“Can we grow food?” Mary wondered aloud.
“I guess that’s up to Caine or…whoever,” Albert said cautiously.
Mary nodded. “You know what, Albert? I don’t really care who is running things, but I have to look out for my kids.”
“And I have this place,” Albert agreed.
“And Dahra has the hospital,” Mary added. “And Sam used to have the fire station.”
“Yeah.”
It was a weird moment for Albert. He admired Mary, he thought she was the most beautiful person he’d ever known aside from his mom, and he wanted to trust Mary. But he didn’t know for sure that he could. He was troubled by what was going on in Perdido Beach. But what if Mary felt differently? What if she told Drake that Albert was complaining, maybe without even meaning to?
Drake could order him to shut down. And Albert didn’t know what he would do with himself if he lost the restaurant. The work had kept him from thinking much about what had happened. And for the first time in his life, Albert was an important person. At school he was just another kid. Now he was Albert Hillsborough: businessman.
All things considered, Albert would want Caine and Drake gone. But the only other person who might step up and run things was off somewhere, a hunted person.
“How’s the burger?” he asked Mary.
“You know what?” She smiled and licked ketchup from her finger. “I think I actually like it better with the bagel bun.”
THIRTY-ONE
100 HOURS, 13 MINUTES
THEY DROVE WITH maddening slowness from Perdido Beach to Coates. Panda at the wheel, even more nervous than usual, terrified, it seemed to Jack. It was dark, and Panda kept saying he had never driven in the dark. It had taken him five fumbling minutes just to find the lights and figure them out.
Caine sat beside him chewing on his thumb, quiet, but preoccupied. He had cross-examined Jack repeatedly on the procedure for recording Andrew’s big exit. Somehow what had started out as Caine’s brainstorm had become Jack’s responsibility. If it worked then Caine would reclaim it as his own. But if it failed, Jack would no doubt take the blame.
Diana, who sat beside Jack, for once had little to say. Jack wondered if she dreaded the return to Coates as much as he did.
Jack was wedged in between Diana and Drake. Drake was holding a handgun, an automatic, more gray than black, in his lap.
Jack had never seen a gun up close. He had certainly never seen a gun in the hands of a boy he thought was probably crazy.
Drake could not leave the gun alone. He kept thumbing the safety on and off. He rolled down the window and aimed it at stop signs as they passed, but did not fire it.
“You know how to shoot that thing? Or are you going to shoot yourself in the foot?” Diana finally asked.
“He’s not going to shoot it,” Caine snapped before Drake could answer. “It’s just a prop. We want Andrew to behave. And you know how difficult he can be. The gun keeps people calmed down.”
“Yeah, I know, it makes me feel really calm,” Diana said.
“Shut up, Diana,” Drake said.
Diana laughed in her drawly way and fell silent again.
Jack was sweating, although it was a cool evening and Caine had the windows down. Jack felt like he might throw up. He’d considered saying he was too sick to go, but he knew Caine wouldn’t let him stay home. He’d felt worse and worse all day as he raced to assemble the equipment they would need. He had spent the day with Drake, searching homes for cameras and tripods. Jack had already had enough of Drake Merwin to last him forever.
They neared the gate. It was an impressive thing, two sides of filigreed wrought iron, twenty feet high and hanging from pillars of stone that were even taller. The Coates motto, Ad augusta, per angusta, was on two gold-tinged plaques that came together when the gates were closed.
“Honk the horn. Whoever’s on gate must be asleep,” Caine ordered.
Panda tapped the horn. When there was no response, he leaned on it. The sound was flat, swallowed up by the trees.
“Drake,” Caine said.
Drake climbed out, gun in hand, and advanced to the gate. He swung it open and stepped through to the stone guardhouse. He emerged a few seconds later and climbed back into the car.
“No one in the guardhouse.”
Caine frowned in the rearview mirror. “That’s not like Benno. Benno follows orders.”
Benno was the thug Caine had left in charge at Coates. Jack had never liked the boy—no one did—but Caine was right: Benno was the kind of bully who did what the bigger bullies told him to do. He didn’t make his own judgments. And he wasn’t stupid enough to think he could override Caine’s orders.
“Something isn’t right,” Panda said.
“Everything isn’t right, Panda,” Diana said.
Panda pulled through the gate. It was another quarter mile to the school. They drove in silence. Panda pulled the car up to the end of the driveway, to the turnaround in front of the main building.
Lights were on in every window. One of the second-floor windows had been blown out so that an entire classroom could be clearly seen.
Desks were piled against one wall. The chalkboard was cracked and scarred. All the drawings and posters and exhortations that had once adorned the classroom walls were charred, curled by heat. A massive slab of brick and lathe wall lay on the lawn.
“Well, that’s not good,” Diana drawled.
“Who has the power to do that?” Caine demanded angrily.