The Long Way Home (22 page)

“What’s that?”

“Don’t let anyone find out you put this program in or they’ll be able to trace it right to you. It’s just like you’re visiting a Web site. It’s really easy for them to find your physical location. Seriously. If they have the right software, it’d take them about a second.”

“Charlie,” said Beth, “this sounds really dangerous. Please be careful.”

“Beeee caaaaareful, Charrrlie,” Josh sang in a falsetto voice, imitating Beth.

Another door-sound came over the computer. Then Rick was onscreen.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“Josh is making fun of Beth because she cares what happens to me,” I said.

“Nice, Josh,” said Rick. “What are you, ten years old?”

There was another door sound. Miler. Now the screen was divided into four segments. All my friends were online.

“What’s happening?” said Miler.

“Josh is ten,” said Rick.

“Hey, Josh, happy birthday.”

“Very funny.”

“Will anyone see Mr. Sherman today?” I asked.

“I will,” said Rick. “My stats class is in the room right next to his.”

“What time?”

“Eleven a.m.”

“Perfect. Do me a favor,” I said. “Text me when you have him in sight.”

“I will do it,
mein kommandant.
”

The download bar was filled. “Program complete,” the message said.

“All right, that’s it,” I said. “I gotta jump off to save my batteries.”

“Beeeee caaaaareful, Chaaaarrrrliie,” Josh sang falsetto again.

I moved the cursor and turned off his webcam. He winked out into nothingness—which actually improved his personality.

“Take it easy, guys,” I said to Rick and Miler. Then I turned them off too.

Now it was just Beth again, like it was before.

“I really do have to save my battery,” I said.

“Charlie,” she said. “I don’t care what Josh says. Really do be careful.”

I smiled. “No one cares what Josh says. Anyway, it sounds a lot nicer when you say it.”

She smiled too.

Then I shut down the computer and the darkness of the Ghost Mansion closed around me and I was alone again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Something Unexpected

The text came through at 10:55 that morning:
Sherman in sight.

Rick was in his statistics class and Mr. Sherman was in the classroom next door. That’s what I was waiting to hear.

I left the Ghost Mansion by the back way, my laptop in its case, the case strapped over my shoulder. I moved through the graveyard, the leaves rustling under my feet, the sunlight falling in beams through the branches of the trees.

As I passed the statue of the mourning woman, I felt a chill. Up close, there was something too real about her, as if that reaching hand of hers might suddenly move, might suddenly reach out even farther and grab me.

I kept an eye on her as I went past. I watched her over my shoulder as I went on beneath the trees.

I came to an open field, an expanse of brown grass and garbage. I could see the Lake Center Mall on the other side of it, protected by a screen of shrubbery. I moved toward it to find Josh’s car.

I hated traveling by day. It made me feel naked, totally exposed to anyone who might recognize me and call the police. But at the same time, it was a rare treat to feel the sun on me, to see the world in the light, to hear the sounds of the world awake. As I came closer to the mall, I caught glimpses of the parking lot through the gaps in the shrubs. I could see the cars pulling in. I could see women—it was mostly women at this hour, mostly moms—getting out to do their shopping at the supermarket or the drugstore. To them, it was just an ordinary day in Spring Hill. To me, it was everything I’d lost, everything I missed so much. Just the sight of those women made me think of my own mom. I wondered if I’d ever see her again.

When I got to the shrubbery screen, I angled my way through, the branches scratching my arms. There was a low cinderblock wall after that. I climbed over. I was in the farthest corner of the parking lot where the mall Dumpsters were. I could smell the garbage in them, sour and sharp in the morning air.

I moved past the Dumpsters and spotted Josh’s car: the black Camry. I walked toward it purposefully, without looking left or right. I didn’t want to do anything suspicious, anything that would attract attention. It would be so easy now for someone to spot me.

I felt a lot better once I was inside the car, behind the wheel, hidden from easy view. I reached under the seat and, sure enough, there was the charging wire Josh had promised me. I hooked it up to my laptop and then plugged it into the slot for the car’s cigarette lighter. It would keep the battery charged as long as the engine was running.

I started the engine and headed out.

Mr. Sherman lived in a section of town called the Terrace, I guess because it was at the top of a sloping hill. His house was a narrow two-story with a pitched roof above and a porch below. The house was made of yellow clapboards with brown trim around the windows and the door. It sat dark and quiet on the far end of a neat little square of lawn.

I drove a little past the house, then parked. I got out and looked around. The neighborhood was quiet. There was no traffic on the street, no one out walking. I could see a man mowing a lawn a block away. I could hear the stuttering buzz of the mower as he moved back and forth across the grass. And there was a mailman walking toward me along the sidewalk. He turned down a path to make a delivery about five houses down. Other than that, there was no one in sight.

I started up the slate path that ran over the lawn to Sherman’s front door. I figured it would look less suspicious if I just walked up to the house directly, just acted as if I belonged there. I left the laptop in the car, but I had my computer disk with Josh’s Private Eye program on it in the pocket of my fleece. I had Rick’s Swiss Army knife in my hand, held down low against my leg so no one would notice it.

I stepped up on the porch and went to the door. I rang the doorbell and waited for a minute or so. There was no answer. Now I was sure there was no one inside.

I looked left and right and behind me to make sure there was no one watching.

Then I broke into the house.

Maybe I should have gone around the back. Maybe I should have looked for an open window. Maybe I should have done a lot of things, but I didn’t. I was in a hurry to get inside. I could see the lock on the door was nothing fancy, just a cheap bolt. I knew I could get past it easily.

There was a screen door. I pulled it open, braced it open with my shoulder. I tried the doorknob first. In a safe neighborhood like this, sometimes people just leave their doors unlocked. But no, the lock was set; the knob wouldn’t turn. I opened the thinnest blade of the Swiss Army knife. I worked the blade into the space between the door and the jamb. I had to really dig to get it in. The wood of the jamb dented and the paint flaked off. I knew someone might notice this, but I was in too much of a hurry to care.

I worked the blade down to the bolt and forced it back. I pushed the door and with a little more cracking of wood and flaking of paint, it opened.

I went in.

I closed the door behind me and locked it again. Then I had to lean against it for a moment. I was breathing fast and my heart was beating hard. I stayed where I was and listened for any noises in the house. There were none. I started moving.

I was in a small foyer. The stairs were right in front of me. To my left, I could see a hall and the kitchen at the end of it. To my right, there was a living room. Even with the daylight coming through the windows, it was all mostly in shadow. All the lights in the house were off.

I went to the stairs and started up. I figured if Mr. Sherman had a home office it would be on the second floor somewhere.

Sure enough, when I got to the second-floor landing, I turned and saw the room I wanted at the end of the hall. The door was open. I could see right into it, could see the desk with the computer on it and part of a shelf of books.

I went toward it, past a bedroom, past a bathroom, past some sort of exercise room with a stationary bicycle and some free weights and a TV and stuff. Then I was there.

Sherman’s office looked pretty much the way you’d expect a teacher’s office to look. It was cramped and messy with shelves on every wall and books on every shelf, some of them stuck in on top of other books because there were too many to fit. There was a big wooden desk against one wall. The computer was there. The computer was off, the screen dark.

I went to the window first. The window looked out on the side of the house, at a big oak tree and a strip of grass. You could see a section of the street and sidewalk too. When you were close to the glass, you could see about half of the house’s driveway. I could still hear the lawn mower going down the block, but I couldn’t see anyone out there.

I went to Sherman’s computer and turned it on.

With a whispered whir, the computer booted—and then stopped. A password screen came on, just the way I’d figured it would. I took the disk with the Private Eye program out of my fleece pocket. I opened the computer’s disk drive and slipped the disk in.

The program started playing automatically. It fed directly into the computer’s operating system. Some prompts came up. I’d read the instructions earlier and I typed in the proper commands quickly. There was a pause—then the program started to upload into the computer.

A message came onscreen, blinking white letters. It said that 0% of the program had loaded so far—then 1%, 2%, 3% . . . 5% . . . The numbers increased slowly but steadily.

While they climbed, I searched the room.

I went through the desk drawers first. They were all unlocked. I found papers, files—some school stuff, some personal papers, insurance, bank accounts—but nothing that was helpful.

I checked the computer. Ten percent of the Private Eye program had loaded.

I found a filing drawer and looked in there. More papers, more notes. There were files with various names on them. Hotchkiss. Jefferson. Parker. I glanced inside a couple of them, but it just looked like research for some kind of history project.

Fifteen percent of the program had loaded now.

I moved to the bookshelves. I didn’t know where to begin looking. I didn’t even really know what I was looking for. Something about Alex. Something about me. Anything that would suggest there was some link between Mr. Sherman and that “Real True America” article.

I moved a couple of books aside. Looked behind them. There was nothing. Just a lot of dust.

Then something caught my eye. It was kind of silly, really, nothing important. It was just a book—a book of short stories. But the title of it was
Homeland
. I pulled it off the shelf. The second I did, I knew I had found something. The book didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel heavy enough. It felt hollow. I opened it.

Sure enough, the pages inside had been cut away to make a hiding place. In the hiding place, there were photographs.

I lifted them out. They were snapshots. They all showed one man. A tall man, bald, serious-looking. I don’t know how old—forty or fifty maybe. He was wearing a black suit and a dark tie. He looked as if he didn’t know someone was taking his picture.

In the first few pictures he was just pushing through the door of what looked like a big office building. Then there were more pictures of him walking away. He was on the sidewalk of a busy street, a street in a big city. I could see the tall buildings all around him. In one picture I could even see the street signs on the corner. One sign said Madison Avenue, the other said 54th Street.

There was nothing particularly strange about these photographs, not on the surface anyway. But something about them held me. I had this faint, strange feeling that I knew this man. I went through the pictures again. The first one of him coming through the door, then the second, then the third . . . and on the third, I froze, staring.

There was something reflected on the dark glass of the door. Some letters from a sign in the office building’s foyer. A-M-R-E-T-A-W. For a second, the letters meant nothing to me. But then, realizing they were backward in the reflection, I turned them around in my mind: W-AT-E-R-M-A . . . The last letter was at the very edge of the door. But I was willing to bet there was another letter after it. N—it must’ve been N. The sign in the foyer said WATERMAN.

I remembered the stranger who had whispered to me just before he freed me from police handcuffs:

You’re a better man than you know. Find Waterman.

I stared at the face of the man in the picture. That strange sense that I knew him came back to me. Was this the man I had to find? And if I did find him, would he be an enemy or a friend?

I was still standing there, staring at the photograph, when I heard the front door open downstairs.

I stopped breathing. My whole body went rigid, vibrating like a plucked string.

I heard a soft bang. It was the screen door swinging shut. Then there were footsteps.

I came back to my senses. Quickly, I fumbled the photographs back into the book. I fumbled the book back onto the shelf. I listened, my heart hammering hard.

The footsteps sounded like they were going down the hallway to the kitchen. They sounded like a woman’s footsteps because of the way the heels hit the floor—they sounded like a woman’s heels. The footsteps went into the kitchen and stopped.

My teeth gritted with care, every muscle tight with fear, I tiptoed across the room, back to the desk. I checked on the computer screen.

The message was now reading 21%, 22%, 23% . . . It seemed to take forever to move from number to number.

The footsteps downstairs started again. They were coming back down the hallway. Coming back toward the front door and the foyer . . . and the stairs.

I stayed very still, my eyes darting back and forth between the office door and the computer. The download reached 25 percent as the footsteps reached the foyer again. They seemed to stop at the bottom of the stairs.

But whoever she was, she didn’t come up. Instead I heard the screen door open again and bang shut.