“I know.” He says it without conviction. If the woman who forced him off the ship is somehow the same woman who was following Benny, maybe she’s the blackmailer. And if so, that means she knows what they did to Mr. Brood. If the FBI catches up with her … He lets the thought die.
Reeves’s phone lights up and he checks the text, swipes it away. Donnie catches the wallpaper photo on the device. Like Reeves’s laptop, it’s a picture of a woman in a hospital bed.
“We keep talking about me, but I still don’t know much about you,” Donnie says, trying to change the subject.
“No one’s writing a book about me.”
“Hell, maybe they should be, Hemingway.”
Reeves shakes his head.
“Do you mind if I ask who that is on your phone?” Donnie eyes Reeves’s iPhone.
Reeves looks at his phone, clicks it so the screen goes black. “My best friend. She has Huntington’s, an awful neurodegenerative disease. There’s no cure yet, but there are some clinical trials that are showing promise.”
“I’m sorry, man. I hope she’ll be okay.”
“If we can get her in one of the trials, they have this new technology where they inject viruses that attack and kill the bad DNA that causes the disease. If she was rich, she could go to another country where they’re way ahead with DNA splicing.”
“That ain’t right. I’ll never understand it.”
“What’s that?”
“These rich dudes who have more money than they’ll ever need, but waste it on flying into space or buying more companies or mansions. They could be Batman, like a real-life superhero, going
around finding people in need and changing people’s lives. I don’t get it.” Donnie thinks about Benny, Black Superman.
Reeves looks at him.
“If I had the cash, man, I’d give it to your friend.”
“You know what, Donnie? I think you really would.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
JENNA
Jenna’s going to have to approach this differently. If the guy following the hitter is with the FBI it means one of three things. One, the FBI agent knows the hitter killed Ben Wood—or tried to kill Nico Adakai or Donnie Danger or Artemis Templeton. Or two, he knows that Derek Brood hired the killer to take out the residents of Savior House. Or three, Derek Brood and the hitter are the FBI’s informants about what happened to Derek’s father all those years ago and the FBI has no idea that its confidential informants have also set out to kill everyone. Three seems the least likely. There’d be no need to include the contract killer in informing to the FBI. It would be too risky. And the agent seems to be trailing the woman surreptitiously, not coming to the restaurant to meet her.
Jenna needs to think. Get her head on straight. She thinks of Arty in the back of the town car: We need to talk to Donnie and Nico. Find out if they slipped.… Donnie and Nico adored you. They’ll trust you. She needs to know what, if anything, Donnie and Nico have said to the FBI.
She unzips the bag of goodies and retrieves the cell phone Artemis gave her that monitors the tracker on Donnie’s rental car. Powering on the device, she waits until the blue dot appears. The car’s about ten minutes from here, parked somewhere off the interstate. She pushes the ignition button on the motorcycle and roars away.
She tracks the blue dot to a highway hotel, a chain and probably the only decent accommodations for miles. Donnie must be in for the night. She considers bribing the clerk to get his room number but is spared that indignity when a thin, long-haired man appears in the parking lot. The old rocker looks around like a teenager sneaking out of the house, worried someone might see him.
Jenna follows as Donnie pulls the Hyundai rental car out of the lot and heads back toward Chestertown. The night is cool for April and the breeze feels good as Jenna jets down the interstate, which is littered with semis.
The Hyundai takes the off-ramp and soon they’re on the south side, the Hyundai and bike the only vehicles on the pothole-filled streets. Donnie slows near the corner of Fourth and Union and pulls to a stop. Jenna kills the lights and veers to the side of the road.
From a gap in the row houses appears a man. He walks to the car, leans inside, they shake hands
—the exchange—then the car juts forward.
Oh, Donnie.
The Hyundai putters away. Jenna continues to follow until they hit Woodrow, where most of the businesses—the ones that aren’t covered in plywood with FOR RENT signs on them, anyway—are
closed for the night. But there’s one that has its lights on, Chestertown Liquor. The store’s windows are covered with signs for bottom-shelf liquor and lottery tickets. Donnie goes inside and comes out gripping the neck of a bottle in a brown paper sack.
Donnie drives some more and pulls in front of Savior House and sits in the car for a long time.
The abandoned group home looms in the darkness. She eradicates memories creeping in. The interior light of the Hyundai goes on when the door opens and Donnie steps out. He’s stumbling now and makes his way down the street.
Jenna thinks she knows where he’s going.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
NICO
Nico’s thoughts are whirling. Ben came to the fort—he knew about the duffel bag. Probably about it all. And then he ended up dead.
Nico races through the woodland, the bag draped over his good shoulder, the contents making a dreadful clacking sound. He tears around trees and bramble until he sees lights winking through the trees. He finds his way to the path and darts toward the clearing on the knoll that’s connected to Ned Flanders’s house.
Beyond the weeds and past a fallen tree, there’s a rusty fence. It goes up to only his chest, but his shoulder is throbbing, making the climb difficult. The grass is slick from dew and his sneakers slide as he climbs to the top of the hill. He’s going to bury the bag and get the fuck out of this town and never look back.
A sliver of moon appears, giving just enough light for him to make his way to the spot. He should’ve brought a flashlight. He can’t turn on his phone to use his smartphone light without risking a tower pinging his location.
He reaches the top and his breath is stripped from him. The knoll—a small break in the trees between Ned Flanders’s house and the woods—is pitted with holes. Six or seven of them. Each a few feet deep. Like someone was looking for buried treasure.
He doesn’t have time to process or understand. He needs to move. He looks at the hole in front of him—on the same spot he’d help dig twenty-five years ago—and throws the bag into the void.
He falls to his knees and starts pushing dirt in to fill it.
Later, he’s filthy and sweaty and exhausted, but it’s done. He needs a shower. But that will have to wait. For now, he’s getting out of Chestertown. The street is pitch-black. He’s walked far enough away from the knoll, so he puts the SIM card back in his phone, powers it on, thumbs the Uber app.
Unsurprisingly, no cars are available. A side hustle for Uber isn’t worth venturing into this neighborhood after dark.
He’ll have to walk to Industrial Highway and stick out his thumb. Or maybe the bus station. The area is familiar, and in his head he’s on the way home from school with his friends. Annie’s chewing bubble gum, skipping ahead of them.