I stared at the notebook. There had to be at least a thousand names and dates in there. I’d kept it for years and years, and I’d talked to dozens of clients and had written down the names and dates of everyone I’d ever met.
“So what I need from you, Maddie,” Faraday continued, “is for you to think hard. Have any of your other clients ever gotten upset by what you’ve told them? Have they ever threatened you? Threatened to hurt you or get even with you?”
I sat there trying to think, sifting through the vaguest of memories I had about any of my clients who could’ve overreacted, but no one was coming to mind other than Mrs. Tibbolt and Mr. Kelly’s son.
“It’s likely this would have been a client you saw last summer, in the weeks before you went on vacation with your uncle.”
I sighed. I could barely remember the clients I’d read in October, much less the previous summer. I tried not to hold them in my memory, actually. That was the whole purpose of the notebook, to write their names and deathdates down so that I could move on and forget them.
“I can’t think of anyone,” I said at last. And that was the truth.
Faraday nodded. “Okay. But keep thinking on it over the next couple of days for me, will you? Someone may come to mind.”
Faraday was still dangling the notebook, swinging it back and forth between his two fingers when he said, “You ready to go to lunch? Wallace was supposed to join us, but I think he’s out running an errand or something….”
At that moment, the notebook slipped out of Faraday’s fingers, and it knocked over a stack of files, which slid into the picture frames he had arranged at the edge of his desk. We both reached out to grab them before they hit the floor, and I managed to catch one that tipped toward me.
As I caught it, my eye happened to fall on the image. It was a photo of Faraday and Wallace, their arms slung across each other’s shoulders as they shared a beer together at what looked like a barbeque.
The photo caught me completely off guard, and for a long moment all I could do was stare at it, openmouthed. “Maddie?” Faraday said. “What is it?”
I showed him the picture and pointed to Wallace. “He…his…his numbers are all wrong!” Across Wallace’s forehead were the numbers 12-6-2014.
Faraday’s brow furrowed. “What numbers?”
But I was so shocked I could barely talk. I reached out and grabbed the deathdate notebook. Turning to one of the last pages, I scrolled down to the line marked Agent Wallace 8-7-2051, the date I remembered seeing from the first time we met. Pivoting the page around I showed him the line, and then I pointed to the photo. Again, I couldn’t contain a gasp. Before my eyes, Wallace’s deathdate went from 12-6-2014 back to 8-7-2051…and then back again. “It keeps flipping!”
Faraday leaned forward and looked back and forth between the photo and the name in the notebook. “Maddie,” he said firmly, “I don’t understand. Please take a breath and try to tell me what you’re seeing.”
I stared hard at Wallace’s image. The two deathdates kept flicking back and forth between 2014 and 2051, and I couldn’t make sense of it. It had never happened before. “I…I don’t know how to explain it!”
“Please try,” Faraday said. I could hear the worry start to creep into his voice.
I stood up and went around his desk, still holding onto the photo. “Agent Wallace’s deathdate should be August seventh, twenty fifty-one. But right now it’s changed. It’s showing something different!”
“What’s it showing?” Faraday asked, peering at the photo in my hands like he was trying to see what only I could.
“It’s flipping back and forth between that date and today, Agent Faraday. Today!”
Faraday’s face drained of color. “Son of a bitch!” Seizing his phone he dialed quickly. He waited several seconds before he said, “Kevin, it’s me. Call me the second you get this message.”
He then hung up and dialed again, waiting before hanging up and trying a third and a forth time. “Damn it! He might not answer my first call if he was in the middle of something, but he’d never let a second or a third call go by.”
I continued to monitor the picture. Wallace’s deathdates kept switching back and forth, and I had a terrible feeling that, at that very moment, Agent Wallace was either hovering near death, or he was in terrible danger.
Faraday jumped to his feet and scooted around me. Hurrying out into the hallway, he motioned for me to follow him. I brought the picture along, and we went into the open area where all the cubicles were. Faraday silenced the room with one loud piercing whistle. “I need to hear if any of you knows where Agent Wallace is right now!”
Every person in the room simply stared at him with wide eyes. No one volunteered anything. But then one woman, sitting at the far end of the room, raised her hand. “I passed him on the way in,” she said. “I asked him if he was headed home for the day, and he said that he was going to check on a lead.”
“What lead?” Faraday demanded.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, sir. He didn’t tell me.”
Faraday turned and pointed to a man wearing glasses in the opposite corner. “Steve! I need you!”
He put a hand on my upper arm to bring me with him. I walked along beside him, continuing to look at the photo. “What’s it say?” Faraday asked, as we headed back toward his office.
“It’s the same! It keeps flickering back and forth.”
Faraday took us past his office down the hall to another door, which was locked. He stopped and pulled me to the side and said to the man following us, “Open it, Steve. Now.”
Steve fidgeted nervously, but Faraday stared him down until he produced a key card and slid it through a slot right above the handle. There was a green light, and then Faraday was turning the handle and moving into the office. After switching on the lights he looked around Wallace’s desk—which was as cluttered as his. He moved behind the desk and jiggled the mouse and it asked for a password. “I need in,” Faraday said to Steve.
Steve’s face flushed. “Sir, I don’t have proper authorization for—”
“Screw proper authorization!” Faraday roared. “I need to see what lead Kevin was working on before he left!”
But Steve wasn’t budging. “S-s-s-sir,” he stammered. “I need the director to authorize that.”
“Then go call the director!”
At that moment, another agent poked his head into the office. “I heard you’re looking for Wallace?”
We all snapped our heads toward him. “You know where he is?” Faraday asked.
“Maybe. He said he was talking to a couple of people in Poplar Hollow who said they’d noticed a delivery truck parked down the street from the Murphy house the day before the kid was abducted. Wallace said it matched a similar statement taken by someone in the Wyly kid’s neighborhood, so he was gonna look into what deliveries were made to anyone in the area on those days.”
“Did he mention the name of the delivery company? Was it UPS or FedEx?” Faraday asked, his voice straining to remain calm.
The man scratched his head. “Neither. I think it was a furniture store.”
I put a hand to my mouth. “Oh, my God…”
“What? What?” Faraday demanded.
I looked again at Wallace’s photo. The flickering back and forth was slowing down, and, alarmingly, the 12-6-2014 date was starting to settle in for longer and longer periods between flashes. “Mrs. Duncan…my neighbor,” I said as I began to tremble. “She gets new furniture, like, all the time. And it’s always the same guys who bring it. This one guy, Wes, he’s seriously creepy, and the last time he was at her house, he sort of leered at me.”
“What’s his last name?” Faraday asked me. I shook my head; I didn’t know. “What’s the name of the furniture store?”
I shook my head again. I’d seen that truck a half dozen times, and I’d never registered the name. And then I had an idea. “Call Mrs. Duncan! She’ll know!”
Faraday asked m
e for the number as he picked up the receiver on Wallace’s desk. I leaned over and dialed it for him. After a few seconds, I knew she’d answered, because Faraday said, “Mrs. Duncan, it’s Agent Faraday with the FBI. I’ve got Maddie Fynn with me, and we have a very important question for you. Can you please give us the name of the store where you buy your furniture?”
Faraday grabbed a pen and scribbled onto a sticky pad. “Culligan’s Furniture,” he said. “Got it, thanks.” He hung up with Mrs. Duncan and dialed 411, requesting the warehouse of the furniture company. He put the phone on speaker so that we could all hear as it began to ring.
“Culligan’s warehouse,” said an older man’s voice.
“I need to talk to one of your delivery guys, first name Wes,” Faraday said, without even introducing himself.
“He ain’t here,” the man said, clearly annoyed.
“Is he out on delivery?” Faraday pressed.
“No.”
Faraday sighed impatiently. “Then where is he?”
“Dunno,” the man replied. “But I ain’t his answering service.”
“Listen,” Faraday said, his tone sharp as a razor. “This is special agent Mack Faraday. I’m investigating a series of murders, and I need to know—”
“Yeah, sure you’re a special agent,” the man interrupted with a snort. I could tell he didn’t believe Faraday. “What are you, double-oh-doofus?” And then he snorted again and hung up.
Faraday’s face turned crimson, and he squeezed his free hand into a fist and pounded the desktop. Steve, who’d been standing next to me jumped and muttered, “I’ll go call the director and get your authorization, sir.” And with that he ran out the door.
Faraday looked at me. I pointed to Wallace’s photo. “It’s starting to settle more and more on today!” I whispered.
Faraday grabbed up the phone again, redialing 411 but this time he asked for the address of the warehouse for the furniture store. After hanging up, he turned to the other agent who was still hovering in the doorway and said, “I need to put a trace on Wallace’s phone.”
“It’ll take me at least an hour,” the man said.
“Do it!” Faraday snapped, then grabbed me by the elbow and backtracked to his office to grab his coat. Tossing me mine, he paused and said, “Will you come with me and keep watching the photo?”
I nodded, and we were out the door in a rush.
Faraday drove like a madman, weaving in and out of traffic so much that he started to make me nauseous. “Is he still alive?” Faraday asked, taking a turn so fast that the tires squealed.
I looked down. The numbers continued to flicker back and forth, but more slowly. It was almost like a pulse getting slower and slower. “Yes, he’s alive,” I told him. “But I’m not sure for how much longer.”
Only a few moments later, we arrived at Culligan’s warehouse. Faraday pulled up to the large bay door and ordered me to stay in the car. He then ran to a man bent with age, who was standing in the entry. I rolled down my window so I could hear, and watched Faraday flash his badge and then get right up into the old man’s face, pointing at him and yelling that he was going to arrest him for obstruction unless he told him where he could find Wes.
The old man waved his arms a lot, clearly unafraid of Faraday. “I told you on the phone, pal, that I don’t know where the hell that lowlife is! He never showed up for work today, okay? And the other half of his crew called off sick! Says he’s got chest pains…My aunt Fanny, he’s got chest pains!” My mind flashed to the memory of Rick sitting next to me on Mrs. Duncan’s couch, his deathdate prominently hovering above his forehead, and I was shocked to realize that today was his deathday. With a pang, I knew that Rick had been right; it’d be his heart that would give out on him. “Always something with them two!” the old man continued angrily. “Most unreliable crew I got!”
Faraday balled his hands into fists and looked like he was ready to pick the man up and shake him for information. I felt I had to do something so I jumped out of the car and rushed over. “Does he know where Wes lives?” I asked, trying to distract Faraday from violence.
The old man turned to me. “He lives on Thirteenth Street,” he said, waving his hand in the general direction of the street behind us.
“What house number on Thirteenth Street?” Faraday barked.
“How the hell should I know? You want me to pull his file, that’s gonna take me a while. They’re at headquarters with HR.”
“What’s Wes’s last name?” Faraday growled.
“Miller,” the old man spat.
And before Faraday could turn away I asked, “Do you know what kind of car Wes drives?”
The old man turned large impatient eyes at me. “They’re hiring kinda young down at the FBI,” he said, but then he added, “He drives a pickup. A Ford F-150.”
“Is it a dark color like gray or charcoal?” I pressed, the adrenaline coursing through my veins making my heart pound.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s black. Why, you seen him?”
I didn’t answer; Faraday and I simply turned and ran back to the car. He threw it into gear, and we peeled out of there. “Buckle up!” Faraday yelled, as I was pulled hard to the right by the force of his hairpin turn.
While I struggled to get myself strapped in, Faraday pushed a button on his dash. A woman’s voice came on the line. “Grand Haven FBI, Agent Butler speaking.”
“Christine!” Faraday yelled. “I need an address for Wes Miller on Thirteenth Street in Grand Haven!”
We heard nails clicking over a keyboard then, “Six-eight-six Thirteenth Street, and, sir?”
“Yeah?”
“Wes Miller has a record. Convicted of three counts of sexual assault and two counts of rape in twenty ten. Sentenced to six years in Sing Sing. It looks like he only served three and a half.”
“When exactly did he get out?” Faraday growled, baring his teeth as he wound through traffic.
“July tenth, twenty fourteen, sir.”
Faraday snuck me a glance, and then he gripped the steering wheel even tighter. “Christine, I need you to send every available agent to that address. Code ten-seventy-eight and a possible ten-fifty-two. Tell everybody we’ve got an ANA!”
There was an audible gasp, and then she said, “On it, sir!” The line went dead and Faraday clicked the dash again to end the call.
“What’s ANA?” I asked, feeling helpless and anxious.
“Agent Needs Assistance,” he said distractedly. “We only use it when one of our guys is in serious trouble.”
I looked again at the photo. It was taking longer and longer for the 2051 date to come back onto Wallace’s forehead. I was so worried that we weren’t going to be in time.
Faraday screeched to a stop in a run-down neighborhood in a bad section of Grand Haven. He jumped out of the car almost before it’d come to a complete stop and raced to his trunk. There he got out a bulletproof vest and threw it over his head, latching the Velcro sashes. He then moved back to the open door and leaned into the car, across my legs, to pop open the glove box. He pulled out a carton of bullets and a gun clip, then slammed the glove box closed again and began to load his gun. “You’re to stay put, Maddie,” he said, his voice level and firm. “Under no circumstances are you to get out of this car. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” I said, so scared I was trembling.
In the distance I could hear sirens. Lots of them. They seemed to be coming from all directions. Faraday finished with his gun, pulled back on the barrel to load the chamber, and with one last firm look at me, he shut the door.
I had the urge to call out to him to stop—I felt a terrible foreboding, but he was already across the street, running over to a white house with peeling paint and a rickety-looking porch. I watched him creep up the steps and ease his way over to the window while gripping his gun with both hands. Faraday peeked into the window, then pulled his head back. He crouched and ducked low under the pane to stand up on the othe
r side and peek in again.
The sirens drew nearer and I whispered, “Please, please, please…wait for them!” But he didn’t. Faraday moved more agilely than I would’ve expected, and slipped over the railing to the brown grass. He then darted around the side of the house, and I lost sight of him.
For several seconds nothing happened, and I waited and watched with bated breath. Then, almost as if a curtain had been pulled back, all sorts of cars with flashing lights appeared on the street. The tires screeched, and the sirens cut out almost instantly, but the strobe lights continued to flash. Cops emerged from their vehicles with guns drawn and vests on. They descended like a dark blue swarm on the house, and I found myself crouching low in my seat. A few agents went up to the door, others stayed on the lawn, and still others went to the right and left of the house.
For a moment, nobody moved except to make eye contact with one another and signal back and forth with their hands. In that small window of silence, I heard a slight buzzing sound coming from the dashboard, and when I could pull my eyes away from the scene outside I looked down and saw a police radio set under the dash. Quickly I reached over to turn up the volume, and as my thumb and forefinger made contact with the knob, everyone on Wes’s lawn flew into action. The door to his house was kicked in and several people darted inside. My fingers turned the knob and the interior of the car erupted with sound. It was like everyone was screaming at once. “Ten-fifty-two!” someone shouted. It was so gravelly that I couldn’t tell if it was Faraday or not. “Ten-fifty-two, ten-fifty-two, ten-fifty-two!”
And then at the door of the house, all of those agents and officers who’d gone inside came rushing back out as if the house was on fire. Suddenly, amid all the shouting I heard, “…gas! GAS! GET OUT! GET OUT!”
I put a hand up to cover my mouth as the most unnatural sound reverberated from inside the house right before a giant ball of flame came shooting out, and windows and sections of the roof literally blew up in a huge, deafening explosion that cracked the glass on the driver’s side doors of Faraday’s car. Officers and agents threw themselves to the ground, and I dove down onto the seat, too. Bits of debris pummeled the roof of the car. and I shrieked at every thump. Shouts from the radio were drowned out for only a second or two before picking up again, this time at double the intensity. I found the courage to lift my head and peek over the rim of the door out the window, and the scene was chaotic. The house was fully engulfed in flames, and one of the patrol cars was on fire. All around, agents and officers were scrambling to help one another get away from the house. People in neighboring houses began running out of their homes to see what was going on, and those agents and officers on scene tried in vain to wave them to get back inside.