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I feel sick. For a moment I really think I am going to throw up. He looks so genuinely pleased by the idea that I might agree. “Who?” I ask, leaning my head against the cool glass of the window. “Who’s this victim?”
He waves his hand in the air dismissively. “His name’s Emil Lombardo. No one you know. Total psycho.”
I am glad my face is turned, so he can’t see my expression. “Okay,” I say. “Just this once.”
He claps me on the shoulder just as a car pulls between the pillars behind us. Red and blue lights whirl, sending the gravestones into bizarre strobing relief.
Barron punches the dashboard. “Cops.”
“It does say no trespassing,” I remind him, pointing toward the sign.
He leans down and peels off one of his gloves.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He raises his eyebrows, his lip quirking on one side. “Getting out of a ticket.”
The floodlight on the cop car turns on suddenly, making spots dance behind my eyes.
I look nervously through the rear window. One of the officers has gotten out and is walking toward us. I take a deep breath.
Barron rolls down the window, a grin splitting his face. “Good evening, sir.”
I grab Barron’s wrist in my gloved hand before he can strike. He looks at me, too shocked to register that he ought to be angry, as Agent Hunt lowers the barrel of a gun to his face.
“Barron Sharpe, step out of the car,” Hunt says.
“What?” he demands.
“I’m Agent Hunt, remember?” Agent Hunt looks pleased for the first time since I’ve met him. “We had a nice conversation about your brother. You told us a bunch of things that didn’t quite check out.”
Barron nods his head, glances at me. “I remember you.”
“We just heard your very interesting proposition,” Agent Hunt says. In the side mirror, I see Agent Jones get out of the car.
He walks around to my side and opens the door. Barron turns toward me.
I do the only thing I can think of. I lift up my shirt to show him the wire.
“Sorry,” I say. “But I figured that if you could force me to work for someone, then you couldn’t be too mad if I did the same to you. I enrolled us in a program.”
He looks like he doesn’t quite agree with my logic.
I think of Grandad sitting in his backyard, looking up at the sky, wishing things could have been different for us kids. I’m sure this wasn’t what he was picturing.
So what if I led the horse directly to water, I tell myself. It’s not like I made him drink.
They slap the cuffs on Barron. Good thing I’ve already negotiated his deal, because Hunt and Jones look like they’d much rather lock him in a deep dark hole than work with him. I recognize the look. It’s the same one they give me.
17
THE HARDEST THING IS making sure that I don’t have a tail. Agent Hunt gave me a lift back to my car at Wallingford, which made me nervous. I drive around aimlessly for about an hour, until I’m sure there’s no one behind me.
The streets are nearly empty. This late at night, there are few good reasons to be on the road.
Finally I head to the hotel. I park in the far back, near the Dumpsters. The night air is like a slap in the face. It seems too early in the season for the temperature to have dropped so abruptly. Maybe it’s just colder at three in the morning.
The hotel she picked is brick, with a central building and then a couple of other buildings that form a C-shape around a greenish pool. All the rooms open onto the outdoors, so there’s no need to walk through a lobby.
