A woman’s voice rises above the chirp of crickets through the tinny speaker.
“This is not what we signed up for,” she says.
It’s dark and the white coveralls she’s wearing are covered in dirt. She holds a phone in one hand, talking to someone on speaker mode. With the other hand she scoops up a pile of what look like rags, but when the camera zooms in they appear to be decaying clothes containing human bones.
“Quit whining,” the voice through the phone says.
“Um, fuck off. I’ve been doing all the dirty work while you get a tan,” the woman says. “There’s like so many remains here. The clothes look like they were teenagers.”
“Not our concern,” the voice on the phone says.
“Spoken like a woman sipping a margarita poolside on a cruise while I’m digging up human remains.”
The video jostles as Ben moves closer. His movement stops as the camera focuses in on the wheelbarrow. As the image resolves, Donnie sees that it does not hold kindling. The wheelbarrow’s filled with bones, including at least three skulls. A Black hand appears in the video; Benny seems to be taking something from among the remains. Something delicate, shiny. The hand freezes when the woman calls out.
“Who’s there?” Her voice has the lilt of concern.
The video turns black but is still on as it jostles up and down, the sound of footfalls, heavy breathing.
Benny’s running.
The camera goes black.
When it turns back on, Ben is looking into the screen. He appears to have his back pressed against a tree.
Into the camera, he whispers, “Donnie, if my law clerk got you my message and you found this, it means something’s happened to me. Contact Agent Rodriguez with the FBI, the Philadelphia field office. Tell him to look into Park Jones. I think Jones took Annie and the others.”
Ben’s quiet for a moment, like he’s listening for someone coming.
“Arty lied to all of us. Take care of Mia and Bell. Take care of yourself. You’ll always be my brother from another mother.”
A voice chimes in from the background. “I see you,” it says in a singsong tone. “You can come out. Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.”
It was a ghoulish lie.
Donnie holds back a sob as the screen goes black.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
JENNA
“Where are Mr. Brood’s bones?” Artemis says.
Jenna’s heart trips as one of the twins moves the weapon from Jenna’s chest to her neck. If the device shoots the steel bolt into her carotid artery, she’ll die within seconds. The other twin simply watches, no longer holding her gun on Nico, like he isn’t a threat.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Artemis,” Jenna says. She tries to keep her voice flat, unemotional.
“I believe you.”
“Like you believed him?” Jenna looks at Derek Brood’s body, now a mound on the filthy dining room floor.
Artemis doesn’t reply. Jenna’s mind jumps to the boy pulling the wagon full of computer equipment down the sidewalk, the boy bullied in the school’s lunchroom who would later become one of the world’s richest men, an innovator, a man before his time. With her life seemingly over now, Jenna is struck by the fact that this house where she will die instilled something in each of them that helped them reach their full potential.
Artemis looks at Jenna, his expression blank like always. “I believe you because you don’t need the money,” Artemis says. “And because you didn’t take the shot.”
Jenna says, “I have no clue what you’re—”
“Who do you think coerced you into taking the hit on the bald man at the restaurant?”
Jenna understands now: Artemis set up a fake assassination both to divert any suspicion away from him and to draw Jenna out into the open.
“I was worried that with all your training you’d see that the bullets were blanks, that you’d realize the glare from the other scope was too obvious, that you’d realize the hit was designed to draw you out. I guess you’re rusty.”
Jenna gives Artemis a lazy glance. “Honestly,” she says, “if you wanted to take me out, you could’ve done better than hiring these half-wits.” She takes a sideways glance at the woman holding the weapon to her neck, then at the other twin.
The woman with the weapon at Jenna’s neck tenses, like she’s going to pull the trigger.
Artemis looks at the twin holding the cylinder weapon, shakes his head with a firm no.
Jenna barely flinches. “So let me guess, the bones—someone dug them up from where we left him and didn’t blackmail only Ben, but you as well?”
Artemis shrugs.
“And what, you decided it had to be one of us, and you decide to take us all out?”
“It was the most logical solution.”
“For such a smart guy, it’s pretty fucking stupid.”
“On reflection, maybe you’re right. But twenty-twenty hindsight…”
Artemis nods to the woman, who places the weapon at Jenna’s temple. Jenna has the sudden sense that this is where it will end for her. She swallows a sob, realizing that she’ll never see Simon or Willow or Lulu again. Realizing she’ll never get to eat those pancakes, never get to help Willow through the pain of losing her mom, never get to watch Lulu wave goodbye from the school bus. She needs to fight. For them.
“Where are the bones?” Artemis asks her again.
Jenna is about to leap from the chair, risk the bolt penetrating into her skull.
But then a voice breaks the brief silence.
“Stop!” Nico bellows. “I’ll take you to them. Please, just stop.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
NICO
Artemis stares at Nico. “I should’ve known that the simplest explanation was the correct one: The degenerate gambler needed money and blackmailed me.” He looks at Jenna, who’s still on the chair with the tube weapon—the hydraulic bolt gun that had pierced Nico’s shoulder in the mine—pressed to Jenna’s head.
Jenna’s gaze, which Nico can only describe as part heartbreak, part betrayal, turns to Nico.
Shame envelops him.
Artemis nods at the woman with the weapon, who presses it hard into Jenna’s head.
“Where are the bones, Nico?” Artemis says. “I swear I will put a bolt through her brain if you don’t tell me in the next three seconds.”
The hit woman looks amped, the anticipation, the glee, vibrating from her.
When Nico doesn’t answer, Artemis turns to the twin.
Jenna closes her eyes.
“All right, stop!” Nico yells. “I’ll take you to the site. But you have to promise to let her go. This is on me. And, so we’re clear, I was never going to tell anyone.”
“How brave of you, Nico,” Artemis says. “It only took twenty-five years.”
Nico feels like the miserable person he is. “Promise me.”
Artemis smiles again, but Jenna looks disappointed, as if suddenly understanding there’s no promise Artemis will keep.
Artemis gestures at the other twin to help Nico to his feet. Without releasing the zip ties, she hoists him up.
“She comes too or I swear I won’t take you there,” Nico tells Artemis. “And if I don’t call someone by midnight, there’s an automatic email that will go out to the FBI that tells them everything.”