“What does it matter?”
“Amy might have had proof that CutterBrown was involved in something. I promise to explain everything when we see you, but right now I really need you to answer the question. Please, Trey.”
“Around New Year’s. I don’t know the exact date.”
Which probably meant it had been the same night Stephen had broken into CBP.
“Which strip mall was it?” I prodded. “Was it the one on this side of the river? The one with the mail supply store?”
“Yeah. Just before the exit for the bridge.”
I gripped the phone tightly as something unraveled in my chest. Maybe I hadn’t known most of Amy’s secrets, but I was suddenly very sure I had the key to at least one.
I heard a commotion in the background. There was a muffled, scraping noise and then Trey told Eve and Serena that they had to get off the street. A second later, Eve’s voice came over the line.
“Trey’s indisposed.”
Fear slid over me. “What happened? What’s going on?”
“Nothing we can’t handle.” There was a harsh, vehement edge to her voice, an edge that reminded me of my father.
“Eve . . .”
“We’ll be fine, Mac. Trey and Serena will be fine. I’ll make sure of it. I promise I’ll take care of them.”
I heard Trey make an indignant noise in the background and couldn’t keep a small smile from flashing across my face. Trey was tough, but Eve was my father’s protégée. Of all the wolves in his pack, she was the one he trusted to send to Hemlock. To protect us.
And I trusted her to protect them.
“Thanks,” I said. The word came out thick and slightly choked.
“Are you close to finding anything?”
“I think so.”
“Then do whatever you have to. Don’t worry about us, we’ll be okay.”
“Mac—” Kyle’s voice was a terse warning from across the grove. Something was happening.
“Eve, I have to go.”
“Be safe,” she said.
“You, too,” I replied, but she had already ended the call.
I hastily made my way back through the trees. The boys had moved to the very edge of the grove. As I joined them, I spotted a half-dozen shadows walking along the road. They were too far away to make out clearly, but the women were obviously wearing dresses. Refugees from the fund-raiser.
A pair of headlights rounded a bend in the street and came to a stop in front of them. Two men stepped out of the car. One walked slowly with a pronounced limp, and we were just close enough to overhear what he said as they confronted the group of party guests.
“We’re looking for Stephen Walsh.” The familiar accent slid down my spine like a chip of ice.
Donovan.
I glanced at Amy’s brother. Ryan Walsh had been adamant that there had been no breach, that Stephen had nothing to do with any leak. Did he really believe that or had he been lying? Was it possible he had sent Donovan after his own son?
For years, I had seen Amy’s father as an example of what a dad should be, but maybe he was more like my own father than I ever would have guessed. Hank could be utterly ruthless and wouldn’t let anything get in his way. Not even family.
“Come on,” muttered Jason, turning and putting a hand on Stephen’s shoulder. The gesture was stiff and awkward, but seeing Donovan seemed to have killed the last of his suspicions about Amy’s brother. At least temporarily. “They know you’re not at the house. We have to get moving.”
Stephen hesitated as, up on the road, one of the party guests was shoved into the back of the car. “I don’t understand. Are they Trackers? Is it because of what I did in the study?” There was an odd, false note to his voice, like maybe he already suspected who the men were and what they were after but didn’t want to admit it.
“No.” I wished there was some easy way to tell Stephen that his father might have sold him out, but the truth was a Band-Aid best ripped off quickly. “It’s probably because of the files you took from CutterBrown.”
“If I go back . . . if I explain things to my father . . .”
“For all we know, your father’s the one who sent them,” said Jason, echoing my own suspicions as he let go of Stephen’s shoulder. “The only way this will be over is if we find out what was on that hard drive. That will at least give us something to bargain with.”
“Unless you’re planning on holding a séance,” said Stephen bitterly, “I think you can rule out my sister telling any of us where it is.”
“We don’t need a séance.” Three pairs of eyes locked on me as sirens echoed in the distance. “I know where Amy hid the hard drive.”
17
EVEN ACROSS THE RIVER, THE GLOW OF FLAMES WAS impossible to miss. Trey had said houses in the empty subdivision had been set alight, but I counted at least three fires in the downtown core.
None of them looked close to Elm Street. That was something, I guess.
“That’s one of the warehouses near Bonnie and Clyde,” said Kyle, closing the driver’s-side door of his car and coming to stand beside me at the edge of the parking lot. He pointed to the largest blaze.
“How can you tell?” The smell of smoke drifted across the river. It clung to my nostrils and the back of my throat, reminding me of the night the old sanatorium—Willowgrove—had burned.
Kyle drew an invisible line with his finger. “See that big cluster of lights?”
I nodded. They shone like the lights in a football stadium and were impossible to miss.
“That’s Riverside Square. The Trackers put extra lighting in the park for the rally tomorrow night. The fire looks like it’s about six blocks over.”
Behind us, Jason and Stephen got out of the car. Jason came to stand next to Kyle while Stephen walked to the opposite corner of the parking lot, phone in hand as he continued trying to get news on his grandfather’s condition.
“I’m still not sure I trust him,” said Jason, voice low.
“He wouldn’t have lied—not about Amy,” I said. “I believe him. Besides, we need him. Even if we find the hard drive, we may need his help deciphering the files.”
The three of us fell into silence as we watched patches of Hemlock burn.
“What about the smaller fires?” I asked after a few moments, roughly scrubbing my eyes with the heel of my hand. “What are those?”