The Speed of Sound (Speed of Sound Thrillers #1)(82)

Eddie looked upset. “Then why did you say I do?”

“Because I felt like I had to.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want him to hurt you.”

This got his attention. “You really think he was going to hurt me?”

She nodded. “I’m quite sure of it.”

Eddie glanced at various parts of his body, imagining a serious injury. “So it’s okay to lie if you don’t want someone to get hurt?”

She didn’t know what to say. “It’s okay if you don’t have any other alternatives.”

“How do you know if you don’t have any other alternatives?”

“You do your best to consider all other possibilities.”

Eddie nodded as if he understood, which he didn’t. It was all quite confusing, and left him feeling uncomfortable. “I want to go back to Harmony House.”

Skylar nodded. She knew this was hard for him, but she wasn’t about to give up yet. “I thought you wanted to hear your mother’s voice.”

“I do.”

“If I take you back to Harmony House, you may never get to.” She would also lose any chance of ever getting retribution for Jacob’s death.

“Because Dr. Fenton might take my echo box away?”

She nodded. “Yes. And I made you a promise to stop anyone from taking it away from you.”

“Yes, you did.”

“But I need your help to keep that promise.”

He thought for a moment and reached his decision. “I will help you keep that promise.” He counted his footsteps under his breath as he and Skylar made their way down two flights of stairs to the lower departure level. They were joined by an increasing number of Mets fans heading for the same train, who all shared the same thought: there was nothing more fun than staying up all night making fun of Phillies fans on their home turf the night before a good shellacking.

Eddie continued quietly counting to himself. “Two hundred and thirty-two. Two hundred and thirty-three.” He stopped abruptly to scratch his neck where the newly purchased Mets T-shirt collar was rubbing against it. “I don’t like this shirt. It itches my neck.” He started to take it off.

“You only have to wear it until we get on the train.”

“It makes me uncomfortable.” He pulled the shirt over his head.

Skylar glanced at an officer in the distance, and spoke conspiratorially. “If a police officer tags you, it will be even more uncomfortable.”

Eddie looked around. He also saw the officer down the platform. “I do not want to be tagged. I want to hear my mother sing.”

“Then keep walking and do your best not to draw attention to yourself.”

He put the Mets jersey back over his head as he resumed walking toward the train. “Two hundred and thirty-four. Two hundred and thirty-five.”





CHAPTER 82

Harmony House, Woodbury, New Jersey, May 27, 10:11 p.m.

The distraught call from his boss was not Michael Barnes’s main concern. It was understandable that Fenton resented being in the back of a squad car. Of course he was livid about being taken in for questioning. Detective Butler McHenry was a nuisance, but not a legitimate threat, not to either of them. McHenry had no jurisdiction nor evidence he could use against Fenton. The detective was fishing, hoping the old man would slip. In Barnes’s professional estimation, that was highly unlikely. Possible, because anything was possible, but the odds were low. Fenton would lose a few hours being questioned, but that would be the extent of it. McHenry was nothing more than a frustrated detective who knew justice would never be carried out. His only move was to pester and annoy.

Barnes’s bigger concern, the one causing the knot in his stomach to grow increasingly tight and resistant to the over-the-counter remedies he’d been gobbling down, was that the team he’d sent after the nurse had not been heard from. Strunk and Dobson should have checked in over an hour ago, but both of their phones had stopped transmitting GPS signals at Gloria Pruitt’s residence. Which meant something had happened.

But what?

Barnes ran through a variety of scenarios, and the most likely involved the local police showing up at the nurse’s house while Dobson and Strunk were engaged in the activities he’d prescribed. But even that was a stretch. A neighbor would have had to have seen something suspicious and called the police, or possibly even intervened directly. But his team’s response in either scenario would have been to eliminate the witnesses. They would have had no qualms about it, and neither would Barnes. Far better to have collateral damage than anything even potentially leading investigators back to Harmony House.

So what was the holdup?

He called his team again. Both calls went right to voicemail. Something was very wrong. As he imagined various locations where his two men might be, Barnes never considered anywhere remotely close to their actual location. Which was the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Parts of them were there, anyway.





CHAPTER 83

Peaceful Easy Feeling, 5.3 Nautical Miles off the New Jersey Coast, May 27, 10:14 p.m.

The GPS coordinates were N 39°37’51.44”, W 74°05’56.59”. The National League East fans had jointly purchased the Albemarle 360XF three years ago, mostly because of the Volvo Penta IPS engine that came with it. IPS stood for Inboard Performance System, and that was what set this fishing boat apart.