What Have We Done (58)
“I almost drowned in the deep end.” He leaves out the part about Derek Brood holding him under.
Reeves pulls out a pen and his small notepad and flips it open. “I love the idea of starting the book with this. There’s symbolism in starting and ending the book with you nearly drowning but surviving.” He stops. Looks at Donnie. “Are you okay?”
Donnie doesn’t realize that his cheeks are wet. He wipes his face with his hand. “I’m fine, Hemingway,” he says in Rock Star Donnie’s voice.
Reeves is studying him. Not buying it.
Donnie has the sudden urge for another drink. He lowers himself and sits on the ledge of the empty swimming pool.
Reeves sits beside him. The sky is black, the area lit by only a bulb on a lamppost that must be set on timer.
“I gotta tell you something, Reeves.”
Reeves turns to him. He puts a hand on Donnie’s shoulder.
“What is it?”
“Can we go … what do you call it? Off the record?”
Reeves ponders this. “Sure. I won’t write about anything you tell me unless you agree.”
“On the ship. I remember what happened now.”
Reeves gives him a quizzical look.
“There was a woman. I think the same woman from the photo the FBI showed me about Benny.
The same one from the beach.”
Reeves doesn’t say anything, lets Donnie talk.
“She forced me to jump.”
Reeve’s eyes flash. “Wait, what?”
Donnie nods. “She had a gun and…” He trails off.
“You need to tell the authorities. You need to—”
“I know.” He says it without conviction. If the woman who forced him off the ship is somehow the same woman who was following Benny, maybe she’s the blackmailer. And if so, that means she knows what they did to Mr. Brood. If the FBI catches up with her … He lets the thought die.
Reeves’s phone lights up and he checks the text, swipes it away. Donnie catches the wallpaper photo on the device. Like Reeves’s laptop, it’s a picture of a woman in a hospital bed.
“We keep talking about me, but I still don’t know much about you,” Donnie says, trying to change the subject.
“No one’s writing a book about me.”
“Hell, maybe they should be, Hemingway.”
Reeves shakes his head.
“Do you mind if I ask who that is on your phone?” Donnie eyes Reeves’s iPhone.
Reeves looks at his phone, clicks it so the screen goes black. “My best friend. She has Huntington’s, an awful neurodegenerative disease. There’s no cure yet, but there are some clinical trials that are showing promise.”
“I’m sorry, man. I hope she’ll be okay.”
“If we can get her in one of the trials, they have this new technology where they inject viruses that attack and kill the bad DNA that causes the disease. If she was rich, she could go to another country where they’re way ahead with DNA splicing.”
“That ain’t right. I’ll never understand it.”
“What’s that?”
“These rich dudes who have more money than they’ll ever need, but waste it on flying into space or buying more companies or mansions. They could be Batman, like a real-life superhero, going
around finding people in need and changing people’s lives. I don’t get it.” Donnie thinks about Benny, Black Superman.
Reeves looks at him.
“If I had the cash, man, I’d give it to your friend.”
“You know what, Donnie? I think you really would.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
JENNA
Jenna’s going to have to approach this differently. If the guy following the hitter is with the FBI it means one of three things. One, the FBI agent knows the hitter killed Ben Wood—or tried to kill Nico Adakai or Donnie Danger or Artemis Templeton. Or two, he knows that Derek Brood hired the killer to take out the residents of Savior House. Or three, Derek Brood and the hitter are the FBI’s informants about what happened to Derek’s father all those years ago and the FBI has no idea that its confidential informants have also set out to kill everyone. Three seems the least likely. There’d be no need to include the contract killer in informing to the FBI. It would be too risky. And the agent seems to be trailing the woman surreptitiously, not coming to the restaurant to meet her.
Jenna needs to think. Get her head on straight. She thinks of Arty in the back of the town car: We need to talk to Donnie and Nico. Find out if they slipped.… Donnie and Nico adored you. They’ll trust you. She needs to know what, if anything, Donnie and Nico have said to the FBI.
She unzips the bag of goodies and retrieves the cell phone Artemis gave her that monitors the tracker on Donnie’s rental car. Powering on the device, she waits until the blue dot appears. The car’s about ten minutes from here, parked somewhere off the interstate. She pushes the ignition button on the motorcycle and roars away.
She tracks the blue dot to a highway hotel, a chain and probably the only decent accommodations for miles. Donnie must be in for the night. She considers bribing the clerk to get his room number but is spared that indignity when a thin, long-haired man appears in the parking lot. The old rocker looks around like a teenager sneaking out of the house, worried someone might see him.