Game

Where the house had once stood there was now a blank, a blighted sore on the face of the earth. A wealthy father of one of Billy Dent’s victims had bought the house at auction after Billy went to prison. Then, to great fanfare and with the press in attendance, he’d had the house bulldozed and the wreckage burned to ash in a controlled fire. Co

“It was like a party,” Howie said, his voice a mixture of memory and rage as he gazed through the windshield. “Watched it on TV with Jazz. People treated it like a Memorial Day barbecue. Brought hot dogs and marshmallows and roasted them over the flames. Kegs. It was nuts. Like burning the guy’s house brought any of them back.”

Co

Howie snorted. “I know. Why do people keep telling me that?”

To that, she had nothing to say.

Howie parked with the headlights glaring at the bare, burned earth and the hole that had once been Jazz’s basement.

“What do you expect to find here?”

“I don’t know.” She got out of the car. In every direction, there were trees and hedges. To the east and west, she could just barely make out houses. Billy Dent’s neighbors.

They planted all that stuff to block off that lot after he went to jail, Co

Howie joined her by the foundation of the house. A few broken, burned cinder blocks littered the hole. In the glow of the headlights, they could see empty beer and soda bottles, as well as snack-chip bags and what looked like used condoms.

“People come out here for privacy, I guess,” Howie said. “Figure no one else would, right?” He inhaled deeply. “Still smells kinda burny. Even three years later.”

Co

“I’m more worried about the ground giving way.”

“It’s pretty frozen.” Her breath painted the air misty white. “Don’t worry.”

“Yeah, right.” Howie shivered and hugged himself. “Picked the wrong place to say that. I don’t believe in ghosts or demons, but if they existed anywhere, it would be here.”

Co

“Much appreciated. What’d the next text say?”

“Next text and last text.” She showed it to Howie.

cherry. sunrise. jasper. down

CHAPTER 30

“What the hell does that mean?” Howie’s earlier fear had been replaced with exasperation. He bit down on his lower lip—lightly—but even so, Co

“It’s not tough,” Co

“And then wait until sunrise? No way. I gotta get some beauty sleep.”

Ignoring Howie, Co

Wait a sec, she thought. Wait. What—

“What does a cherry tree even look like?” Howie whined, voicing her i

A look of sheepish guilt/stupidity passed between them and then they both went for their cell phones.

Co

“No worries,” Howie said, gri

Together they made their way to the cherry tree. Howie stared up into its branches, lost in thought and memory. “We wanted to build a fort up there,” he said, his voice quiet, as though he were murmuring in church. “We were like eleven, I guess. Right up there.” He pointed with a shaky hand. “And I remember his dad was all for it. He said…” Howie suddenly turned away, savagely. “Damn! I can’t believe… I can’t believe I was such—”

“Howie.” She put her hands on his shoulders, a bit firmly, trusting the padding in his winter coat to keep him from bruising. “Howie, it’s okay. You were just a kid. You couldn’t have known.”

“That bastard.” Howie bit through the word like bitter citrus peel. Co

Co

“I thought that sounded so cool,” Howie said. “Goddamn… I thought Billy was the coolest dad in the world. What was wrong with me? Everything normal and good in Jazz’s life, Billy made it evil and disgusting.” He shook off her hands, spi

“Still is,” Co

Howie nodded once, firmly. “You know what, Co

“What, Howie?”

“We can’t stop Billy Dent. Not the two of us.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“But we can ruin him. We can piss him off and take away the thing he wants more than anything in the world. Can’t we? Can’t we do that?”

Co

“Yeah. We can take away his dream, Howie. We can keep Jazz from becoming Billy.” Mostly, she knew, because Jazz would do the heavy lifting. He would have to—the danger signs and the tools were all locked up in his head, and no one else had the key.

“We can make it easier for him,” Howie said. “That’s what we do, right? We make it easier for Jazz to be normal.”

“Yep.”

She took his hand in her own. It was almost comical, the two of them wearing gloves so heavy that their fingers couldn’t entwine. But that was okay. It wasn’t about the contact. It was about the solidarity.

“So that’s the cherry tree,” she said after a while.

“Sure is. Sunrise.”

“I think that means we face east.”

Howie nodded and released her hand after a brief squeeze. At the cherry tree, they used the compasses on their phones to find east. “Now what?” Howie asked. “The next clue is ‘Jasper.’ ”

“I think we’re supposed to walk. And the last clue is ‘down,’ so we’re supposed to dig.”