Game (Jasper Dent #2)(111)

And, yeah, that got a response.





CHAPTER 50


After leaving the lockbox with G. William and making his oh-so-stealthy getaway from the sheriff’s office, Howie drove the Nod aimlessly. His parents had expected him home hours ago, but he had texted to say that he was helping out with Jazz’s grandmother again. In reality, he was just wasting gas money and contributing to global warming as he tried to think of a path around it all, a way through the thickets that did not involve confronting Sam.

The idea that Sam was Ugly J… the idea that she was just as crazy as Billy…

It can’t be. For one thing, she really seems to hate the guy. For another thing, I think she’s hot. And if I think she’s hot and it turns out she’s a psychopath, then what does that say about me? I’m totally not ready for that kind of therapy.

It’s not that he was in love with Jazz’s aunt. Puh-lease. Howie Gersten was horny and desperate and more than slightly clueless, but he wasn’t stupid. He had the hots for her and he figured that the fact that she knew this and hadn’t called him gross or a perv meant that maybe something could happen. Which would be great for Howie because he was a total virgin and sick of it to the tune of jerking off so much that he was worried he was going to cause some kind of penile trauma. Hemophilia extended to his entire body, after all—he’d bruised Li’l Howie plenty of times, which sucked. If sex was gonna hurt, he’d rather have someone else causing the pain.

What were the odds that Sam was involved in Billy’s craziness? That she was Ugly J? Most serial killers were men. So many that it was just the first natural assumption to make in any serial killer case. So, yeah, it just made sense to assume that Ugly J was a guy.

But what if Ugly J wasn’t necessarily a serial killer? What if Ugly J was just, like, an apprentice? An assistant? Howie didn’t think there was a career path planned out for sociopaths like Billy Dent, but Jazz’s dad had broken a lot of the typical “rules” for serial killers. Maybe it wasn’t all that crazy to think that he’d turned his sister into his helper.

Maybe he had even…

Ugh. Gross. Don’t think that, Howie.

Too late.

Great, now every time you want to fantasize about Sam, you’re gonna think about Billy Dent doing his own sister. Jeez.

Incest is best, put your sister to the test…. Some old bit of middle school vulgarity, hopping and skipping back from his memory. Double gross.

He pulled over to the side of the road and killed the engine. Craned his neck to look up at the stars. But the stars weren’t there. The night sky was almost perfectly smooth with clouds, the stars and the moon hidden as though they could not bear to see what came next. Howie couldn’t bear it, either.

It wasn’t that he was a coward. He didn’t like to think of himself as a coward, at least. But a lifetime of overprotective parents who had every reason to be overprotective… well, that had a way of worming into a guy’s consciousness. Most teenagers, Howie knew, thought they were indestructible. Howie desperately and devoutly wished he could believe that, but every damn time he woke up with a new bruise on his arm from rolling over in his sleep and bumping the nightstand… every time he went to the doctor for his latest desmopressin shot…

Every time he relived the night the Impressionist had nearly killed him with a swipe of a knife, a swipe that anyone else could have shaken off…

Every time he thought of these things, he reminded himself: It’s not cowardice, Howie. It’s just common sense.

But those words had started ringing hollow a long time ago. His best friend was in the biggest, scariest city in the country, hunting a lunatic with more than a dozen murders to his name. And maybe, just maybe, his own father. And Connie? She was on a plane—or maybe she’d landed by now—to that same place, determined to do whatever she could to help.

How can I do any less? How can I not handle this one damn thing? Just figure out if Sam is a bad guy or not. That’s all. Do it, you coward. Do it, you stupid, joking, horny, useless bleeder.

He stared at his cell phone for what felt like an eternity, flicking to Jazz’s number over and over. He desperately wanted to call his best friend, to get his advice on this. But Connie was right—Jazz was in deep enough already. The last thing he needed was Howie calling for advice on how to deal with Sam.

And besides… shouldn’t Howie be able to figure this out for himself? Being a hemophiliac didn’t mean his brain stopped working. Just his clotting factor.

When Howie had been younger and his parents had first explained his disease to him, they had done that typical thing all parents do: They’d tried to put the best possible face on it. “Abraham Lincoln was a hemophiliac,” they’d explained to him, “and look at what he accomplished. And Mother Teresa. And Richard Burton, the actor.”

Years later, when he was old enough and curious enough, Howie had investigated these claims. Turns out the actor dude was the only one confirmed to have hemophilia. Mother Teresa was just a rumor, and an unlikely one—women carried the gene for hemophilia, but rarely had the disease. And Lincoln? No one could prove it one way or the other.

Like with Genghis Khan, another historical figure rumored to be in the Howie Hemo Club. Whenever people tried to find a connection to historical figures, funny how they always managed to skip over guys like Genghis Khan.