Chapter Seventeen.

ATHENA BELL THINKS she's being followed.

It's not like it's obvious, and it's not like it's any one thing in particular, because if it were, then she could be sure. Like, if she were seeing the same people in different places, faces she had never seen before but that kept reappearing. If she were positive it was the same car, the blue Toyota she saw parked down the street from the house and then, two hours later, at the curb outside Nunyuns on Champlain Street.

But she's not, and she thinks she's being totally paranoid, and it's not like that's an unreasonable thing to be, given everything that happened when she and her friends from the Hollyoakes School for the Deaf went to California.

It had been so good to see her dad that day he'd come and gone and brought her that stupid dragon-better than she wanted to admit. Just to have him for a few minutes so they could talk, so she could tell him how it felt. She was sixteen and she thought she should be too old for such things, but his hugs were still the best, and he almost always knew what to say to make her feel like she wasn't just making s.h.i.t up. He always treated her problems as real. He p.i.s.sed her off, sure, but he was a dad, that was kind of what they did, and she knew that, and even after everything she had seen him do, she still thought he was more awesome than not.

Athena also thought it was most decidedly a f.u.c.ked-up thing that, since the divorce, she saw her father even less than before. If, as her mother said, one of the reasons for the split was because Dad was never around, this hadn't exactly fixed the problem, y'know? It made her resent her mother, and it made her want to blame her mother for the divorce, though she knew it wasn't rational or even fair.

After the walk, Dad had brought Athena back to the house and had spoken just a little bit more with Mom. Athena caught, maybe, pieces of every third or fourth or fifth word. She was one of the best lip-readers she'd ever met, and still, if Athena understood 30 percent of what was being said, that was doing well. She'd seen television and movies in which deaf people and even people who had their hearing could lip-read from, like, fifty feet away, and they'd get every word, and every time it made her laugh. As if it were that easy.

___got to go, Dad had said.

That one was clear enough.

___v c___ you do, Mom had said.

A little harder. That v sound, that might've been an f, in which case maybe that was of. Of course you do-that would make sense.

Mom and Dad had stared at each other for a moment, and then Dad sighed and his whole body had sort of shifted; his shoulders had dropped a little. He'd shaken his head.

___ ___ c___d get ___way, I wo___, he'd said. ___ ___ lot go___ ___ r___t now I c___ ju___.

Most of that was a miss, but context is everything, and Athena had a good idea what he was saying. It wasn't the first time he'd said it. He's got work, he can't get away, he would if he could, but he can't.

Th___ ___ways a lot go___ ___, Mom had said. Go. This ___ the s___ co__vers___n w___ ___ ___ th___d times. Nev___ m___d me nev___ m___d ___ job ___ve g___ ___ f.u.c.king duty. ___ go.

Almost a total miss, but f.u.c.king was clear. Athena had learned to identify most profanity early. So the argument, this was the same argument. He has to go and stop Bad Guys, something that, to Athena, has much greater immediacy following everything that happened at the theme park, where she'd actually seen him do it. Before the trip, his work, what he did for the army, for their country, that was abstract. Now, though, she knew. She'd seen the gun in his hand. She'd seen the people dead.

Amy ___n. Be ___ful o___? Please?

Chot___ ___ful? ___ that what you m___ Jad?

Athena can't think of a ch word, revises. Shot. Shotgun?

Dad shook his head again, tried not to sigh, Athena could see it. Then he turned to her.

You be good Gray Eyes, he'd signed. You take care I'll be in touch when I can.

Better.

That got him to smile, and he'd given her another one of those hugs and kissed her forehead, and then he'd left. Mom had gone back to fussing in the kitchen, and Athena had gone back to her room and opened her laptop and had found Lynne and Gail both online, so they chatted for a bit. They'd all been in the park together, though Gail and Lynne hadn't been there when the woman died, the woman who'd saved Athena's life.

Sup?

Just saw my dad. He brought me this.

Athena used the laptop camera to take a picture of herself with the purple dragon. She took a couple, one of them with her biting its felt wing.

awww Athena thought it was kinda typical that her father had been worried she didn't have people to talk to. She didn't have adults she was talking to, but there hadn't been a day since they'd all come back from California when Athena hadn't talked with Gail or Lynne or Leon or Miguel or Joel.

Things had been a little crazy when they all first got home. Everyone's parents had been in total freak-out, not unreasonably. Any parent who didn't freak out wasn't much of a parent as far as Athena was concerned. Gail, Lynne, and Miguel all had visits scheduled with a counselor, now, too-the same counselor, in fact, because he was the only guy any of their parents could find who was able to work with adolescents and was also fluent in ASL. Mom had asked if Athena wanted to talk to him, too. Athena had said no.

It was better, talking to friends, even if at first they didn't talk about what had happened at all. It was on the news all around them, on the television's closed-captioning and in the newspapers. You could see it on the street, too, if you were paying attention; there were more police around, and even the people who weren't the police, they were tense, edgy. It was a small thing, but it was everywhere, and to Athena and her friends, it was hard to miss.

It was Joel who got them talking, actually, after he got out of the hospital. He'd popped onto chat while all the rest of them had been online, and it turned out he couldn't remember much of what had happened. One of the Bad Guys had kicked him really hard in the stomach, hard enough to cause bleeding inside, and from that point on, Joel said, he was hurting too much to pay close attention.

When they did talk about it, Athena thought it was funny how each of them recalled different things, or sometimes the same things, but in different ways. All of them were having bad dreams, even Miguel, who totally didn't like to admit things like that. That was also when Athena had told them all about what had happened in the tunnels underneath the park, and about the woman who had saved her life.

No one ever asked her about her dad. Everyone but Joel had seen him, and Athena was sure that Miguel or Leon had told Joel by now. Everyone knew.

But n.o.body asked.

Today-the day she thinks that maybe someone is following her-Athena gets up and checks her e-mail, is surfing the Web, when Mom comes in, already dressed for work. It's her first day going back to the real estate agency since they returned from California, and Athena can tell Mom is looking to sell some property today from the way she's dressed. The skirt is just above her knee, and she's put on makeup, and she's wearing her low heels.

Heading out be home by five, Mom signs. Text if you need me you behave yourself.

Athena sticks out her tongue and spells out P-A-R-T-Y with her hands.

Mom grins. Going to see Joel?

Athena's stomach does a little flip, and she can feel heat in her cheeks. She wonders how her mother can read her mind, wonders how she can read such truth into a joke.

Tell him I hope he feels better.

Athena nods.

Walk the dog and clean up after him.

Athena rolls her eyes. She loves Leaf, but she hates picking up his s.h.i.t, finds the heat of it through the plastic bag disconcerting.

Mom leaves, and Athena goes back to her computer for another ten minutes or so, then takes a shower and gets dressed and makes herself a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Leaf follows her around the kitchen, sits by her feet as she eats, looking up at her occasionally, expectantly. He knows they're going for a walk.

So they go for the walk, and that's when Athena sees the car, a four-door blue Toyota, just parked down the block. She sees it but doesn't think anything of it, only that there's someone behind the wheel apparently talking on the telephone. Big deal. On the way back, after Leaf has done his business and she's got a bag of c.r.a.p in her free hand, the car's gone.

Athena takes care of the trash, makes sure there's food and water in Leaf's bowls, and then gets her bike from the garage. It's an absolutely beautiful day, no clouds, and not too hot, either. She puts on her helmet and rides down the Island Line Trail, arriving at Nunyuns a little after ten in the morning. Locks up her bike and steps into a cloud of baked delights, the heavy scents of spice and yeast. She buys two cinnamon buns to go, and it's easy, because they know her there, so there's none of the difficulty Athena sometimes has when she's out alone. She's unlocking her bike when she thinks she sees the same Toyota parked across the street. She isn't sure, though, because she didn't look at the license plate this morning, and when she thinks of it now, the car is already pulling out and turning off Champlain Street and onto North.

Athena puts the Kryptonite lock back into its holder on her bike, fastens her helmet once more. She looks around. She thinks about Dad, what he said about knowing who is around and knowing where to go and knowing how to get out and knowing where to hide and where to get help.

Around her, there are people. This, she thinks, is not useful, but she has a good memory, and she tries to study their faces without being too obvious that that's what she's doing. Some of the faces she's seen before, around town, and she figures they're safe enough.

Where to go? Well, this is Burlington. She's maybe six blocks north of downtown right now; it's not as if she couldn't find help in any direction she chose.

How to get out? See above, Athena thinks.

Where to hide? Too many places to count, beginning with inside Nunyuns. So that's definitely covered.

Where to get help? That makes her grin. There's a Burlington PD black-and-white coming down Champlain even as she looks.

Athena tells herself she's being paranoid, and then throws her leg over the bike and takes hold of the paper bag and the handlebars together, starts pedaling along North until she gets to Union, where she turns south. She's careful at the turn, looking all around, but then she's always careful on her bike, always s.n.a.t.c.hing glances over her shoulder for traffic that might be coming up from behind.

She doesn't see the Toyota anywhere. Or, more precisely, she doesn't think she sees that Toyota anywhere.

She loops around on Hickok Place, then turns north again onto Converse Court, and near the end of the street she hops off her bike and walks it up the driveway, leans it against the side of the house beneath a ma.s.sive maple, the shade so sharp there's a moment of blindness before her eyes adjust. She goes to the front door, hits the doorbell, imagines the light flashing inside, and then it opens and Joel is standing there, grinning. The surgery had been minor and the doctors hadn't had to open him up to do it. Athena thinks he looks good, but she's thought he looks good ever since they met, back when she first started at Hollyoakes.

Cinnamon buns, she tells him.

Awesome.

They eat their cinnamon buns and hang out in the family room for a while, playing video games and then just talking before doing anything else. Both of Joel's parents are at work, and his brother is away at summer camp, so they've got the house to themselves, and eventually they do what teenagers do when they're alone, unsupervised, and in love. They've talked about having s.e.x, but neither of them is ready for it, they've agreed. Athena's thought about going to the Planned Parenthood on Saint Paul Street, just in case, but she hasn't gotten up the nerve to actually do it yet.

She's rethinking that choice when she leaves Joel just before three that afternoon, her lips swollen and chapped from making out for almost two hours straight. She climbs back onto her bike feeling almost sick but not quite, an aching longing that isn't necessarily between her legs but isn't entirely in her breast and stomach, either. Maybe it's because Joel's still recovering from his hospital stay, but everything they did they did slowly, and when she took off her shirt for him and he took off his for her, she can still feel the extraordinary pleasure of warm skin touching warm skin. He held her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as though they were made from crystal, and she had to put her hands on his to a.s.sure him he wasn't hurting her, the sharp contrast between her pale and his dark skin beautiful to her. She felt him through his jeans, had wanted to actually touch him there, for real, and she thinks he wanted her to do it, too.

Athena gets her bike onto Pearl Street, heading toward the lake, thrilling at the thought of being in love. She wonders if Mom thinks they've already done it, because she so clearly knows they're together, and she finds herself thinking about her parents, if they could've ever felt the way she's feeling right now. She can't imagine it.

She's forgotten entirely about the blue Toyota by the time she comes off the Island Line Trail and eventually finds her way back to Edinborough Drive and home. She hops off the bike and wheels it around to the back of the garage, heads inside, and is almost immediately tackled by Leaf, who's heard her coming and greets her, snuffling and licking her hands. She gives him a good scritch, and her phone vibrates, and there's a text from Joel.

I love you She replies: Ur just h.o.r.n.y that 2 I love you 2 She knows she's smiling and can't stop. She takes Leaf outside, grabbing the ratty tennis ball they use for playing fetch. It's been gnawed and s...o...b..red almost smooth. She tosses, and he retrieves, and they do this around the front yard for almost twenty minutes before Athena sees the black Mazda, just sitting there, up the block. Not a blue Toyota, not in the same place, and even from here she can see it has Vermont plates. But she can't remember seeing a black Mazda on this street before.

This time, when she throws the ball, she throws it in that direction, harder than before. The ball bounces, rolls, and Leaf tears after it, and Athena trots after them both.

There's someone in the black Mazda. Someone who looks like he's talking on the telephone.

Leaf has the ball, is running back to her, and she takes it from his mouth, soggy and slimy, pivots, and chucks it hard back toward the yard. Leaf tears off in pursuit, and she follows him, forces herself to do it slowly. She finds the urge to look over her shoulder, back toward the black Mazda, almost impossible to resist, somehow fights it until she's on the porch, has opened the door. She turns to summon the dog, and that gives her a good excuse to look back to the street, and the black Mazda is exactly where it was, and then it's moving, and she and Leaf both watch as the car rolls past.

Athena could swear it's the same person behind the wheel, the same person she saw that morning.

The car disappears.

Athena stands in the open doorway, thinking. She tells herself she's overreacting. She tells herself that she knows where to go and what to do and where to hide and who to call for help. She tells herself she has no reason to be afraid. She knows there's a shotgun in the closet with the towels, and that it's loaded, and that Uncle Jorge and her dad both made sure she knows how to use it.

She texts her mother.

where r u The response vibrates in her hand perhaps a dozen seconds later. That's fast for Mom, and Athena thinks she must've had the phone in her hand.

Office. Home at 5.

comin to meet u Everything ok?

kk I don't know what that means.

ok She glances up at the street again, seeing no strange cars, no strange people, seeing nothing much at all, in fact. Most of the time, Athena doesn't mind that she's deaf, doesn't really even think about it. It's what she is, it's her, it's all she's known as far back as she can remember. But times like this?

Times like this, she really wishes she could hear the sound of a car coming down the street.

She finds Leaf's leash, the dog going bonkers the moment he realizes what she's doing, and she motions him to stay. Clips him on, and they step out, and she locks up behind her. She checks the street again, then cuts across the backyard, then into trees so thick it's like a compacted forest. When she emerges, she's on Sunset Cliff, and she looks both ways, scanning for the black Mazda and the blue Toyota, and she doesn't see either.

She thinks that means she's safe.

Chapter Eighteen.

JORDAN WEBBER-HAYDEN holds the gun in her hand and waits for the woman and her child to return home.

The gun is a Walther PPQ M2 and holds eleven rounds, one of them chambered and ready. She bought it within an hour of her conversation with her Lover from a gun store in Alexandria, along with a box of .40 S&W ammunition, using her ID. As Virginia requires neither a waiting period nor a permit for the purchase of a handgun, the longest part of the transaction was when the gentleman selling her the weapon had to call ATF to run her Form 4473. The check came back clean, the way she knew it would, because Jordan Webber-Hayden has never been convicted of a felony, has never done anything that would prevent her from lawfully possessing a firearm. She was back on the Capital Beltway within thirty minutes of entering the store, heading west toward I-95.

Jordan flexes her fingers around the grip, reawakening the memory of weapons training almost a decade old. It's coming back faster than she'd have thought, the weapon already familiar in her hand.

She checks the clock on the microwave against the one on her wrist. It's seven minutes to three in the afternoon, and from what her Lover has said, she can expect the woman and the girl to return shortly after five. She has just over two hours.

Two hours to consider what it is he wants her to do.

Two hours in which she could just walk away, leave everything behind, and not ruin the three lives she knows she is about to destroy.

It had been easier than she'd expected, getting into the house.

She'd found the place without difficulty. Her Lover had given her the address, and upon arriving Jordan had parked down the block, on the opposite side of the street. She'd killed the engine and pulled out her smartphone and spent the next twenty minutes pretending to look at that and not the street, the whole time watching the house and the traffic. There was almost no traffic at all, and nothing in the way of movement from the house.

Satisfied, she'd started the engine once more, driven away, turned, turned again, and ultimately parked four blocks away. She'd unpacked the Walther, loaded it, tucked it into her waistband at the small of her back, where her shirt would cover it, then gotten out of the car and taken her time with the walk.

When she reached the house, she'd headed straight to the front door and knocked as if she were expected. There'd been no answer, also as expected. She'd already noted the alarm-company decal on the window, peered through the gla.s.s to see the panel on the wall in the front hall, a single green light shining. She'd taken that to mean the system was working but not armed.

The garage was to her left, so she went around the side without pause, then through an unlatched gate and into the backyard, where she'd found the back door to the garage unlocked. Inside was everything one would expect, up to and including a workbench and a dust-covered Bowflex machine. The adjoining door into the house had been locked.

She had no lock picks, but she did have the tools from the bench, and for the next seven minutes she worked carefully and slowly, consciously trying to avoid marring the plate or the k.n.o.b with any telltale scratches. Then the lock had surrendered, and she opened the door with her heart climbing, waiting for the trill of the alarm that never came.

There'd been a roll of old duct tape on the workbench, and she'd taken that, then locked the door behind her.

Jordan checks her watch again.

It's now three minutes to four, and there has been no sound from the garage. She moves the Walther from her right hand to her left, picks up the mask she's made from the watch cap she found in the front closet. It's not a ski mask, but there were scissors in one of the kitchen drawers, and it was easy enough to cut the eyeholes. With its edges pulled down, it's big enough to cover her chin. She fingers the mask, pokes her fingers through the holes she's made for her eyes. She wonders if she should've cut one for her mouth.

She considers wiping down the scissors, going back through the house, and clearing her prints from every surface she's touched, but it's not a pressing concern; Jordan Webber-Hayden has never been arrested, never once had her fingerprints on file.

It's a nice house, Jordan thinks. She wanders out of the kitchen, gun still in one hand, the mask now in the other, and into a comfortable family room with a big-screen television and a stereo stack. In another ground-floor room is a home office, bills and paperwork of everyday life. She thinks it's peaceful here. She could live in a house like this. She heads upstairs, steps into the master bedroom. It's very Laura Ashley, but a little off, and Jordan imagines money is tight in this home, but they're making do with what they can. She takes a moment to look at the photographs in their frames on the dresser, at this family of three. There's an adjoining master bathroom, and she notes the abundance of feminine products, the lack of masculine ones. She checks out the other bedroom on the floor, this belonging to the child. It's a bedroom on the cusp, transitioning from childhood to adolescence.