Page 69 of The Chain House

“And the final Mallard Malone novel—it’s apparently buried with Emily Hawthorne’s body, somewhere in New York. They’re digging it up now.”

“You know this how?”

Martin smiled. “Connections.”

Jennifer said, “Did you know that Batise was Mallard Malone?”

“No. You think I would have sat on that if I did?”

“Figured you paid for that Mercedes somehow.” Couldn’t have been on a small-town journalist salary, she thought.

“I sold a lot of books,” he said.

Jennifer turned to Carl. “Let’s go.”

Carl went, but before following her, he lunged at Harold Martin as if to strike, and the reporter jumped back.

And then Jennifer and Carl returned to his truck.

CHAPTER32

SAM PACED THE hallway outside Warden Wren’s office.

FBI Agent Givens said, “You okay?”

Sam nodded. He wondered how much of his conversation with Jennifer had been overheard, not only by Givens but by the guard posted outside Warden Wren’s office. He wiped his eyes, tried to play it off like he was tired and not teary-eyed, but he knew Givens hadn’t fallen for it.

So, Sam felt the need to add, “I’m fine, thanks.”

But he was far from fine. And now Jennifer was texting him about a possible information leak in the warden’s office somewhere? Great, he thought, pacing again, just one more person to not trust.

“Okay,” Givens said. “Just that this is a lot for one person to take on.”

Just say it, Sam thought. You think I’m a kid. Nobody here likes playing second fiddle to a kid. But it wasn’t like he’d asked for this.

“And this isn’t normal,” added Givens. “None of this. I’ve probably broken protocol at least fifteen times in the past ten hours, but … Sal Batise has never been normal, has he?” Sam wondered if Agent Givens was somehow speaking in code. He was being sincere, he could tell, but Sam sensed an undercurrent of pressure being applied. It was clear the FBI agent didn’t like being idle. And then Givens said, “He’s only truly communicating with you, Sam.” He checked his watch. “And we’re running out of time.”

Sam nodded again, thinking he understood what the agent was insinuating—maybe that it was time to get more aggressive—but knowing also that Agent Givens was on pins and needles as well. And, like Warden Wren, who’d been in and out of the hallway like a hummingbird at feeding time, they were both looking at their watches more than they weren’t, all of them waiting any minute for word of Emily Hawthorne’s discovered body, and the manuscript buried with it. If, indeed, the location Sal had given them was real. Not that any of them knew what that would then mean, or what Governor Hawthorne would ultimately do with it, but at least it meant another step toward a solution.

But what tortured Sam’s mind now more than anything was the news of his father. Professor Trevor Harper. If that was even his name. The Raven and Yellow? The Raven and The Mongoose? What did any of it mean? Other than his parents weren’t and never were who he thought they were. But how else could Jennifer have known about the hand thing—what he had done with his father for as far back as he could remember, whether on a car window or the window from their kitchen to the deck and even sometimes at bedtime, when he was a boy, he’d put his hand up in the air and his father would mimic it, pretending there was glass there, like they were reflections of one another. Who really knew when and why and how it had all started; all he cared about was that it was their thing, the equivalent of a secret handshake, and he had to rack his brain now to recall exactly when they’d stopped doing it. Teenage years no doubt, maybe even as early as puberty. But if Jennifer knew about it from the ranch, did it really mean he was there too? Part of him knew it had to be true because why would she make something like that up, but the bigger part of him flat-out didn’t want it to be true.

He dialed his father’s cellphone and found his hands shaking as it rang. It went to voice mail, so he tried his landline next. When that went to voice mail, he headed toward Warden Wren’s office door and asked the security guard to let him in.

The curious glance Agent Givens shared with the guard didn’t go unnoticed, but Sam wanted to tell them both to fuck off. You suddenly have your life turned upside down and see how you react. The door closed behind him and there, in the middle of the room, just as he’d been for most the day, was Sal Batise. This time he was eating what looked like a blueberry muffin, but as Sam walked closer he could tell from the smell that it was chocolate.

“Sam Harper,” said Batise, gesturing toward what had throughout the day become Sam’s chair, directly across from him.

Sam sat, but he wasn’t happy about it. “Did you kill Emily Hawthorne?”

“No, I told you that.”

“Minks?”

“Presumably.”

“Because you ordered him to.”

“Why would I do such a thing? And if so, why would I admit to it?” He pursed his lips. “Although … they can’t kill me twice, no?”