Game (Jasper Dent #2)(65)

Howie blew out an annoyed breath, clouding the air for a moment. “Jeez. You’re kidding me. So, what? We have to figure out Billy Dent’s shoe size? Is that what’s next?”

“I bet he’d choose something simple to remember. I bet it’s just feet. Not, like, his feet. Real feet. Twelve inches.”

“Then we’re in luck,” Howie said, and rushed back to the tree. By the time Connie got there, catching up to his long strides, he had already lined up his back at the tree and started walking east, carefully placing one foot directly in front of the other like a tightrope walker. “My feet are size fourteen, which is pretty much exactly twelve inches.”

“And you know this because…?”

“Because you know what they say about guys with big feet.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Anyway, this should get us close, right?”

“Yeah.”

Howie counted eleven. “Okay. Then this should do it. Bring me that stick.”

Casting about in the dark, Connie caught sight of the stick he was referring to, a large branch that had fallen off a tree, perhaps even the cherry tree itself. She walked it over to him and watched as he fruitlessly and with much comical grunting tried to spear it into the frozen ground.

“This—uh—marks the spot—uh—or at least within a few inches—uh—so we can come back with a shovel—uh—damn it!” He wiped cold sweat from his forehead.

Connie sighed theatrically and took the branch from him, then crouched down, gripping the end of the branch near the ground. Twisting and pushing at the same time, she was able to drive it a few inches into the ground, though it winded her.

“I was about to try that,” Howie explained.

“Right.”

“You grabbed it from me before I could.”

“Right.”

“You’ll never know!” he called after her, following her back to the car now. “I was just about to try that!”

“Sure.” But she wasn’t paying attention anymore. She was thinking of coming back with a shovel, when it was light out. When the ground would be a little warmer and less solid in the light of the sun. Thinking of digging.

Wondering what she might find.




Howie pulled a reversal of his clandestine extraction, drifting headlightless and engineless down the gentle slope toward her house.

“You’ll call me tomorrow, right?” he asked, and yawned.

“I’m about to jump out of a moving car and you’re yawning.”

“We’re going, like, a mile an hour.” He checked the speedometer, squinting. “Maybe a mile and a half.”

“I’ll call,” she said, and hopped out, jogging alongside the car until she had the door closed.

She felt very conspicuous, standing literally in the middle of the street. Howie had dropped her off (“inserted,” he insisted on saying, demanding they use spy lingo) three houses up from her own, just in case someone was awake and looking out the window in the Hall home. She moved to the side of the road and approached her house carefully. With the exception of the light near the front door, it was dark. And quiet.

She had a feeling, again, that someone was watching her. Not her dad or her mom. Not even Whiz. No, she had a sudden, foolish feeling that Billy was out there. Which was ridiculous, because the odds seemed to be that Billy was in New York. And even if he wasn’t, he wasn’t stupid enough to hang around Lobo’s Nod, the one place on the planet where almost every person would recognize him on sight.

But maybe he has magical powers and he can be in two places at once or can see across vast distances….

She shook herself and came just short of slapping her own cheek. She was exhausted. Thinking stupid things. Childish things.

As Howie had promised, her lubricated window opened easily and silently. With a small, nearly inaudible “Oof,” she hauled herself over the sill and into the quiet familiarity of her own bedroom. With the window closed, the room went warm and still. She enjoyed it for a moment.

If this had been a horror movie, she knew, there would be something here. Like, a clue. A note from the person who’d texted her, maybe.

Or a severed head. Or maybe a finger from the Impressionist. Or maybe…

She was suddenly completely convinced that her family was dead.

Isn’t that what would happen? she thought. Lure me out of the house and then—

She didn’t let herself think further. Paranoia pumped through her like blood and she struggled against it, stripping off her clothes and slipping into boy shorts and a T-shirt for bed.

No one is dead. No one is dead. Stuff like that only happens in movies and in books.

And in real life.

Even as she told herself that she wouldn’t do it, she sneaked out of her room. Just going to the bathroom, is all. That’s all. And the bathroom is next to Whiz’s room….

She put an ear to Whiz’s door. Heard nothing.

Cranked the door open a bit, wincing at the slight creak. Why was the creak absent during the day, present only when she needed to be absolutely quiet?

In the glow of a street lamp coming through the window, she saw a lump under the covers.

Doesn’t mean anything. Could still be dead. Might not even be him.

Stop it, Connie. Stop being so ridiculous.