at the urban decay. A neighborhood of boarded-up homes. Unbelievably, things have gotten worse. Twenty-five years ago, the neighborhood was on the decline, but there were still people left from before the steel, automotive, and paper factories closed. Old couples who mowed their lawns, planted flowers, maintained the exterior of their homes—fought the losing battle of their neighborhood being taken over by drugs and crime.
They get out of the rental car and Donnie gestures to a boarded-up mansion that has a lopsided porch. Once upon a time—long before the town used it for a group home—it had been a grand manor.
But once the factories all closed, the place, like the town, went to shit. For some reason, a memory from the tour bus comes to mind. Watching the movie Forrest Gump, the scene where Jenny throws stones at the home where she’d been abused as a kid. No rock is big enough for this place.
“So, this is it, where you grew up?” Reeves asks.
“Only from when I was twelve to fourteen. Before that I was with the Jensons, and before then we were in Alabama in a trailer park that made this place look like a palace.”
Reeves has a pad and pen and takes notes as they walk. He spins around, taking it all in.
“It’s amazing you made it out.”
Donnie examines the house. Next to the front door there’s a rectangle where the paint is a different color. A plaque that read: SAVIOR HOUSE used to hang there.
“Benny said we owed it to each other to make it out.”
Reeves nods, scribbles something.
“About Ben,” Donnie says, “his law clerk told me something that I can’t figure out.” He clues Reeves in on the cryptic message she relayed to him. Nothing’s coming to Donnie. Maybe the writer will have some ideas. He leaves out the part about Ben being blackmailed. That could lead Reeves down a path Donnie doesn’t want him to venture.
Reeves thinks on it. “Did Ben think he was in danger, is that why he asked her to give you a message?”
“No idea. The law clerk said she told the FBI what he said, so I’m sure they’re on it.”
“He said to tell you that you all had it wrong, what could you have gotten wrong?”
Donnie isn’t sure about this either.
“And Boo Radley?” Reeves says. “Did you all read To Kill a Mockingbird or something?”
Donnie shakes his head. “Benny loved to read, but I’ve never read it. Why?”
“Boo Radley’s a character from the book. He was a mysterious neighbor of the kids in the story.
They treated him like the boogeyman, but that’s because they didn’t understand him.”
Donnie thinks about this. He’s racking his brains. Benny loved books, used to spend hours at the public library. Next to the tree fort they’d built that summer, it was his sanctuary. But Donnie doesn’t remember Benny reading To Kill a Mockingbird or talking about it.
“Was there anyone who terrorized you when you were kids?” Reeves asks.
For a split second Donnie can’t breathe. He’s being held underwater at the neighborhood pool.
Then he’s at the edge of a shallow grave. He doesn’t say it, but one name comes to mind: Brood.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
NICO
If they track his movements, they’ll find the duffel bag. And if they find the bag … he doesn’t want to think about that. The proof is in the bag.
The cabbie drives slowly down Patterson Street in Chestertown. It looks like a scene out of a zombie movie: Cars stripped to their frames, houses sprayed with graffiti over plywood-covered windows, litter blowing on the streets. Figures ducking into the shadows.
The cabbie seems nervous. He should be.
“Look, I was fine taking you this far from Philly, but I don’t have a death wish. Friend of mine was killed on the job, and no fare’s worth that.”
Nico says, “It’s just a little more up the road.”
“Looks like the cops are tailing us. I don’t want no trouble.” The cabbie’s eyes jump to the rearview, then back to the road.
Nico twists around. There’s a dark sedan that sure looks like the kind law enforcement drive.
He already paid the driver—the guy insisted on collecting the fare up front—so he just needs to lose whoever’s tailing them. Nico’s mind goes to Natalie. The FBI was just here asking about you.
To his showrunner, Shannon: The FBI served a warrant for the records on your company cell phone.
That reminds him. He pulls out his phone, powers it down. Is that enough to stop the tracking? He decides to pop out the SIM card.
“Okay, here’s what I’d like you to do,” he says to the cabbie. “There’s an alley right up there, pull in and I’ll get out.”
“Not a chance, pal. No way.”
Nico sighs. He looks around. He’s back in the old neighborhood. He still knows the terrain. “All right. Let me out at the corner.”
He looks back again at the sedan crawling behind them. The cabbie stops at the intersection.
“Thanks for the ride.” Nico jumps out and sprints toward the alley.
He hears the sedan’s engine rev, then its brakes screeching to a stop. He twists around. There’s a tall guy in a suit running toward him. Nico turns and weaves through the alley. The old chain-link fence up ahead still has the gap cut into it. He ducks through the hole, then into what used to be Meth Head Ted’s yard. The dog’s gone, at least. They used to make a game of running the gauntlet without Bruno biting them in the balls.
Now he’s on the gravel trail behind the houses. It’s a rat’s maze and the guy will never catch up
with him.
He hears someone shouting.
But he keeps running.
He’s on Harden Street now. His heart trips when he sees the old group home. And the skinny guy with long hair standing out front. But there’s no time for that. He races through the lot and to the overpass. The woods are ahead. Cutting through the trees, the smell of damp earth and fallen leaves brings him back in time. He thinks he’s lost the guy. He better have.
He has to get there before they do. To dispose of the evidence.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
JENNA
Two graveyards in one day. How morbid. This one, in Linwood, Pennsylvania, isn’t as stately as the one in Philadelphia. But it’s a far cry from the overgrown mess of a cemetery in Chestertown where the Savior House kids would play. Even a graveyard was better than spending time in the group home with its dusty rooms filled with pressed-wood furniture and footlockers to protect the residents’
minimal belongings.
She finds the gravestone, a large one for both of them. She thinks back to that night. Bowling night. The one evening her parents went out on the town. Dad had worked for Comcast. Mom stayed home and “kept house,” as she liked to say. It also allowed her to shuttle Jenna to her gymnastics competitions all around the Commonwealth. Dad’s job didn’t pay much, but they somehow scraped together the money for the classes, the leotards, the tournament entry fees. And as much as she’s shoved it all down, tried not to think about it, she allows herself a moment to cherish her idyllic early childhood. She was lucky to have had it, even if it was for only fifteen years. Better to have loved and lost, or whatever that stupid expression is. It was all stolen in the blink of an eye, when some asshole had one too many and got behind the wheel.