The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(152)

She fled the room and made a beeline back to the bullpen, stopping at Ross Daley’s desk.

“Did you leave Theo alone at any point during his hospital stay? Did you leave him within reach of any handphones?”

Ross scowled at her in insult. “No. Of course not. What do you take me for?”

“You don’t want me to answer that.”

She spun around to Howard. “Call Owen and Carter and anyone else who’s not here. Tell them to get back now. The rest of you, grab your guns.”

Howard flashed his palms. “Whoa, whoa, boss. Slow down. What’s going on?”

Melissa cracked another jagged laugh.

“I don’t know how he did it, but Theo got a message to the others. They’re right here in Charleston. And they’re coming for their friends.”

—

On the dark and chilly patio of a fourteenth-story hotel suite, between the empty lounge chairs and the potted cherry trees, four weary travelers stood side by side at the guardrail. The DP-9 building rested a thousand yards to the east. The Silvers could see lit windows between the trees, and the occasional glimpse of moving figures within.

Hannah stowed away her cheap binoculars and looked to Mia, Zack, and David. Like her, they were dressed in black from neck to toe, and wore their worries openly.

“Okay,” said the actress. “Now what?”





TWENTY-EIGHT




Their last hour in Nemeth had passed with creeping dread. Between the plink-plink-plink of the rain on the windows and the tick-tick-tick of the grandfather clock, David drummed a one-finger beat on the face of his wristwatch. Mia tapped a pen against a page of her journal. Zack paced the hardwood floor in clomping worry, the handphone clutched tightly in his grip. He’d left two texts and a voice mail for Amanda. She had yet to respond.

At the stroke of one, a ringing chime sliced through the house, startling everyone. Zack raised an angry palm at the wooden clock. Suddenly the hands spun like fan blades and the glass turned gray with dust. The oil on the gears dried away to nothingness until the inner workings creaked to a halt. A four-year demise condensed to five seconds. A timepiece choked to death on time.

The cartoonist looked to David and Mia with grumpy contrition. “I’ll fix it later.”

Suddenly the handphone chirped in announcement of a new text message. Hannah sped down the stairs in a windy blur, de-shifting at Zack’s side.

“Is that her? Is she all right?”

Zack furrowed his brow at the screen. “I’m not sure . . .”

“What do you mean?”

“Just read it!” Mia yelled.

“‘Sorry, Zack. They made me power off my phone in the exam tent. No news yet. I’ll call when I know more.’”

Now the others landed on Zack’s uncomfortable perch, caught between their doubts and their wishful thinking. Before anyone could speak, Zack aged the handphone to a husk, then chucked it to the floor. It shattered into rusty fragments.

Hannah grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?”

“When have you ever heard her say she ‘powered off’ something?”

“Okay, that sounded strange, but that doesn’t mean—”

“I’m sorry, Hannah. We’re out of rosy scenarios. That wasn’t Amanda. That was a Dep.”

Hannah glared at Zack. “But why destroy our last phone? If that was her—”

“They wouldn’t have tried that trick if they didn’t want us to stay here. They’re tracking us. We need to go.”

“Go where?”

“Go how?” Mia asked. “Amanda took the van.”

“Our only choice—”

“Stop.”

David hadn’t said a word in two hours, fearful of the furious invective he’d unleash. He’d warned them all what would happen if Amanda took Theo to the health fair. No one listened. Now Zack was about to leave an oral trail of bread crumbs for the Deps to follow.

“Everyone stay quiet until I finish.”

The others watched blankly as he paced back and forth across the living room, adjusting his gait each time. After three treks, he shuffled his way back to the sofa.

“All right. Now gather around me. Sit closely.”

They clustered around the coffee table. David closed his eyes. Suddenly the first floor teemed with the recent ghosts of himself, a busy crowd of self-projections that walked, skipped, and hopped in every direction.

David formed a small bubble of space around the four solid Silvers. “This is the only way we can safely talk. If they see us in their ghost drills, they’ll read our lips.”

Mia wished she was in a state of mind to enjoy the new scenery. Her voice creaked with strain. “Are you sure that wasn’t her, Zack? I mean if you’re wrong—”

“I’m not.”

“—we’ll be leaving them. They’ll come back to an empty house with no way to find us.”

“He’s not wrong,” David said. “They’re in federal custody. There’s no time to debate this.”

“So what do we do?”

Zack bounced his busy gaze between Hannah and Mia. “You two pack our stuff. As much as you can. David and I will be back to pick you up.”

“Pick us up in what?”