Constant Fear (3 page)

CHAPTER 4

J
ake drove up Ellie’s driveway in his Chevy Tahoe. Kibo came running like his best buddy suddenly materialized out of thin air. As Jake came to a stop, the muscular German shepherd stood on hind legs, slipped his nose under the front passenger-side door handle, and lifted his head. No scratches left behind. The door latch disengaged, and Kibo used his head to pry the door open the rest of the way. He jumped inside and gave Jake’s face a proper licking.

Jake had seen Kibo do the door trick countless times, but he never tired of it. Ellie’s dad had trained his dogs to open car doors, and Ellie did the same with Kibo to honor her father’s memory. As for Kibo, he didn’t care how he got to Jake. He was just glad they were together. Jake grabbed Kibo’s fur, gave him a good petting, and laughed as the dog licked his face.

“You miss me, boy?” Jake asked in a high voice, which always sent Kibo’s tail wagging. “I missed you. Yeah, I did.”

Two years ago, Jake’s much-beloved Rottweiler, Cinnamon, had died from bone cancer. There were no bad breeds, Jake believed, only misguided handlers, and Cinnamon was the sweetest, gentlest, most loving dog Jake had ever known until he met Kibo. Andy would be leaving for college soon, and Jake would think about getting a dog when the quiet really started to get to him. Who knows? Maybe he would help Ellie train a shepherd—apprentice with her, even.

Jake got out of the car, and Kibo did the same. Now that they could get closer, Jake ruffled Kibo’s thick fur and gave him a hug, which turned into a wrestle. On the ground, Jake found a red rope bone, and soon the toy was locked in Kibo’s powerful jaws. A game of tug-of-war ensued, in which Kibo growled his enjoyment and Jake marveled at the animal’s natural strength. If
the day
ever came, Jake would want Kibo to come live with him—which meant he’d want Ellie to come along, too. But, of course, that meant confiding in Ellie about a part of his life he kept secret.

Ellie crossed the grassy lawn where Jake and Kibo were tussling. Kibo had probably just been with Ellie, but he sensed her coming and set off running as if she’d been gone for years.

Jake propped up on his elbows and took in everything about the moment. He had been in a few long-term relationships since his exwife, Laura, had left. All had ended amicably, but this felt different. Ellie was attractive, smart, tough, fun to be around, and maybe, just maybe, Jake had met
the one.

Ellie came over to Jake, with Kibo heeling at her side. She gave him a kiss hello, but it felt different, guarded, cooler.

“We need to talk,” Ellie said.

Five minutes later, Ellie sat on the sofa in her living room, with three German shepherds lounging at her feet. To Jake’s eyes, they looked like one big happy pack. Two of the dogs were being trained for future owners, but they still treated Ellie like the alpha she was.

“So, what’s the big talk about?” Jake asked. He took the armchair across from the sofa so they could face each other. “I hope we’re not breaking up.” Jake’s smile didn’t lighten the mood any.

“I guess it depends on whether you want to start really opening up to me.”

Jake felt a knot in his chest. His last two girlfriends had ended their relationship because of his lifestyle, and he was keeping Ellie at arm’s length to prevent a number three.

“Well, what do you want to know?”

“I Googled you, Jake. I didn’t before, because it felt kind of creepy. Like I didn’t trust you. But something has been missing for me with us. So I did a quick search and, well, I know all about the accident.”

Jake understood right away. This was the other part of his life he liked to keep secret for as long as possible. His baseball career was more than a decade in his past. He liked his new persona as the head of maintenance at a prep school, and he wanted Ellie to think of him as just that. Besides, opening up about baseball risked revealing the secret about his avocation. In many ways, baseball had turned Jake into a prepper. Of all the things Jake was prepared to deal with, the truth wasn’t one of them.

“So, what do you know?”

“Everything,” Ellie said. “But I want to hear it from you.”

Jake looked resigned, but his deep, audible exhale made it known he was not entirely pleased.

“Where do you want me to start?” he asked.

“At the beginning,” Ellie said.

“Guess we’ll start in high school, then.”

“I’m sure you were cute.”

“Extremely,” Jake said with a wink. “I was also in love with Laura, Andy’s mom.”

“I want to know more about her. And about you.”

“She left us after the accident. Well, after the accident and after Andy got his diagnosis. Bad things come in threes, isn’t that what people say? I crashed my Beemer while driving drunk and shattered my elbow, Andy got sick, and then the love of my life walked out on us.”

Jake had made it a point to show Ellie the scars from his many surgeries. He had told her he had arm surgery, but intentionally had left out some critical details.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Jake shrugged. “Because it’s embarrassing,” he said. “Because I was going to be a superstar major-league pitcher and I tossed it away so I could get drunk at a teammate’s bachelor party. Not something I’m proud of. I keep that part of my life just where it belongs, in the past. I’m different now.”

Ellie seemed to accept his explanation. “What does that have to do with high school?” she asked.

“I was a kid blessed with a golden arm,” Jake said. “My high-school coaches ignored my grades because of my talent. I went to a two-year college, but didn’t graduate because I was just there to showcase my skills to the big-league scouts. The Red Sox eventually took me and I did my time in the minors, but I was on my way to ‘The Show.’ That was given, until I turned my elbow bones into confetti.

“Guess I could blame my buddies for not taking my keys that night, or the coaches, who made me think I was above it all, the golden boy with a golden arm—but in the end, who did I have to blame but myself?”

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” Ellie said. The coldness Jake had felt was all but gone from her eyes, replaced by a look of deep sympathy and genuine concern.

“My dad was a soft-spoken guy,” Jake said. “Made a nice career for himself in the insurance industry. He tried to warn me about the dangers of believing the hype, but at that time I wasn’t into hearing anything negative. I was twenty-two, had a lucrative contract with a big-league ball club, a step away from pitching in the majors, married to my high-school sweetheart, and now a father to a precocious three-year-old boy. I didn’t think anything could touch me.”

“The stories I read online weren’t kind,” Ellie said.

Jake laughed at the understatement. “Guess you uncovered old headlines from the
New York Post.
”

“The Web is like faraway stars. It illuminates the past.”

Jake smiled, thinking of those fall nights when he and Ellie had huddled on a blanket on her front lawn as new lovers, gazing up at the night sky.

“Let me see if I can remember what the
Post
had to say.” Jake ruminated. “ ‘You’re Out,’ right? They ran that headline above a picture of my crushed BMW. And the
Daily News,
I think they wrote, ‘Booze Ball,’ but now that I think about it, maybe I have those two mixed up.”

“The
Globe
was a lot nicer,” Ellie said.

“Yeah, well, that’s because the only person who got hurt in the accident was me.”

“What happened after?” Ellie asked.

The more Jake revealed, the closer he felt to Ellie. For this reason, Jake was glad Ellie had forced the conversation, but parts of his life remained off-limits.

“After that, I sank into a depression,” Jake said. “I missed everything about the game. The teammates, the camaraderie, the competition, everything—I loved it all. Then, about six months later, things got worse.”

“Andy,” Ellie said as if reading his thoughts.

“All the classic signs were there. His weight loss was especially alarming for a kid that skinny. Laura would say, ‘How does that boy put away so much food, but we can’t keep a pound on him?’ Then one afternoon I put Andy in front of the TV and went to go make lunch. When I got back, he was conscious, but so lethargic. I panicked and rushed him to the hospital, where we got the diagnosis.”

“That’s a lot to handle in a short amount of time,” Ellie said.

Kibo picked his head up and gazed at Jake with watery black eyes, as if to say he concurred. Ellie gave all three dogs some attention.

“There was some money set aside from baseball to help pay for Andy’s care, but not a lot. Before the accident, Laura figured we were on easy street, and she spent money like that was our permanent address. But a hefty signing bonus only goes so far. I saw it all adding up, and I didn’t do a thing about it. I let Laura handle the finances so I could concentrate all my energy on studying batters and working on my pitches. So when baseball ended and money got tight, Laura and I started fighting. One night, after a particularly long battle to get Andy’s insulin levels just right, Laura left a good-bye note. That was the last I ever saw of her. I did my best to find her—my dad even paid for a private investigator—but she was gone. Vanished. Wasn’t even in touch with her parents. I’m guessing she changed her name.

“Anyway, I got divorced by a motion to serve. Essentially, you just show a judge all your documented efforts to locate your spouse, and if a judge agrees you did your best”—Jake clapped his hands and rubbed them together—“you’re divorced.”

“How did Andy take it?”

“He was three. Hardly knew his mother at all. After Laura left, my depression got worse. Some days I couldn’t get out of bed, and my parents had to help me take care of Andy.”

“But you’re not like that now,” Ellie said.

“I guess I grew out of it,” Jake said. “Sometimes you’ve got to look adversity right in the face and stick out your tongue.” Jake did this and made Ellie smile while Kibo licked his chops.

“Eventually my brother saw I was getting better and helped me get a job at Pepperell Academy.”

Ellie gave this some thought; then she said, “Don’t get me wrong. I admire what you did and what you’ve overcome, but you could have stayed in baseball, couldn’t you? What about becoming a pitching coach or something?”

Jake shrugged off the suggestion. “I thought about it,” he said. “But I couldn’t be close to the game without getting a hollow pit in my gut. I knew if I didn’t leave the game completely, I’d live the rest of my life in the past. So I walked away and never looked back. That part of my life came to an end—and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.”

Ellie got up from the couch and crossed the room with a kind of hip-swaying action Jake found hard to resist. She dropped into his lap and kissed him with passion.

“I like history,” she breathed in his ear. “I feel closer to you. Much closer.”

Ellie kissed Jake’s neck as he ran his hands along the contours of her back. They were kissing again, but Jake saw Kibo looking at them and he stopped.

“Maybe this history lesson should continue in the bedroom,” Jake said.

Ellie took Jake by the hand and led him down a narrow hallway. On the walk, Jake thought about what he hadn’t told her. Maybe he would. Ellie seemed receptive to one part of his past. Would she embrace the other?

Back then, Jake had needed a new sense of purpose. He found it in the writings of Thomas Wiggins, the founder of a popular survivalist blog. Everything Wiggins said about the coming collapse resonated with Jake in ways he found surprising and inspiring. With Wiggins’s guidance, Jake felt empowered to take control of his life once more. He devoted himself to becoming an expert survivalist. He learned how to use weapons—guns and knives. He improved his physical conditioning and built up strength in his injured arm. He learned about food storage, DIY fuel, gardening, raising livestock, medical supplies, and first aid. In essence, Jake became reborn: stronger in some ways, but weaker in others because for him, the future was always something to fear.

CHAPTER 5

F
ive boys and one girl, students at Pepperell Academy, gathered in the campus’s main courtyard—The Quad, as it was officially known—for a meeting. In better times, the six would have been laughing and talking excitedly. They were the best of friends, and shared the same interests: watched the same movies and TV shows, visited the same websites, downloaded the same apps, ate most of their meals together, and hung out as a group whenever possible during their limited free time. They were, in fact, what other students labeled a clique. Their collective even had a special name—though no one but the members knew it. They called themselves “The Shire.”

Andy Dent was dressed the same as the four boys with him. Each wore a nice button-down shirt and a solid-colored tie. The group’s lone girl, Hilary Eichel, wore stylish white-rimmed eyeglasses, plaid skater skirt with dark leggings, and underneath her white button-down blouse—Hilary adhered to the school dress code as well—a fitted T-shirt that read:
THINK LIKE A PROTON AND STAY POSITIVE.
The words on her T-shirt were barely legible through her overshirt’s fabric. However, the near-frantic look on Hilary’s face, and those of her friends, said nobody was in a particularly positive mood.

In the background, a sea of students, most carrying backpacks, ambled from one building to another. They chatted easily with friends, or buried their faces in their smartphones. It was a normal March scene at Pepperell Academy; but for The Shire, things were far from normal. They looked away from each other, as no one felt comfortable being the first to break the silence.

Rafa spoke up finally.

“We have to get this over with,” he said. “I have track practice.”

Two of the six members of The Shire were on school-sponsored sports teams. Rafael Dufoe, who had curly, black hair, olive skin, and the whisper of a mustache, could run an 800-meter race in two minutes, eight seconds, which was not the best in the state, or even at The Pep, but it did put him a few strides ahead of some other runners. “Rafa,” the nickname his friends in The Shire gave him, was exceedingly thin. Some thought he had an eating disorder or digestive problem, but neither was true. Rafa simply had the metabolism of a hummingbird.

Andy seethed and his face went red. He addressed Rafa through gritted teeth. “Your track practice can wait,” he said. “I think this is just a little bit more important.”

Andy was the group’s founder and
de facto
leader, and it was his text message that had brought them all together. “It’s been over a week since it went missing. One of us has it,” Andy said, his voice shaky, “and one of us better fess up. Solomon?”

Solomon Burke was the other athlete in the group. As the captain of Pepperell Academy’s bowling team, Solomon had led the school to a championship two years running. While few students at The Pep considered bowling a sport—most would call it a recreational activity—Solomon had a different opinion. He was a cranker, which meant he created as much spin as possible by using a cupped wrist with his delivery. Spin was what made the bowling ball hook, and it was also the reason Solomon had recorded two 300 games and bowled a 274, 258, and 279 at his last tournament. Somewhat fittingly, Solomon’s physique matched the shape of the ball with which he had crushed the school’s bowling record.

“I told you, I don’t have it,” Solomon snapped. “I don’t.”

Solomon looked close to tears.

They were all on the verge of tears. Pallid complexions. Bags under the eyes because there hadn’t been a good night’s sleep among them. Shoulders hunched, weighted down with dread.

Hilary Eichel gave Solomon a hard stare, but she couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. Hilary often referred to her friends Rafa and Solomon as “Abbott and Costello.” It was a joke few at The Pep could appreciate; most students knew nothing about Abbott and Costello, and would not understand the reference.

As a self-proclaimed geek, Hilary embraced the Geek Chic style with flair. An attractive girl, Hilary got a lot of attention from the boys because of her looks. When they tried to flirt, she’d intentionally yawn. This usually sent them away. She had hazel eyes, long-layered brown hair, with ginger-colored strands, and a pert nose. She was in good shape, and could probably beat Rafa in a race if they ever went head to head, but Hilary was more mathlete than athlete. She already had taken two semesters of AP calculus and was currently acing her college-level statistics and probability course.

“We’re all just going to deny it,” Hilary said as if it were a matter of fact.

A cool wind kicked up and mussed Hilary’s hair. She brushed the strands away from her face as her gaze retreated back to the dusty ground. March was not a particularly beautiful time of year at The Pep. Today the sun was a cool pale disc brushed upon a cloudless blue sky, but The Quad itself was an ugly shade of brown, and the tree branches were barren. In a few more weeks, nature would work its magic and everything would bloom and change and look like the pictures on the website and brochures, the ones that lured prospective students to the campus for a tour.

The brochures did a nice job of showcasing the western Massachusetts campus, but it wasn’t the natural beauty and the historic buildings that inspired parents to fork over $45,000 a year for tuition and board. It was what they got for the money that had most students (and their parents) salivating.

A diploma from The Pep might not guarantee admission into an elite college, but it sure didn’t hurt. A lot of graduates went on to prestigious schools and to do big things in life, which was exactly what The Pep counted on. While the average amount spent per pupil in Massachusetts hovered around $14,000 per year, The Pep blew that figure away by investing $52,000 annually to house and educate each of its twelve hundred students. To bridge the gap between tuition and costs, The Pep relied heavily on its endowment, which, thanks to a wealthy alumni base and shrewd investments, had topped $1 billion last year.

Some students depended on scholarships to cover their elite education, but most of The Shire came from privilege. Not Andy, though. He was in a special category. Because his father worked at the school, Andy got free tuition—tuition remission—and it came with some self-imposed pressure to do well. His GPA never drifted below 3.8, an impressive feat considering most of his classes were AP or high honors. Andy’s father worked what Andy thought was a dead-end job to get him this education, which made Andy grateful for that sacrifice and determined to succeed.

At the moment, however, what mattered most to Andy wasn’t his stellar academic record. It was an answer to his question.

“David, did you take it?”

Andy was glaring at David Townsend, who hailed from Chicago, and was the best (and only) bassoon player in the school’s orchestra. David preferred to be called by his hacker name, “Dark Matter,” and his eyes narrowed in displeasure when Andy used his given name. David was a tall, gangly boy, with a gap in his front teeth and freckled skin that reddened quickly in the sun. While not exactly handsome, David attracted a lot of attention because of his long hair, which descended well past his shoulders. David often wore his hair down, as if to invite ridicule from fellow students who would call him a girl and think they were being clever. Unlike Hilary, who ignored the attention of boys she found tiresome and juvenile, David embraced the taunts, maybe even trolled for them, as a way of proving they didn’t really matter.

“I don’t have it. I told you a million times. It’s just gone.”

Rafa began to pace. His breathing turned shallow.

“We’re dead. We’re
all
dead.”

“Calm down,” Andy said. His voice had a hard edge, almost scolding. “It’s not going to do us any good to panic. We just need to get honest with each other and not be greedy. Nobody will be in trouble. But the money has to be given back.”

Rafa put his hands on his knees and breathed as if he’d just run a race.

Andy looked up at the sky to clear his head and calm his nerves. He blinked away the sunspots and regarded Troy Cranston with suspicion. At fifteen, Troy, a sophomore, was the youngest member of The Shire. He also had the highest IQ of a group comprising high-IQ people.

Troy had on his favorite ratty, gray hooded sweatshirt over his school-mandated shirt and tie, and the dark sunglasses he wore anytime, day or night, outdoors or indoors. Troy didn’t like it when people knew what he was looking at. He also didn’t want anybody to see how scared he was. Troy shook his head back at Andy.

“We’re really screwed, aren’t we?” Troy said in a soft voice.

At some point, Troy’s father, a senior-level investment banker with JPMorgan Chase and a former All-American quarterback for Notre Dame, had to face the fact that the jock name he’d bestowed upon his only son did not match the boy’s physique or mental makeup in any way. The other Troys at Pepperell Academy were cool kids, muscular and athletic, probably closer to what Troy’s dad had envisioned his son would be. This Troy, however, was a pixie-sized kid with a broad, flat nose, thin lips, and an oval face without much of a chin. His dark hair was cut close to his head, and always looked in need of a good washing. Troy would say he just had naturally oily hair.

He might not have been able to dribble a basketball with any dexterity, or catch a baseball, or master any of the skills his überath-letic father dreamed about, but what he could do—and do better than anybody else at The Pep, including the professors in the computer science department—was hack. Troy, who went by his hacker handle, “Pixie,” cracked codes as other people cracked eggs. As a requirement for acceptance into The Shire, all members had to demonstrate decent hacking prowess, but Pixie’s gifts were something special. He was a digital Mozart, and probably the one most responsible for The Shire’s dire situation.

It was the conspicuous consumption and egregious display of wealth at The Pep that had initially inspired Andy to found The Shire—well, that along with a viewing of the remake of
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,
starring Kevin Costner. Andy asked himself:
What if I robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, just like Robin Hood?

Discussing this at school, Andy found among his peers others who shared a disdain for the gross display of wasteful spending. They’d never intended to hurt anybody. It was just for fun, and sure, the rush of doing something illegal and daring had its own appeal. The Shire stole small sums of money from the rich parents of students at Pepperell Academy and gave it anonymously to various worthwhile charities. They monitored the e-mails and text messages of their wealthy victims, and the few parents who even noticed the missing money simply changed their online banking passwords. The amounts taken were always negligible when compared to the size of the bank accounts that Troy had taught them how to access.

Always negligible, until now.

Andy took off his backpack and slammed it to the ground. “This isn’t going anywhere,” he growled. As group leader, Andy felt it was his mess to unravel, and he looked each member in the eyes: Rafa, Solomon, David, Hilary, and, once again, Pixie. “One of us has it, and that kind of money isn’t going to just disappear without somebody taking notice. This isn’t our usual small skim here. This is the big-time, people, and we need to put the money back where we got it. Now!”

David was about to respond when his gaze drifted to the girl coming up behind Andy. Andy turned to look, and upset as he was, he couldn’t suppress a broad and almost silly grin. Every hormone in Andy’s body came alive. He was so jacked up on teenage lust or love or whatever that the seriousness of the situation evaporated upon the arrival of Beth MacDonald.

To Andy, Beth MacDonald looked like every unattainable girlfriend in every ’80s teen film he’d ever seen (and he’d streamed them all). She had a dynamite smile, wavy blond hair, full lips, and the most dazzling green eyes imaginable. Hilary noticed Andy noticing Beth, and frowned.

“Hey, Beth,” Andy said, with that same toothy grin.

“Hi, Andy. Hi, guys and gal,” Beth said, directing her last greeting at Hilary. Hilary smiled weakly and tried not to look like she was checking out how Beth wore her uniform. “What are you doing?”

“Just talking,” Andy said. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I was hoping we could study for that trig test together.”

Andy was thinking that he wanted nothing more in life than to spend every waking minute with Beth studying for that trig test. Beth was thinking that she really wanted a good grade. And she was thinking about Andy, too, at least sort of, in a strange way, because he really wasn’t her type. Her type was supposed to be Ryan Coventry, the boy she’d broken up with last week. Ryan was all-American handsome, and could have been a stand-in for Thor if the Norse god ever sported a flattop. In addition to his strong jawline, piercing blue eyes, and facial features all in proportion with the golden ratio of beauty, Ryan was captain of the football, wrestling, and lacrosse teams. He was also a champion debater, who, at the tender age of eleven, had made a list of life goals that included attending Harvard undergrad and Yale law school. Now a senior, Ryan could check at least one item off the list: along with four other students from The Pep, he had been accepted as an early decision into Harvard.

While Andy looked unblinking at Beth, Hilary made several short whistles, sounds of alarm. Andy followed Hilary’s line of sight and immediately saw what was making her nervous. Ryan Coventry was marching toward the group from the direction of the Society Building, which housed classrooms for mathematics and humanities. He looked ready for a fight.