He sees the park up ahead. It was a disaster and dangerous even back then. He can only imagine what it’s like now. The site of his famous beatdown from Derek in front of Annie.
All the streetlights surrounding the park are smashed out. He probably should steer clear. There
could be danger in the shadows. But he keeps walking, the memories pulling him ahead like a casino calling his name.
The blacktop is strewn with litter. The basketball stands and hoops—forever netless when they were kids—lie on the ground like fallen trees ripped from their roots.
He stops. He can make out the monkey bars. The octagon cage where they would sit until sundown. He swears there’s the outline of a figure on top, but it’s just his mind playing tricks on him.
He should go.
But he keeps walking into the park.
“You don’t wanna come over here, boss,” a voice says in a southern drawl. “I’ve got a gun.”
The warning is a bluff, he knows. He also knows that voice.
“Donnie?” Nico asks.
Nico turns on his iPhone’s flashlight. Shines it on his own face.
“Handsome? Is that you?”
“It is, Donnie, it is.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Nico’s sitting on top of the monkey bars next to Donnie, the two passing a bottle back and forth. They skip the small talk, and mercifully it’s too dark for Donnie to notice the dirt all over Nico’s hands and probably smearing his face. Or Donnie’s too plastered, but it’s always been hard to tell with Donnie.
“I’m sorry about Ben,” Nico says.
Donnie nods. Takes a swig.
“You two keep in touch over the years?”
Donnie nods again. He doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. Nico doesn’t mention finding the cuff link. Doesn’t mention being at the tree fort.
“What you doing back here?” Donnie asks at last.
“I’ve been asking myself the same question.”
“I hear you, brother.”
Nico says, “I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with the news. But what happened to me, it wasn’t—”
“—wasn’t an accident,” Donnie says, passing him the bottle. “Same,” he says, referring to his fall from the cruise ship without elaboration. “Do you have any idea who—”
“Who’s trying to kill you?” a female voice cuts in. “I know,” she says.
They twist around.
“Who’s there?” Donnie calls out.
The woman emerges from the shadows.
“What the hell are you doing back there?” asks Nico.
Jenna replies, “That’s what she said.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
JENNA
She’s been watching them in the shadows, listening. Arty’s fears appear to be unwarranted.
Donnie and Nico haven’t told anyone—much less the FBI—about Savior House, about anything.
From what she’s made out, they haven’t spoken to each other in years, perhaps since the last time they were all together, twenty-five years ago.
She emerges from the darkness. Makes that stupid joke they used to love so much.
Donnie appears ambivalent. She remembers him from that night—he seemed broken. He had gone along with Arty’s plan only because of Ben. And it doesn’t escape Jenna that if it weren’t for her
—the boys trying to prevent her from being taken—all of their lives would have been different. She’d been at Savior House only a brief time, but they put everything on the line for her.
Donnie hops down, gives her a tentative look. Like he’s not sure he recognizes her.
For his part, Nico looks perplexed. He says, “You’re alive.… We thought they took you and…”
“I’m most certainly alive.” She shrugs, smiles.
Nico seems to be calculating something. If you’re alive, then maybe Annie…， but if so, he can’t bring himself to say it.
Jenna thinks of what Sabine told her yesterday. You’re the only one we ever trained from Savior House. I only recruited the extraordinary, the special.
Nico would say Annie was extraordinary, special. But not in the way Sabine meant.
“What’re you doing here?” Donnie asks, breaking the awkward silence. His words have a slur to them. Not the booze. Probably whatever he bought from the guy on the corner of K and Seventh.
“I imagine the same thing you’re both doing.” She looks at them both. “Trying to figure out who’s trying to kill us.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
NICO
Nico looks at Jenna, who has grown into a beautiful woman. She retrieves the bottle from Donnie and takes a long pull. Nico can’t help but think of her on the swing, which is now a nub of chain on a rusted frame. How she went after the boy who was beating him up while he lay pathetically on the ground.
They’ve told one another about their lives after Savior House. After the place was shut down when its director disappeared. Donnie running off to Philly with Ben, joining a band, touring the world. Nico returning to Nicetown, getting fostered by a couple who both worked in television, one as a cameraman, the other a gaffer. Jenna taken in by a Frenchwoman, and now she’s married, the stepmother of two daughters.
“You know someone tried to kill Arty too?” Jenna asks.
Nico and Donnie remain quiet.
“Arty came to Philadelphia for Ben’s funeral,” she explains. “I spoke to him.” Her legs swing under the monkey bars. She’s comfortable up high without holding on. “Arty thinks he knows who…”
Nico’s heart skips.
“Who?” Donnie asks.
“Derek Brood.”
The name causes a heavy silence.
Finally, Donnie says, “But it was a woman who went after me on the ship.”
“She’s a contract killer.”
“She’s a what?” Donnie asks, his tone incredulous.
“Did she go after you too?” Jenna asks Nico.
“I couldn’t see who it was. Coal mines are dark as hell. But I think it was a woman.”
“What happened to your shoulder?” she asks.
He’s not wearing the sling, so he’s not clear how she knows about his injury, though maybe he’s favoring his right arm.
“Let me guess,” Jenna says before he responds. “It was some type of pressurized puncture weapon that looks like a tube.”
Nico considers her. “How’d you—”
“It’s the same woman.”
Donnie says, “We should, like, go to the police or talk to the FBI guy who’s investigating Benny’s
murder.”
Nico and Jenna exchange looks, as if they both know they can’t go to the FBI.
“An agent showed me a picture and said it’s the same woman who was after me on the ship,”
Donnie continues. “I saw her again in Florida at the beach.”
“Did you call the FBI?” Jenna asks.
“No, they just showed up at the hospital.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Nothing. I didn’t know anything to tell. Couldn’t remember what happened. It’s only just come back to me.”
“They speak to you?” she asks, looking at Nico.
He shakes his head. He doesn’t mention the FBI subpoenaing his phone records. Possibly chasing him a few short hours ago.