Furious Jones and the Assassin’s Secret (21 page)

“There you are,” Bailey said. She had changed clothes since school. She was wearing faded jeans and a tight sweater.

“Hey, sorry I'm late.” I held up my two pineapples. “I guess we can make twice as much now.”

“I got worried when you didn't show,” Bailey said. “I thought something might have gone wrong at the Pig.”

“What could have gone wrong?” I asked with a smile.

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe the entire football team using you as a tackling dummy.”

B
ailey twisted the handle and
pushed the door open.

“You don't lock your doors?” I asked.

“This is Galena. Nothing happens in Galena. It's, like, the safest place on the planet,” she said.

“If you say so.”

Bailey paused for a moment and then said, “Whoa, what's that smell?”

Oh, no. Betty's amulet. All the sweat from running out here must have aggravated the peppers.

“I don't smell anything,” I said. And I wasn't lying. I must have grown used to the stench. All I could smell was Bailey. And she smelled fantastic.

Susan was standing five feet behind us.

“No, I smell it too. It smells like bad chimichanga.”

“Bad chimichanga?” I repeated.

“Yeah. Once my uncle made my cousins and I some pork chimichangas and he wanted them to be authentic Mexican chimichangas, so he soaked them in jalapeño oil overnight. Then he burned them. It smells like that.”

“Jalapeño oil?” I asked.

“Authentic burned jalapeño oil,” Susan replied.

“Whatever,” Bailey said as she walked into her house.

“Susan and I already started. The pork chops are cooked, we just need to add the pineapple.”

Bailey's living room was a maze of boxes. Some opened. Some taped shut.

“I see you guys still haven't fully unpacked.” Which seemed strange. Bailey's family would have been relocated here months ago. That's a long time to live out of boxes.

“Guess again, Finny. We're heading the other direction.”

“What? Moving?”

“Bingo,” Bailey said as she cut the top off one of the pineapples. “And my dad has been working so much, he told me to throw all this stuff into boxes. Nice, huh?”

“But didn't you just get here?” I asked.

“Yeah, but my—” Bailey paused. “How did you know we just moved here?”

Shoot. Way to go, Furious.

“I, ah, I asked Mike about you.” That was worse. Now I
looked pathetic. First the notebook, and now this pathetic schoolboy thing.

“Oh, really?” She smiled.

“When are you moving?” Susan asked as she stepped into the kitchen to help Bailey cut up the pineapple.

“When aren't we moving? Who knows? Soon, I guess. We're always moving.”

I laughed. “I know a little about that.”

“Really? Tell us a little about yourself, Finny. Who is Finbar Jennings and what is he all about?” Bailey said as she took a bite of pineapple.

He's a kid I went to school with in Ireland
, I thought.
And I actually don't know much about him.

“Oh, you know. Same old story. I've moved around the world with my mom. A different town and country every few months. New adventures. New friends. New languages. Nothing too exciting.” I smiled.

“Right,” Bailey said as she bent over to get a cutting board for Susan. “Us too.”

I glanced into a couple of the open boxes in front of me. One was full of stuffed animals. I grabbed a monkey.

“Still sleeping with stuffed animals, I see.” I held the monkey up by one arm.

“Hey! That's Mr. Ooh Ooh. Be careful with him! Ooh Ooh and I have been through a lot together,” Bailey said.

“He's cute,” Susan added.

“Thank you.”

I put Mr. Ooh Ooh down and played with a couple of the stuffed animals. Anything to keep my distance from Bailey and Susan. I didn't want them to smell the ghost pepper amulet. I realized my eyes and nose were running now.

I saw a photo album in another open box and thumbed through it. There were pictures of a little girl at Disney. The little girl sitting on a pony. The girl in the desert. At the beach. And then a more recent picture of Bailey with a guy, presumably her dad. My brain tingled. Somewhere deep down I had a faint feeling I had seen him before.

“Who's this?” I asked, holding up the photo.

“Oh, that's me and my dad in Millennium Park.”

I set the photo album down and picked up another one. I opened it up, and on the first page was a picture of an older woman next to an obituary. The obituary said the woman had been survived in death by sixteen grandchildren. Bailey must have been one of the sixteen grandchildren.

“Bailey?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have a lot of cousins?” I asked.

“We're Catholic and Italian,” she said. “What do you think?”

“Yup,” I replied. “Lots of cousins. I'm guessing fifteen, give or take.”

“I don't know. I've never really counted.”

I continued to flip through the book. Every page had a photo on the left and then either an obituary or some newspaper clipping detailing some horrible death on the right. Maybe it was an Italian thing? Heck, my mom always saved those little bookmarks they passed out at funerals.

I kept flipping through Bailey's morbid family tree. And most of the members shared a family resemblance. An old Italian man, a young Italian man, older woman, younger woman, and then . . . and then I felt all the blood rush from my head. There, on the left side of the page, was a picture of my mother. And on the right . . . an article detailing the shooting outside the DeSoto House Hotel.

I
stared at the page.
I hadn't seen her face in months.

“What are you looking at now?” Bailey asked.

I didn't answer. I read the first few lines of the article. The newspaper clipping gave an account of my mother being gunned down. My knees were shaking as I flipped to the next page. There was another photo and another obituary for a man I didn't recognize. The obituary said he had died in a fire. I flipped to the next. There was a picture of an older woman. Maybe late forties or early fifties. But the right side of the page was empty. No newspaper clipping. No obituary. I flipped to the next.

“Oh my god!”

“What? What is it, Finny? Did you find one of my old report cards?” Bailey asked.

It was Trish. She was a little younger in the photo, but it was Trish. The woman and Trish had no obituaries. No proof of death.
Because they're still alive
, I thought. It was just like in my dad's book. This must have been the Sicilian's book of proof.

“Where did you get this?” I asked, holding up the book.

“I don't recognize that one. It must be my dad's.”

Her dad? How did he—

Bailey's dad had to be Anton. It was the only thing that made sense. Bailey said they had moved from city to city, just like my mom and me. They hadn't been in Galena too long and now they were moving. Right before my dad's book came out, naming him as the killer. And how else would he have this book? Bailey's dad was working late all right: He was killing Trish and the other woman before they left Galena. He was finishing up the Sicilian's work.

I tucked the photo album into the back of my pants. I tried to talk, but my voice cracked.

“Bailey—” I stopped, cleared my throat, and tried again. “Bailey, what does your dad do?”

“I don't really know,” she answered. “He's, like, some sort of accountant or something. He's a contractor for the government or army or something.”

“That's weird,” I mumbled.

“Why is that weird?” Bailey asked.

“ 'Cause that's what my mom did too.”

I started toward the door. Bailey's family wasn't in the witness protection program. Her dad was killing the people in the witness protection program.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to check on Mike. Do you know where he lives?” I asked.

“Yeah, he and Trish live down the street by the golf course. But don't you want to finish cooking?”

I didn't answer Bailey. I just started running down the driveway.

How had I screwed up so badly?

I turned the corner and could see the golf course. Mike's house was just over the hill. I ran for twenty minutes and then slowed to a walk and tried to catch my breath. The amulet was now blistering my chest.

I walked down the middle of the road for three or four minutes until I saw the gate to Mike's house. I figured I would show Mike and Trish the photo album and tell them they were in danger, if I wasn't too late.

I was about to walk down their driveway when I noticed a dark-blue sedan parked several hundred feet past the drive. The sedan kind of looked like—

I started to run, but it was too late. Douglas was already out of the car and running after me. I turned to run faster, but my legs were numb and my knees were buckling from running all afternoon. I heard Douglas yell my name as I crossed
the street and headed for the golf course. There was no way I could outrun him this time. I made it about ten more feet before Douglas jumped on my back and I dropped the photo album as we collapsed to the ground.

He flipped me over and grabbed my arms. He was strong. And angry. His eyes were crazed. He looked like he wanted to kill me. He placed his knee over my right bicep and applied a ton of pressure. It hurt like crazy. It felt like he was pushing my muscle clean off the bone. I tried to free my arm, but it was pointless. With both of his hands free, he made a move toward my left arm. I pulled it in close to my chest. Then, without thinking, I thrust my palm up and out as hard as I could. The base of my palm smashed into Douglas's nose. I could feel the cartilage give as my hand pushed his nose up and into his skull.

Douglas grabbed his face with both hands.

“God, what are you doing, Furious? Are you crazy?” Douglas yelled through his cupped hands.

Blood was gushing from his nose. I tried to pull my right hand free but couldn't. Douglas's body was up off my chest and now he was kneeling on my right bicep with all of his weight. Crushing it.

“Get off me!” I pulled back my left hand and hit him as hard as I could in the chest. Nothing. I wiped Douglas's blood from my face and hit him again. But this time I aimed for the groin. I used every ounce of energy I had left. I punched as
hard as I could. I tried to punch through him. It worked. Douglas shifted his weight as he moved his concern from his face to his crotch. I pushed him to the side and got to my feet. I was about five feet away when he tackled me again.

“You're not getting away this time,” he said as he jerked my right arm out from under me. He placed his knee in the small of my back and yanked my left arm out from under me too.

“You busted my nose!” He sounded shocked.

I could hear the clank of metal as he slapped the handcuffs on me. This was it. I was going to die.

I
stayed facedown for what
felt like forever before Douglas picked me up off the ground. He looked bad.

“Walk,” he grunted as he reached down and picked up the photo album.

I walked toward Mike and Trish's house.

“The car!” Douglas yelled. “Walk to the car.”

Was he going to lock me in the car while he went in to kill Trish? Could I run? Could I turn around and kick Douglas and run?

Douglas opened the passenger door and shoved me in. I landed face-first on the seat. I tried to sit up before he got around to the driver's side, but I couldn't sit on the car's seat with my hands cuffed behind my back. I bounced to the edge
of the seat and tried to lean back on my shoulders. It hurt, but not as badly as Douglas had to be hurting.

Douglas got in, threw the photo album in the backseat, and started the car. He adjusted the rearview mirror to get a better look at his face.

“You broke it in two places, for crying out loud.” He slammed the car into drive and pulled away.

Two places? I don't know what Douglas saw, but it looked to be broken in at least six places and blood was flowing down his face.

I stared out the window as we drove toward town. We turned onto Main Street and drove past the floodgates. It was dinnertime, and downtown was full of tourists. I thought about yelling for help. Or smashing my head against the window to get someone's attention. But I was a kid in handcuffs and Douglas was an agent with a gun and a badge. I lose.

We drove to the end of Main Street and stopped in front of a small brick building with bars on the windows and flower boxes beneath them. The sign above the door read Galena Police Department. It was just like my dad had described it in his book.

Douglas pulled me out of the car and dragged me through the front door. Inside, there was a low counter with a heavy man sitting behind it. He was reading the
Galena Gazette
.

“Can I help you?” he asked without looking up.

“Yeah, I'm Director Douglas with the CIA.”

The cop looked up. He had a round face and a bushy gray mustache. I had seen him before. He was the cop that had gotten a palm reading at Betty's.

“The what?” He set the paper on his lap.

“The CIA,” Douglas said. “The Central Intelligence Agency.”

“I know what the CIA is. Wow, man, you look like hell.”

“Thanks. Look”—Douglas took his badge out of his pocket and showed it to the cop—“I need a favor. I need you to watch this kid while I go get my nose looked at.”

“Did he do that?” The cop motioned to Douglas's face.

“No. I fell.”

“Right. Is the boy under arrest?”

“Not yet. I just need you to detain him. Where can I find a doctor in this town?” Douglas asked.