Strike (31 page)

He sits up, unnaturally calm. “Did your mom ever say anything about why I left?”

I shake my head. My throat is all closed up with regret.

“That's because she didn't know. I never told her. We met at a sandwich shop and fell in love. But I couldn't marry her, because my dad's lawyers would've been all over us. So we kept it secret. All
Romeo and Juliet
, right? The old-Georgia-money banker and his rags-to-riches waitress. We spent every weekend together, and she thought I was at conferences all week, but I was really reporting home to the Cannon compound, pretending like I was a good little boy. When you were born, she stopped working to stay home with you. I paid for everything and visited as often as I could with presents, but it was hard. And then my dad started asking some pointed questions about where my money was going, and I realized the dream was over. That he would find out about y'all and force you to join the family, and you and your mother would become pawns in his game. You were the only heir. So one day I left her a letter, kissed you on the head, walked out, and . . . never came back. My phones went dead; my e-mail bounced. Jack Cannon simply disappeared.”

“You . . . asshole.”

Jesus. No wonder I thought he was magical. I saw him only on the weekends, when he dropped by with toys and money.

His eyes are full of tears, but they can't touch my anger.

“It wasn't easy for me, either, Patsy. I missed you so much it was like a physical illness, like I couldn't breathe all the way. I learned
how to hack computers just so I could keep track of you. Get your school photos, check your grades. I can't believe you got busted for selling fake pot in the bathroom, by the way.” He allows himself a small smile but quickly sobers when he looks up at me.

“Everything I did was to protect you from my dad and what eventually became Valor. Ash was the only one who knew I was still around. That hunting photo was the last time I saw my father alive and the first time he'd seen me in thirteen years. He was more power hungry than I'd ever seen him, said he was on the verge of something earth-shattering. That I needed to come home to be a part of it or else.”

“I'm the ‘or else,' aren't I?” I say tiredly.

He nods. “That's what the puzzle pieces are saying. When Devil Johnny died, I thought all my ties to Valor were severed. His lawyer said that Ash and I were written out, and I figured I could just go back to being a Cannon. I sent your mom a little money. Not enough, but some. I actually stopped by your work one night to talk to you, but I couldn't figure out how to start, so I just paid for my pizza and left. It was a hell of a jolt, seeing you at the high school with Al's laptops and not being able to show any emotion with all those damn Cranes around.”

He couldn't hide it from me, though. I saw it in his eyes that night. But when I rack my brain, I can't remember ever seeing him at my work. To think—he was that close.

“But where were you, all that time?”
All that time I needed you
, I don't say.

He shrugs. “All over. I learned how to siphon off Valor cash using the systems I'd developed to protect them. Hacked in a little deeper and started to see that nasty stuff Valor was planning and decided I had to help fight it. The deeper I got, the more determined I was to stop him. I hooked up with the darknet and Incog, then the CFF, hoping to fight back. When my old friend Leon turned out to be the head of this cell, I decided to come work with him.”

I snort. “He fooled you, too.”

“He wasn't always bad. We were practically brothers, growing up. But he's stubborn. Don't underestimate a man who grew up with a chip on his shoulder and a fondness for gunpowder. The Cannons went into banking, but the Cranes went into business. They may look and act like rednecks, but that's just part of the front. Devil Johnny and Lawrence Crane became two blowhards trying to outdo each other in a giant game of Monopoly with Candlewood as their board. Lawrence favored Leon's older brother Larry as his right hand, and that meant Leon never lived up to his potential. Went into the army, was in and out of prison. Being in charge of a guerrilla organization is basically the most fun he's ever had. No law. No government. Just pure anarchy while he pretends he's the good guy. I was going to get out soon, next time they sent me off property. Operation Nutjob took it too far.”

“So here we are.”

He throws out his arms and gives me the saddest smile. “So here we are. I've finally got the thing I've wanted the most for a decade of my life, my sweet baby girl by my side. And now I learn my brother's gone and my former best friend wants me dead. It's a hell of a week.” He tips back his head and guzzles water like it's whiskey. “And now Leon'll want to get you, too. Up until tonight, he had no idea we were connected, or he would've done anything to keep us apart.”

“But he has Mom. Somewhere. And you were in the big house. So if you didn't see her . . .”

“Honey.” He shakes his head sadly. “The Cranes are a big family with hundreds of acres of land and a dozen businesses spread out around town. Just on the compound, they've got the big house, about ten different trailers out in the woods, a shotgun shack, the taxidermy barn, the notary house. If you weren't looking for someone, chances are you wouldn't see 'em. If she was in the med trailer instead of the clinic, I had no reason to go there. It would have taken pure dumb luck for our paths to ever cross.”

“You think he's figured it out yet? You, me, and Mom?”

He shrugs. “He will soon. Once the fourth guy makes it back and he knows you and I are on the run, he should be able to put it all together. If he asks her the right questions under the right threat of violence, he'll know everything. Your mom isn't the type to hold up to torture.”

I swallow. “Torture?”

“He'll do anything to get what he wants. And he wants me dead or on his side.”

I throw myself back on the bed and stare at the curved white ceiling. “So we can't go back.”

“Not if we want to live.”

“Out of the frying pan, into the fire.”

“More like out of the frying pan, into the fire, out of the fire, into the wilderness.” He stands up and ruffles my hair. “I thought you were dead. I'll take the wilderness with my little Patsy any day.”

“But we need Wyatt. And Mom and Matty and Kevin, and . . .” I grunt and slam my head against the pillow until I can't stand it anymore. “We have to get them out. Before the bombs go off and everyone goes batshit.”

And that's when I realize what needs to happen next.

There's no cell signal in the bunker, so we climb back out of the tube. It's the middle of the night, and I can only hope that Wyatt hasn't yet done what I told him to do. I walk up a nearby hill until I have a few bars and call him.

“Patsy?” His voice is quiet. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine. Did you do it yet?”

A tiny sigh. “They won't let me in the house, but they sent Kevin down with Gabriela. He's in our tent. Everybody's jacked up around
here. Some guys went out and only one came back. Actual Cranes. Leon is pissed. He put a gun to my chest but said there were too many witnesses and he needs me to get you back.”

A tiny moan escapes me as my heart clenches. I may have put a gun to Wyatt's chest last week, but that doesn't mean other people can.

“But he didn't hurt you?”

“No. Patsy, why does he want you dead?”

“It doesn't matter. Point is, they came to kill us, and they failed. But the plan changed. Did you get rid of the can in the black backpack, at least?”

“It's way out in the woods, away from all the people. Do you want me to tell Leon about the ones in the house?”

“No,” I say. “Leave them right where they are and then do exactly what I say. I want to see the smoke.”

It's almost dawn now, and I feel like I drank twenty cups of coffee. What was in that yellow M&M? Dad said I should try to sleep for a few hours, and I tried, but it was impossible to relax in a fallout shelter. Lights on and it's like being in a doctor's office. Lights off and it's like being in a crypt. So we're walking up the deeply forested hill in the dark, following an old trail that zigs and zags ever upward. My dad has a flashlight, but he uses it only when the shadows make the way impassable. I trip. A lot.

We pass remnants of a handmade rock wall and a cave that my dad points out as the spring house. He tells me stories about the time he fell down the hill and got a splinter four inches long in his thigh and the time Ash got bitten by a copperhead down by the creek. He
smiles fondly when he points out the tree house his sister, Valerie, built to show the boys she didn't need their help.

“Guess she won.” He chuckles. “Ours fell down years ago.”

“What happened to her?” I ask, still hungry for more family.

“She died young,” he says, flat and faraway, as he helps me over a log.

We're silent for a few moments, using smaller trees to pull ourselves up the hill. I'm out of breath, my hands cold and raw from the climb.

“Okay, so here's the family history. Cannon House was built in 1897,” my dad says with some pride. “The first one, that is. Big plantation. It stood until the 1920s, when it burned down, and a bigger, grander home was built in the same place. And that one burned down a few months ago with my dad inside it. Here's what's left of it.”

We crest the hill, and the most beautiful and haunting scene spreads out before me. The house is a black skeleton of grand beams and crumbling fireplaces. It must've been huge, a mansion. Tiny shots of white still struggle up where the flames somehow didn't reach. The fire's wrath seems fickle—half the staircase survived on one side, but the other side is entirely gone. One side of the grand porch is still gleaming white while the other is black and powdery.

“It looks like the aftermath of
Gone with the Wind
,” I murmur.

My dad nods. “It was a great house to grow up in, except for the fact that my dad was in charge of it.”

“What about your mom?”

“She died when I was little. We had maids and aunts around, but mostly we just ran loose. My bedroom was up there, above the kitchen.” He points to the top right, where black trees jab the coming dawn. That entire side of the house is gone. “I'm sorry you didn't get to see it before now. We lost all the family records, the photo albums. They said my dad got up in the middle of the night, turned on a teakettle, and just . . . forgot. He didn't trust anyone in his later years, and he lived alone. The maid slept straight through it in the carriage house. That's where we're going.”

The air smells of doomed majesty, char, and ice, and I tiptoe through the frosty grass, silent. Around the other side of what's left of the house, there's a garden gone wild and dead for the winter, a huge stack of fire wood, an empty chicken coop, garden sheds, a dry fountain, and a two-story building that looks like the newest thing for miles. The bottom half is old brick, the top half freshly painted white with French doors and a balcony. My dad turns on the flashlight and hunts around under flowerpots until he finds a key. I watch and worry. The night is disturbingly silent; even the birds are asleep. When he opens the door, the smell of rot makes me gag, even in the chill air. Narrow steps and new carpet lead up to a small apartment. His flashlight lands on a kitchen table, where a bowl of black, wet fruit sits beside a vase of dead flowers and a sprinkling of mouse turds.

“Don't know what happened to the maid,” my dad says. “I lived here for a while, when you were a baby. It smelled a lot better back then.”

Everything in the apartment appears to have been abandoned by someone leaving in an unexpected hurry, including several pairs of small orthopedic shoes lined up by the door and a black-and-white maid's uniform of the frumpy, not saucy, variety hanging from a chair. The bed is still made, and my dad unlocks the French doors and throws them open, giving us a beautiful view of the sweeping valley below.

“I bet it's beautiful when the leaves turn in October,” I say.

“You should see it in spring.”

He checks his watch, and I check my phone. I want to call Wyatt, but I can't. Not until it's time. I pull up the list of contacts and let my finger rub over the button. But I don't press it. Not yet.

“Five fifty,” he says, looking at his flip phone. “Ten minutes to go.”

So close.

“Where is it?” I ask.

He points to a random section of land in the valley below. Last night's hike felt like it lasted forever, but it was really just a mile, maybe less. I can see flashes of roof through the barren trees, and I try to identify the different buildings of the Crane compound. I think I see the big house, but it's hard to tell.

My phone buzzes, and I fumble to check the text.