When (34 page)

“We won’t be long, Mrs. Duncan,” Faraday promised. After she’d gone he grinned at me, too. “She’s one tough cookie.”

I found the corners of my own mouth lifting. “She’s pretty great.”

Faraday looked around and grabbed a stool from right outside the curtain. Pulling it over to sit down, he took out a small notebook and said, “Tell me what happened tonight,
Maddie.”

I did. It didn’t take very long. I’d been alone with Rick in my house for ten minutes. It’d just felt like an eternity. When I was finished, I had my own questions for
Faraday.

“How did you know?” I asked him. “How did you know to come to the house?”

Faraday shrugged. I saw that he’d cleaned up a little from that afternoon. The soot from the fire had been washed away, but there was a good section of hair on the side of his head that
was patchy and black. “I waited here until Kevin was out of surgery, and I was about to leave when one of the nurses found me and said that he was asking for me. He was pretty groggy, but
when I got to him, all he kept saying was ‘Wrong guy.’ He said it over and over, like he was really worried about it, so I told him I’d look into it.

“Anyway,” Faraday continued, “at the time, that didn’t make much sense to me, so I headed back to Culligan’s to look through Wes’s locker, and you know what I
found?”

I shook my head.

“I found a pair of Timberlands. Size nine and a half.”

“Wrong size,” I said, with a knowing nod.

“Exactly. So I started digging a little more. Miller’s boss had said there were two guys on the crew. I asked the old man about the other guy. I finally got it out of him that
Wes’s partner was his cousin, Rick Kane—a guy in his early fifties—right in the age range of the profile from my buddy in D.C. I checked out Kane’s work locker next, but it
was empty. That seemed kind of odd to me, you know? Not even a jacket or an extra shirt in there. So I went to Kane’s house. His wife said she was worried about him because he hadn’t
been feeling well lately. She had begged him to go to the doctor, but he’d refused. He’d also told her something that stuck with her—he’d said it wouldn’t do any good.
I remember standing on her porch and thinking about that….That’s something a dying man says.

“Before I left her house, I asked if Rick owned a set of Timberlands. He did. Size twelve.”

“The size from the imprints at the crime scenes,” I said.

“Yep. Oh, and his wife said that after quitting for twenty years, her husband was back to smoking again. He’d started up again this past summer, and his brand of choice was Marlboro
Lights. By the time I finished interviewing Mrs. Kane, it was going on seven o’clock. I tried calling your house, but I got no answer, so I sent a patrol car out there to watch over you until
we could find Kane or his cousin.”

Faraday stopped talking again, and he dropped his gaze to the floor. I had the sense that he was feeling guilty over the patrolman. “Anyway,” he said, after clearing his throat,
“to be sure I was on the right track, I headed back to the office and checked your notebook. I found Kane’s name in there, and his deathdate was for yesterday. I didn’t quite know
what to make of that, but after I called his wife again, she told me he liked to go hunting and fishing up near the Waliki River. It took us almost two hours, but we found the hunting shack, and
Wes Miller’s body, but no sign of Kane. I didn’t believe for a second that the suicide note and the confession Kane left for us to find was real. So I had dispatch look up Kane’s
vehicle to put out the BOLO, and wouldn’t you know it, he also drove a pickup—but his was charcoal gray.”

“It all fits.”

Faraday nodded. “Yep. I tried calling you again to ask you if you remembered reading for Kane, but I couldn’t get an answer on your line and I didn’t have your new cell. Your
uncle wasn’t picking up my calls, either,” Faraday said with a frown.

“Donny probably went out with one of his girlfriends, and he doesn’t always hear his phone when he’s out,” I told him. I didn’t want him to think badly of Donny.
None of this was his fault.

Faraday shrugged and got back to his story. “I tried to get patched through to the patrol officer assigned to watch your house, but I couldn’t get him to pick up his cell, either. I
was worried he’d fallen asleep on the job, so I drove over to straighten him out, but when I pulled up I found him slumped over the wheel. It was a minute or two before I realized he’d
had his throat slit. And, right as I was about to call it in, I heard a crash from inside your house….”

Faraday seemed to end his story there, and I dropped my gaze to my lap again. When I felt I could talk I said, “Thank you, Agent Faraday.”

I felt his hand on mine. “Hey, Maddie?” he said, and there was a little humor in his voice. “I shot a bad guy for you tonight. The least you could do is call me
Mack.”

Donny arrived at the hospital around three
A
.
M
. as I was being wheeled out to Mrs. Duncan’s car. He pulled up driving one
of those Smart cars, and to see him squeal to a halt and jump out wearing only his boxers, a T-shirt, and a panicked look on his face sent all of us into hysterics.

I knew I shouldn’t be laughing, but it was just so freaking funny that I couldn’t help it. Belatedly I also realized he had a sleepy-looking woman in the car, and I knew he’d
been on a date and hadn’t had a choice as to how he got up to Grand Haven. It was her car or bust.

Once we’d all had a good laugh, Mrs. Duncan invited Donny and his girlfriend to stay at her house, but the girlfriend didn’t seem to want to go for that idea, so Donny checked her
into a hotel and then came back to be with me and Mrs. Duncan.

She settled me into her daughter Janet’s room, and I lay back on the soft pillow and nestled into the flannel sheets and thought there was no way I was going to sleep that night. A moment
later, I was out cold.

AFTER THE ATTACK I DIDN’T
go back to school for a few days. All I wanted to do was sleep and let Mrs. Duncan take care of me. Also, I was having a
hard time keeping my emotions in check. I’d start crying for no reason at all, and a lot of my dreams were more like nightmares. Donny made an appointment for me with a therapist named Susan
Royce (12-30-2055), and after hearing what was going on with me, she told me that everything I was feeling was perfectly normal, but I had a few issues that she thought we could work on. I was a
little surprised to hear that one of the issues she wanted to work on with me was Ma.

Still, after talking with Susan a couple of times, I started to feel better. I had fewer nightmares, and I felt okay about going back to school.

Stubs helped me a lot, too. My first day back to school, he picked me up on his scooter, and as a joke he wore his red cape. I laughed until my sides hurt.

At school there was a big shift in attitude toward both of us. Stubby and I were pretty banged up, but word started to spread that the serial killer, Rick Kane, had attacked both of us, and
we’d fought him off until he was shot by the feds. Stubby did nothing to try to correct the rumor, and neither did I. We walked the halls with our heads held high, and I thought my dad might
be proud.

And then, one afternoon right before Christmas break, there was a surprise assembly and the whole school was herded to the gym. Stubby and I sat next to each other on the bleachers, and we were
shocked to see the person standing at the podium up on the stage was none other than Agent Faraday.

He didn’t look at either of us, but after everyone was seated he started his speech, and Stubby and I were blown away. It was all about us. Faraday told the whole school that Stubby and I
had played a critical role in stopping Rick Kane, and if not for the two of us, more lives might’ve been lost.

I felt the whole school turn their eyes to Stubs and me, and for once it felt amazing. Stubby puffed his chest out and winked at me. And then Faraday said, “Maddie Fynn and Arnold
Schroder, would you please come up here?”

Shaking a little, I got up, walking past Cathy Hutchinson, who was maybe even more stunned than I was, and headed with Stubby to the stage to stand next to Faraday.

From the podium, Mack lifted two plaques, one for me and one for Stubs. “I would like to commemorate Madelyn Fynn and Arnold Schroder’s bravery with these honorary badges from the
FBI, and also, to give them each a check for fifty thousand dollars, or half each of the reward money posted by the families of Tevon Tibbolt and Payton Wyly for information leading to the arrest
or capture of the man who murdered their son and daughter.”

Stubby looked at me incredulously. Fifty thousand dollars would give both of us a huge chunk of money to go to college with. It would change our lives.

But more than that, the standing ovation the whole school gave us as we accepted the plaques and the checks was enough to heal so many old wounds.

Later, after the assembly, when I was getting my books out of my locker, I noticed someone standing next to me. Turning I saw Mario Rossi there, smiling shyly at me.

At first I was a little alarmed. I mean, I knew Mario was back from his suspension, but I was really wary of him since getting beat up in the stairwell. “Hey, Fynn,” he said.

I didn’t say anything. I simply waited for whatever was about to come next.

Mario seemed to read my wary expression, and he dropped the smile and shuffled his feet. “Listen, I want to say…I’m sorry. I…” his voice trailed off, and my brow furrowed.
He sighed and added, “I really am. I think what you guys did to catch Kane was pretty awesome, and I only wanted you to know that I won’t bother you or Stubs ever again. In fact,
anybody ever gives you trouble, you can ask me to step in, okay?”

He lifted his eyes back to me and there was nothing about his expression that seemed false. In fact, he looked hopeful.

For a long moment I stood staring at him, just completely shocked. I think he misread it for dismissal, because he dropped his gaze again and said, “Yeah. Okay. See ya.”

On impulse, as he began to turn away, I reached out and touched his shoulder. He stopped and looked back at me. I hesitated at first because Donny and I had had a long talk about the deathdates,
and we’d both decided it was a good idea not to tell anyone about them unless I was absolutely positive there’d be no negative fallout. But I thought the risk might be worth it with
Mario. “There’s something you should know,” I said as he eyed me quizzically.

“What?” he asked.

I bit my lip, hesitating again, hoping I was doing the right thing. “You know what I can see, right?” For emphasis I tapped my forehead.

Mario’s own brow furrowed. “Yeah?”

“Your date,” I whispered, pointing now to his forehead. “It’s the same as Eric Anderson’s. It’s on July twenty-fifth, twenty seventeen.”

Mario blinked a few times as he thought through what I’d just said, and then he sucked in a breath and his eyes opened wide. I held his gaze, though, refusing to look away. We stood there,
staring at each other for a few seconds, and then, the most amazing and wondrous thing happened. Mario reached up and rubbed his forehead, and in an instant his date changed. It went from 7-25-2017
to 4-14-2076. My mouth fell open, and I pointed to his forehead. “Ohmigod! Mario!”

“What?
What?
” he exclaimed, rubbing his forehead even more.

I put a hand up to stop him. “It just changed! Your deathdate just changed to way out in the future!”

Mario eyed me cautiously. “You’re sure?”

I smiled. “Positive. And you know I’m never wrong about this stuff, so don’t worry. Now you’re going to live to be an old man.”

Down the hall, a voice yelled to Mario. “Yo, Rossi! Come on, dude!”

We both looked to see Eric Anderson glaring at us impatiently. Mario turned back to me, and I offered him an encouraging smile. He turned back to Eric and yelled, “You go ahead! I gotta be
somewhere!” And then he hurried away in the opposite direction from Eric.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed at the incredulous expression on Eric’s face. I had no doubt that once Mario got over his shock, he’d let Eric know what I’d said, and
hopefully, his date would change, too.

Donny drove me to see Ma six days later. She looked thin, but her eyes were clear, and her speech wasn’t slurred. I could tell she was a little uncomfortable with us
there, but she seemed to really be trying. We exchanged presents—Ma had made me a picture frame with wire and beads. In the frame was a photo of Dad holding me when I was an infant. It was
the best Christmas present ever.