I rode to the bus stop and took the 110 bus to downtown Grand Haven. After the driver helped me get my bike down from the rack in the front of the bus, I rode to the bureau offices. Locking my bike to a small tree, I walked inside, but I had to pause on the first floor to collect myself. My heart was hammering, and I was shaking with nerves. I had to take a couple of deep breaths before I could go up the stairs and into the offices. The receptionist behind the desk was very nice, and after I told her who I wanted to see, she pointed me to a chair and I waited.
After about two minutes, Agent Faraday came to the front, wearing a curious expression. “Madelyn?” he said, looking around the lobby. “Where’s your uncle?”
“He’s not here.”
Faraday frowned. “I can’t talk to you without your uncle present.”
I squared my shoulders. “Yes, you can.”
He squinted at me. “Oh? Are you waiving your right to counsel?”
I shook my head. “I’m not here to talk about the case, Agent Faraday. I’m here to talk about something else.”
Faraday studied me, and I could feel the receptionist sneaking surreptitious glances at us over the top of her computer monitor. “Okay,” he agreed. “Come on back.”
I followed behind him and reminded myself to breathe. I’d asked to speak to Agent Faraday because, between him and Wallace, I thought Faraday might be the more open-minded.
I knew that Donny would be furious with me for coming here, and I also knew that I might be risking my own freedom by entering the lion’s den, but Stubby needed me, and I knew I had to convince Faraday that I was telling the truth about seeing deathdates. If I could get him to believe me about that, then maybe I could get him to believe me about Stubby. It was a long shot, I knew, but it was the only thing I could think of that might help my best friend.
Faraday led the way to his office, and we took our seats—him on one side of the desk, me on the other. “You feeling better?” he asked, and I could detect a note of guilt. It made me feel a little more secure about deciding to ask for him instead of Wallace.
“I’m okay.”
Faraday nodded and leaned back in his chair. I could tell I’d sort of thrown him by coming here. “So what brings you by, Madelyn?”
“Will you do me a favor, Agent Faraday?”
“Depends on what the favor is.”
I sighed wearily. Why were adults so exhausting? “Can you please call me Maddie?”
His eyes narrowed, his guard never really coming down. “I think I can grant that favor,” he said after a moment. “So, what brings you by, Maddie?”
I looked at the mug shots on his wall. The ones I’d written on were still there. “I want you to test me.”
Faraday stopped rocking in his chair, and those eyes narrowed again. “Test you?”
“You don’t believe that I can see what I can see, right?”
Faraday tapped the arm of the chair. “You mean about the deathdates?”
I nodded.
“No,” he said bluntly. “I think you’re full of it.” Glancing over his shoulder to the wall behind him he added, “I think that was a neat trick, though. What I can’t figure out is if your uncle put you up to it, or if you came up with it on your own.”
I smiled. It was good to have that out in the open. “Okay. You don’t trust me or believe me. Then how about if you design the test? That way you’d see I’m telling the truth.”
“Test you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Faraday snorted. “And how can I test you, Maddie? Until someone dies, there’s no way to prove you see what you say you can.”
“Sure there is. Show me any photograph of any person you know who’s died, and I’ll tell you the exact day they passed away. And make sure the photos don’t come from anybody famous or that you think I could access online. Make me look at only those photos of people you’re sure I couldn’t know. And time me.”
Faraday pursed his lips. I could tell he was intrigued. “Time you?”
“Yeah. Give me a nice, thick stack of photos, and only, like…five minutes to get through them all.”
Faraday seemed to think on that for a bit. “I’d want to watch you while you went through them,” he said, as if that was something I’d balk at.
I made sure to look him in the eye. “No problem.”
“And you’d have to give me all your electronics,” he added.
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the new cell phone Donny had gotten for me. Placing that on his desk in a silent challenge, I sat back in the chair and waited for him to decide.
“I’ll want to film it, too, and if you get one date wrong, Maddie, you lose and I get to use this little demo in court.”
I held his gaze. “Deal.”
Faraday sat forward. “Okay,” he said, and I could see that he thought he finally had me exactly where he wanted me. It made me a little nervous, because I didn’t know what tricks the feds could pull to make me look guilty, but I was in it now, and no way was I backing out. “Give me until this afternoon to pull it all together. Let’s say around three.”
I reached out for my phone to check the time. It was ten A.M. “See you at three o’clock, Agent Faraday.” And then I left him to his task.
I HUNG OUT AT THE Grand Haven Library for a few hours, then at a coffee shop down the street from the bureau offices, my knee bouncing the whole time. I was anxious to get the test over with, and as customers came in, I found myself staring at their foreheads, making sure I could see every single deathdate. I could, of course, but it still reassured me in spite of the macabre nature of it all.
At two forty-five I left the coffee shop and headed back to the bureau. The receptionist told me that Faraday had told her to walk me back when I arrived, so I followed behind, even though by now I knew the way. Faraday was on the phone, his back to us, and from his posture, I could tell he was angry. “Jenny,” he growled, “if he wants to live with me, then he can live with me!”
The receptionist came up short and looked around uncomfortably. She cleared her throat, but Faraday didn’t seem to hear her. “Then I’ll get a bigger place,” he barked. “The custody agreement says we have joint physical custody, and if he no longer finds living with you to be the pleasurable experience I remember, then of course he can move in with me!”