Page 96 of The Chain House

“Professor Harper?”

He knew right away who it was and knew there was no good reason she could be calling. “Jennifer?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Tell me nothing has happened to Sam. Please.”

“Sam’s fine,” she said. “He’s still at the prison. He’s mad. He’s confused.”

“I can explain it all,” Trevor said as they walked. “What can I do for you?”

“I … I know who you are,” she said. “Who you were.”

“I figured by now you would,” he said. “Did you get my number from Sam?”

“No, from Carl,” she said. “But we found the comics you left on the kitchen table.”

“Did you take them?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Where are you?” Jennifer asked.

“We on the same team here?”

“Yes …”

“We’re outside the Freedom Ranch.”

“Who is we?”

“I’m with a partner, and a friend.”

“The Mongoose?”

Trevor laughed, and Lizzie beside him must have overheard because she laughed too. “Yes,” he said, as big, bright headlights approached from the oncoming lane.

Beside him, Lizzie said, “I’ll flag him down.”

“What do we need to do next, Jennifer?” When she didn’t answer, and in fact, with her anxious breathing over the phone, sounded afraid to, he said, “What we could use is a ride.” And then after watching Lizzie stop what appeared to be a semi-truck by waving her arms in the middle of the road, he said, “Or maybe not. Might have just found us one. Where are you?”

“I’m on my way to a bookstore,” she said. “To see someone who once knew Minks. Back when he was a boy named Luther Wright. That name ring a bell?”

“I wish it did, but it doesn’t.”

After a pause, Jennifer said, “I wasn’t wrong, was I? Leaving the Mallard Malone novels on your porch.”

He sighed and then acknowledged Lizzie up ahead; it appeared the truck was agreeing to give them a lift, and she was beckoning him on. “No, you were right. I knew right away after reading them, and maybe deep down I had a feeling all along it was my brother.”

“It’s all so unbelievable.”

“Not if you lived it,” he said, gesturing to Lizzie that he was coming; she’d already climbed into the truck, and he suddenly had a fear the driver would take off with her. “And Jennifer, we found a list. I’m going to screenshot it for you and I need you to call these names to 911, or something. They could be in danger of fire.”

“There was another one,” she said. “At the Culbertson mansion. Thirty minutes ago.”

“Damn,” he said, knowing the name was on the list. “They’re all diversions. I think they’re trying to pull the authorities away from something bigger, and it has everything to do with Sal’s execution.”