Soon the stolen Tumbril pulled into the driveway. The Silvers threw the bags into the back, then sped away in a splashing screech.
The moment he crossed the intersection, Zack glimpsed headlights in the rearview mirror. A trio of ash-gray vans hung a sharp left behind him, speeding toward the lake house. His heart hammered.
Seconds, he thought. We missed them by seconds.
—
Three hours after the dramatic capture of two federal fugitives, the Marietta health fair returned to its normal chaos. A lone Dep remained at the scene, patrolling the grounds as a volunteer organizer. Melissa didn’t think Zack and the others would be foolish enough to come here looking for their friends, but then she’d underestimated their recklessness before.
For all the same reasons, Hannah was not a fan of the current plan. While their stolen Tumbril idled in the library lot, she studied the tempic structures at the far end of the park.
“It’s all right,” David assured her. “I’ll be in and out before anyone can spot me.”
“That’s just what my sister said to you.”
“Yes, well, I plan to be more careful.”
“Just watch out for cameras,” said Zack.
“Watch out for everything!” Mia added. “Please.”
David exited the car, tightened his rain hood, then shined a breezy smile through the window.
“Don’t you fret, Miafarisi. You won’t lose me today.”
Hannah shook her head at him as he hustled toward the fair. “That kid is unreal. Nothing scares him.”
“He’s amazing,” Mia said, with sheepish self-consciousness.
Zack tapped a nervous beat on the steering wheel. “He was right. Amanda should have never come here. I should have helped him convince her.”
“You wouldn’t have stopped her,” Hannah said. “You know how she gets when someone’s hurting. She was always like that, even as a kid.”
“Why didn’t she become a doctor then?”
Hannah hesitated to reply. It seemed crass, especially now, to talk about her sister’s stillbirth, a devastating trauma that had knocked Amanda’s whole life off trajectory.
“It’s complicated,” she sighed.
Zack shut off the windshield wipers. Soon the outside world drowned away. Nine minutes passed before a wet and winded David hurried back into the car.
“They’re okay. The agents used some kind of sleeping gas on them.”
Hannah covered her mouth. “Oh my God.”
“Did anyone say where they were going?” Mia asked.
“The Deps? No. But I think Theo might have.”
“What?”
“Start from the beginning,” Zack said. “What did you see?”
Through hindsight, David had seen everything. As he walked the crowd with his hooded face lowered, he scanned the past in his thoughts. He watched the entire federal ambush from setup to takedown, then stood at Theo’s gurney as the augur mumbled something odd. David had placed his ear near Theo’s retrospective lips, parsing every syllable of the message.
“Archer Lansing Private School?” Hannah asked.
“That’s what he said. I replayed it three times.”
“But why? Who was he talking to?”
David smirked in bright amazement. “Strange as it sounds, I think he was talking to me.”
Soon Mia returned to the library and sat at a terminal. She learned through Eaglenet archives that Archer Lansing was once a small but prestigious boys’ academy in Charleston, West Virginia. A cross-reference search of the address revealed that the building was now a regional office for the Broadcast Crimes Division of DP-9.
When Mia brought her results back to the car, Zack brimmed with guarded optimism.
“That can’t be coincidence. That has to be where they’re holding them.”
David nodded excitedly. “Theo knew I’d come to ghost him. He gave me the future through the past. It’s kind of brilliant, actually.”
“It’s just one future,” Mia cautioned. “We don’t know if it’s the right one.”
Zack scoured the road atlas he found under the passenger seat. Charleston was eighty miles south of here, a straight shot down Highway XLI.
“It’s the only lead we have. If they’re not there, we’re screwed.”
“And if they are there?” Hannah inquired. “What then?”
The cartoonist matched her uncertain expression, then told her to ask again later.
Two hours after sunset, on the chilly balcony of a West Virginia high-rise, she did.
—