At the same time, Nico swings the shovel, connecting with the other twin, who fires off a shot that doesn’t seem to hit anyone. Nico scrambles out of the hole and onto the twin who’s still got the gun. She’s bleeding from the head, stunned, and he claws at her hand for the pistol, prying it loose.
For his part, Donnie is pointing the gun at Artemis, whose hands are raised.
Back to the other twin, her nose gushing. She’s staggering toward Jenna with the tube weapon.
Nico shouts, “Drop it!” and fires in her direction.
She stops, catches her sister’s gaze, then drops the strange weapon. Nico and Donnie corral the twins and Artemis next to the hole where Mr. Brood was buried. Jenna tells them to shoot if anyone so much as moves an inch. She makes her way over to the shovel, crouches low, and saws the zip ties on her wrists off on its sharp blade. The plasticuffs pop off.
She walks over to Donnie and gently takes the gun from his hand.
“This isn’t about Mr. Brood,” Donnie tells her, his breaths coming in rasps. “It’s about Annie.
And the others.”
“We know, Donnie.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY
DONNIE
After Donnie tells them about Ben’s video, about the skeletal remains, about Ben taking Annie’s necklace from one of the bodies, Nico steps toward Artemis and puts the gun to his head.
Artemis stands there unemotional, not even bracing himself for the head shot.
Donnie watches as Nico’s face reddens as he tightens his hand on the pistol, but he pulls away.
Donnie looks at Jenna, asking with his eyes, What are we going to do?
They can’t go to the police, Donnie knows. They can’t execute them. But they can’t just let them go.
From the woods, a figure emerges.
“Oh shit,” Donnie says.
Jenna already has her gun on the man.
“Hold up, hold up,” Donnie says, both to stop any of them from any sudden moves and to prevent Reeves Rothschild from seeing what’s happening.
“Hemingway, what are you—”
“I was curious why you stayed, so I followed you. What’s going on?”
“It’s not what it looks like. Those two.” He points to the twins. “They killed Benny, tried to kill all of us.”
Reeves is processing the new information. He looks to Artemis, perhaps recognizing the famous tech billionaire.
Donnie turns and glances at Jenna, at Nico, for guidance. Then he feels the cold muzzle of a gun pressed to his head.
“I’m sorry about this, Donnie. I really am,” Reeves says.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
JENNA
The man holding the gun to Donnie’s head is vaguely familiar, but Jenna has no idea who he is. He demands that Jenna and Nico drop their weapons, but they don’t oblige. The stranger has a gun at Donnie’s head. But something in his tone suggests he won’t use it.
“This isn’t what we agreed to,” the man tells Artemis. “I was supposed to find out what he knew.
Not…” He looks around.
Artemis shrugs. “You’re in it now. And if you want your wife to get the treatment, then…”
The man looks desperate. His eyes dart to Jenna, Nico, Artemis, the twins. “I’m sorry, Donnie.
But she’s dying. He can get her the DNA treatment in Europe.”
Donnie doesn’t say anything, seeming strangely at peace with the fact that this man has betrayed him.
The stranger pulls himself together. “All of you, drop your guns or I’m gonna do it.” He makes a show of pressing the gun to Donnie’s head. “I don’t want to, but I will.”
Nico throws down his gun. A chill goes through Jenna. One less gun on their side. Artemis stares at her, a look of faint amusement on his face.
Jenna sees no way out. She knows that if she drops the weapon they’re all dead. The man says he’ll shoot Donnie, but will he? He doesn’t seem to have that in him. Though it sounds like he’s doing this to save someone. His wife? It’s then that Jenna believes that he might pull the trigger. We’re all capable of the unthinkable when it means protecting our families. She feels a tremor in her hands, fear seizing her. But she needs to fight for her family too.
She looks over at the twins, who are glowering at her. The one with the red face and bloody nose will bury her alive. The one with the gash on her head from Nico’s shovel may well do worse.
Jenna thinks back to Michael’s warning: They aren’t doing jobs for the money or ideology or the usual reasons—they’re doing it for the sport.
Jenna moves her gun in Artemis’s direction. He’s staring at her in that unemotional way of his.
She allows the muzzle to drift toward the hesitant newcomer.
The man fidgets, takes a half step back, his gun still on Donnie. “I’m telling you, I will shoot,” he says softly, with a lingering resignation in his voice Jenna cannot deny. “I have nothing to lose, nothing left, if my wife dies.”
Nodding, Jenna lowers her weapon, then she pivots, twirls around like a discus thrower, and in one swift movement hurls the handgun as far as she can. All eyes follow the arch of the gun as it sails
high into the woodland that separates the knoll from Ned Flanders’s backyard.
With everyone looking in the direction of the flying weapon, Jenna dashes off in the opposite direction—deep into the woods.
There’s a pause, then several pops. One of the twins, no doubt. But the shots miss. Jenna’s already too far away and through the tree line.
Jenna continues to run, not knowing what she’s going to do but knowing she must do something because the twins will be coming for her.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
DONNIE
“How could you, man?” Donnie says to Reeves. The writer has a gun pointed in the direction of both Donnie and Nico, who stand near the edge of one of the unturned graves in the knoll. “I thought we were…” He wants to say friends, but they barely know each other. The whole book thing was a setup, he realizes, funded by Artemis.
The twins have darted into the woods after Jenna, and Artemis paces near another one of the holes as if contemplating his next steps.
“Was there ever a book?” Donnie asks.
Reeves shakes his head at the question.
“Are you even a writer?” Donnie asks.
Reeves is watching Artemis pace, answers without looking at Donnie. Nico stands quietly as if lost in thought.
“What I told you about me is true. I had a novel that critics loved, but no one bought. I took a gig ghostwriting a business book for Artemis Templeton. Then my wife got sick. I asked for his help. He said he could pull some strings.”
Donnie remembers the photo of the woman in the hospital room on Reeves’s phone and his laptop. “I told you things about me, man,” Donnie says.
Reeves looks at him, his eyes steely now. “But you didn’t tell me everything, did you?”
Donnie exhales. “So, what, you’re gonna let them kill us? Let them get away with killing Benny?
Do you know what was in these holes?” Donnie gestures across the knoll.
Before Reeves answers, Artemis comes over. Donnie’s heart sinks when Artemis takes the gun from Reeves. He thought they might have a chance with Reeves. But Artemis is another matter.
Artemis looks at Reeves. “I’m sorry it ended this way,” he says. “And just so you know: Your wife never had a chance even with the treatment.”