A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #4)(115)

“He died earlier this year,” I continued, “and he wanted me to take over for him. At least, I think he did. We got this mission from an associate of his.”

The interrogator looked up from his pad. “You say one of Gandy’s associates is still alive?”

The way he was staring at me gave me a chill. I knew then I had made an error.

“No—” I acted like I was confused. “I meant, we got the mission from a machine,” I lied. “One of those teletype printers? The orders just printed out while I was standing near it, like it knew I was there. But I assumed it was from an old associate of my grandfather’s.” I wanted to bury what I’d said about H, but it was too late.

The interrogator closed his pad. “You’ve been very helpful,” he said, and he winked and scraped back his chair.

“We didn’t mean to step on any toes,” I said quickly. “We didn’t know about your territory or laws or anything like that.”

Keys rattled in the door and it opened. The interrogator smiled.

“You have a nice day.”



* * *



? ? ?

Twenty minutes later they dragged me in to see Leo. The room was empty but for him, the man holding me, and Leo’s funereal right-hand man, Bill. Leo came at me as soon as I got through the door. Got right up into my face.

“Your grandfather was a murderer. You knew that, right?”

I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. He was clearly unhinged.

“Gandy. Or whatever you call him.”

“His name was Abraham Portman,” I said quietly.

“Kidnapping. Murder. Man was sick in the head. Look at me.”

I raised my eyes to meet his. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh yeah?” he said. “Bill, get me the file on Gandy.”

Bill went over to a filing cabinet and starting rifling through it.

“He was a good man,” I said. “He fought monsters. He saved people.”

“Yeah, we thought so, too,” said Leo. “Until we found out he was the monster.”

“Got it right here, Leo,” said Bill.

Bill walked over with a brown folder in his hand. Leo took it and flipped it open. He turned a page, and something cracked behind his stony expression. “Here,” he said, and then I saw him wince.

He slapped me hard across the cheek. I stumbled. The man holding me yanked me up again. My head tingled.

“She was my goddaughter,” said Leo. “Sweet as sugarcane. Eight years old. Agatha.”

He turned the file so I could see it. Clipped to the page was a photo of a little girl astride a tricycle. A black knot of dread began to well in my stomach.

“They took her in the night. Gandy and his men. They even had a shadow creature with them. Working for them. It broke the window to her bedroom and pulled her right out—from the second floor. There was a trail of black muck leading right to her bed.”

“He wouldn’t,” I said. “He would never kidnap a child.”

“He was seen!” he shouted. “But she wasn’t. Not ever again. And we looked, don’t you know we looked. He either fed her to that thing or killed her himself. If he’d sold her to some other clan, I woulda heard. She woulda got free, reached out.”

“I’m sorry that happened,” I said. “But I can promise you it wasn’t him.”

He slapped me again, on the other cheek this time, and the room blurred and my ear started to ring. When my vision cleared, he was staring out the window at a gray afternoon.

“That’s just one of about ten kidnappings we can pin on him. Ten kids who were taken and never seen again. Blood on his hands. But he’s dead, you say. So I say that’s blood on your hands.”

He went over to a cart stocked with bottles and poured himself a shot of brown liquor. Downed it in one swallow.

“Now, where is this associate you say is still alive?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

I decided to come clean about H; I had let the cat out of the bag already, and it’s not as if I had information that would lead them to him. I didn’t even know where he lived.

Leo’s goon had me by the neck, and I felt his grip tighten.

“You know. You were taking the girl to him!”

“No, to a loop. Not to him.”

“What loop?”

“I don’t know,” I lied. “He hadn’t told me yet.”





Bill cracked his knuckles. “He’s playing dumb, Leo. He thinks you’re a sucker.”

“It’s fine,” said Leo. “We’ll find him. Nobody hides from me in my city. What I really want to know is, what do you do with them? Your victims?”

“Nothing,” I said. “We don’t have victims.”

He grabbed the file off the table where he dropped it, flipped the page, and shoved it in my face. “Here’s one of the kids your grandpa saved. We found him two weeks later. Does he look saved to you? Huh?”

It was a photo of a dead person. A little boy. Maimed. Horrible.

He punched me in the stomach. I doubled over, groaning.

“Is it some kind of sick family business? Is that it?”