What Have We Done (73)

Jenna feels for the pistol in her pocket. “You okay with the gun?” she asks Nico.

He reluctantly took the handgun Jenna pulled out of her ex, Michael’s, bag of goodies. She’s still digesting what Simon told her about Ned Flanders, real name Park Jones, the man who used to live down the street, the man who owned the stretch of land where they took Mr. Brood. The scientifically minded man who’d mentored young Artemis.

“I’ve only fired a gun once in my life,” Nico says.

They both pause, silently acknowledging the long-ago event.

“Just stay near me,” Jenna says.

They walk quickly and quietly to Savior House and the front door creaks open, but not loudly.

There are voices coming from what used to be the dining room. Jenna points to the hallway that leads to the kitchen, which provides another entry into the dining room.

Nico nods, he remembers too.

They sidle down the hallway, through the kitchen, and stop out of sight. Listen.

A panicked voice says, “Susan, my god, what in the hell are you doing?” That’s Derek Brood’s voice, and it sounds like his father’s.

“Sit!” the woman’s voice says.

Jenna isn’t clear what’s going on.

“We can talk about this,” Brood says. “Put the gun down.”

Jenna stealthily makes it to the entryway, peers inside.

Derek Brood, walking slowly, hands in the air, takes a chair—the only piece of furniture in the room—in the center of the dining hall.

The hit woman has her back to Jenna and hasn’t seen her yet. Jenna’s breath is taken away when she realizes that the woman—who’s a foot taller than Arty—stands behind him and has her forearm around Arty’s neck, a gun to his temple.

Jenna steps quietly behind the woman and puts the handgun to the back of her head.

The woman stiffens.

“Slowly,” Jenna warns as the woman lowers the gun from Artemis’s head and Jenna gestures for Nico to grab it. He scurries over and takes the gun gingerly like he’s picking up a spider.

The woman releases her grip on Artemis’s neck and he pushes away from her.

“What the hell’s going on?” Derek Brood says, standing again. “Susan said she was your real-

estate rep,” he tells Arty. “That you wanted to buy Savior House and rejuvenate the entire area. What the—”

“I can explain,” Artemis says. “Please, sit.”

Jenna’s mind is reeling. Derek Brood seems sincerely mystified by the turn of events. Jenna and Nico lock eyes. Her old friend looks equally confused.

Jenna still holds the muzzle of the pistol to the hit woman’s head.

Artemis looks at them both. Like he’s pondering what to do as the ones and zeros come together in that computer of a brain.

“We all need to talk this out,” Arty says. He looks at Jenna. “You can let her go.”

“I’m not letting anyone go until you tell me what the hell is going on.”

Artemis offers a disappointed look. He moves toward her. Jenna moves the gun from the woman to Arty’s center mass. “Don’t fucking move.”

Finally, she understands. It wasn’t Brood who hired the hit woman.

It was Artemis.

That’s when Jenna feels the blow to the back of her head and she hits the floor.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

DONNIE

The Uber pulls up to the area where the street ends and woods begin. The driver says, “Here?”

“Yeah, this is great,” Donnie says, still feeling the booze. It’s getting dark, a few minutes past seven. He wonders if Jenna and Nico went through with the meeting at Savior House.

Donnie gets out of the car and heads into the thick vines and weeds and trees. It’s been so long since he’s been to this patch of gloom, but there’s an immediate familiarity. He stumbles on some bushes. He needs to get himself straight. He smacks himself in the face, which works sometimes, and continues navigating through the branches and scrub.

Could the gun still be here after all these years? Is that why Benny was back in Chestertown—to see if the blackmailer was bluffing? Lying that he had evidence of what they had done. And did Benny hide something else in the spot? It has to be what he meant by “Boo Radley.”

Donnie spies the tree, the one Nico carved with the N + A. Nico was such a sap back then. Now he’s a Benedict Arnold who deserves an ass kickin’.

Two trees down, Donnie sees the familiar base of the giant maple tree. He gazes up and is taken momentarily back to hot summers with the G.R.O.S.S. club—Get Rid Of Slimy girlS—a name he’d stolen from Calvin and Hobbes. He didn’t think girls were slimy, he quite liked them even at fourteen, but the tree fort was inspired by the comics, so it was fitting.

He travels past the tree fort and four trees to the right, and there it is, the knothole about three feet from the ground in the old tree: the Boo Radley hole.

Donnie swallows, his mouth dry. A headache is creeping at the back of his skull. He thrusts his hand inside. He feels the metal and retrieves the small handgun he and Benny secreted there more than two decades before.

For a moment, he’s back on the knoll. Arty is peering into the shallow grave like he’s gonna do it but only stands there, arm extended, the light rain beading his face. Jenna takes the gun from him, says, “We agreed. We all have to”; then there’s the sickly bang of the gun. Jenna hands the firearm down the line; Ben takes his shot, then Nico, then Arty, who thrusts the weapon into Donnie’s hands. Donnie stands frozen until Benny laces his finger over Donnie’s and squeezes the trigger.