“Yeah, that’s what Faraday’s been telling Nathan’s parents. He says he thinks his confidence is helping to calm them down.”
I leaned against the door frame. “I want this to be over, Donny.”
“We all do, kiddo. I’m heading downstairs for some of Mrs. Duncan’s pumpkin cheesecake. You want to join me or go back to bed?”
I followed Donny down the stairs, and we sat up most of the rest of the night eating cheesecake and talking about my dad. Donny told me all the best stories of him that I’d already heard before, but it was still nice to listen to them anyway.
At six thirty Donny eyed the clock over the mantel and said, “I’ve kept you up all night, and now you’ve got to get to school and I’ve got lots to wrap up today starting with getting Stubby out of jail.”
I frowned. “Can’t you call me off school again?”
Donny cocked his head at me. “What’s going on with you? Are they still giving you trouble down there?”
I shrugged. “Not outright, but Principal Harris getting fired didn’t exactly win me any votes for prom queen.”
Donny chuckled. “Maddie, this’ll all be over soon. Faraday and Wallace will catch this sick bastard, and then you and Stubs will be exonerated and it’ll all go back to normal.”
“What am I supposed to do until then?”
Donny put a hand on the side of my head. “Until then, you hold your head high, ’cause you’re a Fynn, and that’s what your dad would’ve told you to do.” I looked doubtfully at him, and he added, “And I’ll make a call to the superintendent and tell her that you’re still having a hard time. Maybe she can talk to your teachers again.”
I nodded, but I didn’t hold out much hope. Then I thought of something else. “What about Ma?”
Donny’s gaze dropped away from me. “Yeah. That. I got a call yesterday that she’s well enough to leave the hospital today, so after I deal with Stubs, I’ll go see your mom and talk to her about taking the plea deal. Then I gotta get back to the city to focus on my paying clients.”
Something about how my uncle wouldn’t meet my eyes when he talked about Ma bothered me. “What?” I asked him. “What’s bugging you about Ma taking the plea deal?”
He picked up our dishes and carried them to the sink. “I want your ma to choose you, Maddie. I want her to finally find the strength to enter rehab and choose you over her addiction.”
I felt something fragile inside me crumble a little. “You don’t think she will.”
Donny stared out the small window over the sink. “She may not, kiddo. And if she doesn’t, then you and I are gonna have to have a serious talk about where you’re going to live. I haven’t pushed the subject as much as I could’ve in the past because I saw Cheryl’s deathdate on the drawing you made when you were little, and I’ve always known the both of you realize she doesn’t have a lot of time left, but, Maddie, enough is enough, and I’m not leaving you up here alone to fend for yourself.”
What Donny didn’t realize was that I’d pretty much been fending for myself ever since Dad died.
After school Donny called to say that he’d be home late, but he had two pieces of good news for me: Ma had agreed to enter rehab, and that day at noon Stubby had been released from jail.
I’d barely hung up with Donny before I was out the door and racing over to the Schroder’s. Panting hard, I rang the doorbell and bounced from foot to foot, so anxious to see Stubs that I could hardly stand it. “Maddie!” Mrs. Schroder exclaimed when she saw me. “Oh my, please come in!”
I entered and looked around the corner, expecting to see Stubby sitting on the couch, playing a video game on his Xbox. But the living room was empty.
“He’s upstairs,” his mom whispered. “He’s resting.”
“Resting?” Stubby never rested. He wore everybody else out.
Mrs. Schroder was smiling, but it was forced and her eyes were pinched with worry. “He’s been through a very difficult time, honey.”
“Can I see him?”
She looked up the stairs, as if she were wavering. “All right,” she finally said. “But, Maddie, you should know that Arnold isn’t quite himself. As I said, he had a terrible time in that prison.”
I promised I wouldn’t upset him, and hurried up the stairs. Stubby’s door was closed, so I knocked. There was no answer. I knocked again, and still nothing. “Stubs?” I said, knocking a third time and trying the handle. I opened the door a crack. “You in here?”
The room was silent, and I wondered if he had his earbuds in and couldn’t hear me, but as I took a peek into the room I found him lying on the bed facing away from me, and no sign of his iPod. “Stubs?”
“What, Maddie?”
His tone was flat and lifeless. If I’d heard him talk that way on the phone, I’d have no idea who it was. “I came over to say hi,” I said, unsure about going into his room.
“Okay. You said it.”
I stood there stunned and not sure what to say or do. For several seconds I simply looked at him, lying there but shutting me out. “I…I missed you.”
Stubby didn’t reply, but after a moment he rolled over to face me, and my breath caught. He had two black eyes, and his nose was so swollen it didn’t even look real. Also, the fingers poking out of his cast were purple with bruises.
“Oh, God!” I gasped. “Stubs…”
“I’m tired,” he said, his tone still lifeless.
I felt tears sting my eyes, and I blinked furiously to keep them at bay. “Yeah. Okay. I heard you got out, and I—”
“I’ll talk to you later,” he said, rolling over again—away from me.
I nodded even though I knew he couldn’t see me. Still, I wanted to try to break through to him…to show him that we were still best friends. “I’ll pick you up for school tomorrow,” I said, then hesitated to see if he’d reply. When he didn’t, I backed out of the room and shut the door quietly.
Mrs. Schroder met me at the bottom of the stairs. Wringing her hands she said, “Did he talk to you?”
I was too choked up to speak, so I simply shook my head and prayed she’d let me go before I lost it.
Her own eyes misted. “Oh. All right, Maddie. Maybe he’ll be better tomorrow.”
I swallowed hard, nodded, and hurried to the door.
The next morning I set out early to pick Stubs up for school. When I arrived at his house, however, his mother answered the door and said, “I’m sorry, Maddie, but Arnold isn’t up for going back to school quite yet.”
“Oh,” I said, taken aback and wishing I could talk to him again, but Mrs. Schroder was standing protectively in the doorway like she was guarding Stubby from the whole world—even me. “Maybe Monday?”
“Of course, honey, but call first, okay?” And then she shut the door in my face. I was pretty stunned to be staring so abruptly at the closed door, and it took me a second to let it go as nothing more than Mrs. Schroder being overly protective. As I got on my bike and wheeled it out to the street, I happened to pass the Schroder’s trash can, set out for garbage pickup. Sticking out of the top was Stubby’s prized skateboard.
I paused to stare at it, and then I turned and looked up toward Stubby’s window. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw a flicker of movement behind the curtain. With a heavy heart, I headed off to school.
I tried calling Stubs after school, but his phone went straight to voice mail, and then I remembered that Faraday and Wallace had confiscated my old phone and hadn’t given it back yet—maybe they still had Stubby’s phone, too.
So I called the Schroder’s residence, and his little sister, Grace, picked up. “Hi, Grace, can I talk to Stubs?”
“Hold on,” she said, and I could hear her heels clapping down the hallway. I heard her tell her brother that I was on the phone, and he muttered something I didn’t quite catch. “He doesn’t feel like talking,” his little sister said.
I swallowed hard. He was still shutting me out. “Yeah, okay, Grace. Thanks. Please le
t him know that if he wants to call me later, he should try this number. It’s my new cell.”
“Okay,” she said. Then she hung up like a typical seven-year-old, assuming the conversation was over.
I sat on the edge of my bed for a long time and stared at my phone. Stubby was my only friend. I missed him so much it hurt. And I couldn’t imagine what I’d do if he shut me out permanently.
Donny arrived from the city in the late afternoon, and he took me and Mrs. Duncan out to eat.
At dinner he let me know that Ma was going to be transported to the rehab center the next day. “If she does well, we’ll be able to see her around Christmas.”
I was so relieved she was getting help, but still, Christmas felt so far away.
On the way home, Donny said, “I’ve gotta go back to the city in the morning and grab some files from the office. I think I’m gonna work out of your house as much as I can for the next few months.”
I squinted at him. “You trying to keep an eye on me?”
He rubbed the top of my head playfully. “Someone’s got to.”
I knew what he meant even though he didn’t come right out and say it. The whole county was worried about this killer on the loose, and Donny wanted to stick close to me until he was caught.
And even though there was a patrol car parked out in front of our house when we got home, I felt really glad to have him in the house.
THE NEXT MORNING WAS SATURDAY, and I slept in. When I finally got up, I found a note from Donny on the kitchen table saying that he’d headed to the city and he’d be back by late afternoon. He also added that he wanted me to stay in the house until he got back. I rolled my eyes at that part.
The home phone rang around ten A.M. and, puzzled by the caller ID, I picked it up with a wary “Hello?”
“Maddie?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s Agent Faraday.”
“Oh, hey. What’s up?”
“Can you and your uncle come down to the office this morning?”
“Uh…” I said. “Donny’s in the city.” Faraday didn’t reply right away so I added, “Is something wrong?”
“No, no…I only wanted to fill you two in on what we’ve turned up so far.”
“I can come down,” I volunteered.
There was a chuckle on his end of the line. “What do you think your uncle would say to that?”
I grinned. “He’d be royally ticked off, so let’s not tell him.”
Faraday chuckled again. “Yeah, okay. Can you be here by twelve? We’ll talk and then I’ll treat you to lunch.”
“Sure.”
“Good. Oh, and, Maddie, do you have any cash on you to take a cab?”
“A cab?”
“Yeah. I don’t want you riding your bike over here. I want you to call a cab. I’ll reimburse you and make sure you get home safe after lunch, okay?”
That was weird. Still, I agreed and called for a cab to meet me at my house at eleven thirty. It was interesting how, just a little while ago, Agent Faraday had thought that I was this terrible person, and now he wanted to treat me to a cab ride and lunch.
I showered and changed into a sweater and jeans, then met the cab and arrived at the bureau offices at about quarter to noon. I waited in the reception area and took in the busy office, teaming with agents and men and women in uniform. I guessed that it was all hands on deck as the whole city searched for the killer.
I heard Faraday’s voice from the corridor ask loudly if anyone had heard from Agent Wallace, but I didn’t hear anyone say they had. And then he came around a corner and spotted me. “Hey,” he said, crooking his finger. “Come on back.”
I followed him to his office and he pointed me to a seat. His desk was again piled high with clutter. There were the usual stacks of paper, but also other items like a pair of torn and bloody jeans encased in an evidence bag, and a pair of familiar-looking boots that looked brand-new. There was a yellow tag dangling off the shoelace on one of the boots.
Faraday must have seen me staring at them, because he lifted the boots and said, “Remember those size twelve boot prints we found at the crime scenes?”
“Yeah?”
“From a pair of Timberlands exactly like these. I recognized the tread ’cause I recently bought a couple of pairs myself.”
My brow rose, and then something really weird happened. I remembered seeing a pair like those recently, but where? And then an unbidden suspicion came to my mind, which I immediately and firmly rejected. Faraday took his seat and said, “How’ve you been?”
His question threw me. “Uh…fine, sir. Thanks.”
“Good,” he said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the desk. “We think we found another clue, Maddie. And it has to do with you.” Faraday lifted a few articles of the clutter from his desk, searching for something, and he finally came up with a familiar-looking notebook. My pulse quickened. “First, I have a question for you.”
“Okay…” I tensed, afraid again that I’d been lured into a trap.
Faraday opened my deathdate notebook to the middle and swiveled it around so I could see. Tapping at one of the names he said, “A lot of these have the letter C in front of them. Can you tell me what that means?”
“It stands for client,” I told him, feeling a blush touch my cheeks. I’d never talked about my notebook openly with anyone but Donny and Stubby, and it felt weird to discuss it now.
Faraday turned it back around and grunted. “That’s what I thought.” After flipping a few pages he stopped on a page near the end and said, “Do you remember talking with a Silvia DeFlorez?”
I cocked my head. “Who?”
“Silvia DeFlorez. She came to see you in July. She was about to undergo a biopsy, and as breast cancer runs in her family, she wanted to know what she was up against. You predicted her deathdate to be June twenty-third, twenty forty-eight.”
I didn’t remember. Maybe it was because I was starting to really worry if I’d made the right move coming here without Donny. Faraday was thumbing through the pages of my notebook, and then he lifted his eyes to me and his expression became puzzled. “You okay, Maddie? You look pale.”
“Why are you asking me about her?” I demanded, feeling defensive because I didn’t know what he was getting at.
Faraday cocked his head. “Maddie, I’m not accusing you of anything. If that were the case, no way could I bring you in here without your uncle.”
I let out a breath. “Sorry,” I said. “I guess I’m a little flinchy.”
“It’s okay,” Faraday said, getting back to the notebook. “Well, it turns out that DeFlorez used to be Silvia Carter. Rob Carter was her son.”
I was stunned. “Wait, what?”
“Silvia DeFlorez-Carter was your client. Her son was murdered. Patricia Tibbolt was your client. Her son was murdered. You and Schroder tried to warn Payton Wyly about her deathdate. She was murdered. You babysat for the Murphy’s. Their son was abducted and nearly murdered.”
My mouth went dry, and that familiar chill began to creep up my spine. I believed him when he said he wasn’t accusing me, but I also wondered what his point was. “What’re you trying to say?” I asked hoarsely.
Faraday stared at me. “I’m trying to tell you, Maddie, that whoever this killer is, I believe he’s obsessed with you. And I’m now convinced that he’s also been stalking you and your clients. You’re connected to each of these kids—loosely in one case, but still connected, and it worries me.”
“Why would someone do that?” I asked. I shivered as that chill spread out from my spine to the back of my neck and along my scalp.
“I don’t know. But this is one sick bastard we’re dealing with, and right now you’re our only link to him.”
“Did you check out Mr. Chavez?” I asked. I was suddenly desperate for Faraday to find out who was responsible.
He nodded. “Yep. We checked out Chavez, Harris, and Kelly. Chavez admitted to being a jerk to you—something I doubt very much
you’ll ever have to worry about from him again as he got a pretty good lecture from us—but he swears he had nothing to do with driving by your house or stalking you. Of course we checked out his alibis, and it turns out Chavez works the four to eleven shift at a bar not far from here. The bar has a security camera, which shows him working on all the days when the kids were abducted. Plus, he’s got a size eleven shoe.
“Harris also has a pretty good alibi. His mother’s in the hospital with pneumonia, and he’s been there practically every day since he got suspended from his job. Before that, he had several witnesses placing him in a variety of administrative meetings or at the school at the time the abductions occurred. He was helping to paint the gym on the day Rob Carter went missing—so he’s been eliminated as a suspect.”
“And Mr. Kelly’s son?”
“Jack Kelly works for his dad at their law offices in Parkwick. It’s a pretty big firm, and we’ve got more eyewitnesses than we know what to do with vouching for him on the days the kids were abducted. Plus, he and his dad left for New Zealand right before Thanksgiving, which means he couldn’t have abducted Nathan Murphy. So Kelly’s out.”
“Mario Rossi and Eric Anderson?” I was grasping at straws now.
Faraday shook his head. “They also alibi out, Maddie.”
I was feeling worse and worse as Faraday talked. “Then who could it be?”
He sighed. “We have another lead that we’re still trying to check out.”
“Who?”
“Do you know a Mr. Pierce at your school?”
I blinked. “He’s my chemistry teacher.”
“He drives a dark gray pickup truck,” Faraday said. “We noticed it in the faculty parking lot when we went to check out Chavez.”
I looked at Faraday like he had to be kidding. “Mr. Pierce is one of the only teachers who’ve been nice to me during all of this,” I said defensively.
Faraday nodded. “Wallace and I have an appointment to interview him later today, but I doubt it’s one of your teachers.”
“Then who?” I repeated.
Faraday dangled the notebook from his fingertips. “I think it’s someone in here.”