Page 66 of The Hitman’s Final Job

“I better help now,” Tess says. “You should check the giant pumpkins. Clayton is there. I think they’re about to weigh them. That’s a spectacle in itself.”

The pumpkin weigh-in is at the far end of the festival ground, where Main Street opens into the town square. There’s a crowd moving in the same direction.

“What are the cranes for?” I ask.

“They need them to lift the pumpkins.”

“Exactly how big do they get?”

Vaughn laughs. “You’ll see.”

We get closer and I see them better. Two cranes positioned on either side of the weigh-in area. A crowd has gathered three deep around the perimeter, and in the center of it, beside a pumpkin I can only describe as bigger than my first apartment, is Clayton Briggs.

“That is Brenda?” I’ve seen the photographs, but I was not prepared. She is vast. She is deeply, magnificently orange. Clayton is beside her with his hands in his jacket pockets looking exceedingly proud.

“Clayton.” I wave.

“Silas. Vaughn. Welcome to the festival.”

“Brenda’s magnificent,” I say.

“She is,” he says.

The crane operator gets the harness around Brenda with care, and the crowd goes quiet.

“Oh my goodness, is she going to break?” I bite a nail on one hand and cross my fingers on the other. It would be a tragedy if something happened to Brenda.

Phones come out, and even Vaughn snaps a few photos.

The crane lifts Brenda, and the crowd makes a sound that is part gasp and part cheer. Clayton is bitting his lip, hands clasped tightly together. Everyone goes silent as the crane lowers Brenda onto the scale.

The weight is announced. Two thousand, five hundred and seventy-six pounds.

The number means nothing to me other than the pumpkin is fucking heavy, but from immediate and loud response from the crowd, I take it it’s a good thing.

“Is that good?” I ask Vaughn quietly.

“That,” Vaughn says, “is very good.”

“Is Clayton about to cry?”

“Probably. He has a good chance of winning this year. Growing a giant pumpkin is an almost round-the-clock job that starts before the seed germinates. Clayton has done great.”

Everyone takes photographs. Clayton takes photographs of Brenda. People take photographs of Clayton taking photographs of Brenda. I take a photograph of Vaughn watching all of this and looking every bit the man of my dreams.

I check out the crowd while everyone is focused on Brenda. The mass of onlookers is dense now. The weigh-in has drawn people from all over the festival grounds.

A chill crawls up the back of my neck, so I study the faces around us for anyone who seems out of place.

A man near the farm equipment display at the edge of the grounds catches my attention. Forties, unremarkable clothes, an even more unremarkable face. His eyes aren’t on the cranes or the pumpkin or the crowd’s reaction. They’re moving across the crowd in a pattern I recognize because I use it myself. It’s systematic, searching, looking for something.

I raise my phone, pretending to snap a photo of the action in front of us, but instead I manage to take one of the man. While I’m at it, I take a few of the crowd and send them all to Zuza.

Then a woman with two children appears beside the man, and his attention shifts entirely. He crouches down to the smaller child’s level and points at Brenda, and the child’s face lights up. The woman takes the child’s hand, and the foursome move toward the weigh-in area together.

I watch them go.

They’re probably from out of town, drawn by the festival, the children excited about the enormous pumpkin. The man was searching for his family in the crowd.