The first had been simple enough—BGS = BRAC GLOBAL SYSTEMS, BASED IN THE CAYMAN ISLANDS—and he’d made a mental note to himself at the time, to tell Jonas that he shouldn’t look any further into BGS, that it could be a dangerous thing to do.
But that had been only two days ago, probably thirty-six hours before Jonas had been found dead. It seemed impossible to believe that he could have dug far enough for them to silence him—a teenager—within such a short time frame. It seemed impossible, except for the fact that this was Jonas, and that the other sentence he’d written had made his intent clear: NOTHING ELSE YET BUT MORE SOON.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Debbie and Ethan looked as numb as they had earlier in the week, one crisis replacing the other. Finn couldn’t help but think, though, that their crisis had been resolved, and this one they would be able to leave behind—as upsetting as it might be, it was not their child.
Hailey sat on the sofa next to Debbie and nestled up against her, dropping her head onto Debbie’s shoulder, as if she wanted to undo her identity change and recast herself as a little girl. Finn sat on one of the armchairs.
Ethan paced up and down for a few moments, finally sitting on the other side of Hailey and taking her hand, which she gave willingly, as he said, “I always feared something like this would happen. Whether or not we were right about his condition, Jonas was—I don’t know—too special for the world.”
Hailey raised her head and looked at him. Finn thought she might challenge Ethan’s comment, but she stared hard at her father for a second and said, “That’s so right. He was too special, or the world was too ordinary for him.”
“What nonsense.” All three of them looked at Finn. “How special is too special? Einstein? Hawking? People kill themselves all the time, and you don’t help anyone by mythologizing them.”
Ethan looked confused and hurt as he said, “But Finn, we can’t help Jonas now, whatever we do. I certainly don’t see what good it does to disrespect his memory.”
Hailey and Debbie’s expressions suggested a solidarity with Ethan, a wall of unease that was accusatory in some way. It was as if they had suddenly been reminded who Finn really was, the person they’d known all along rather than the aberration of this last week.
He tried to look conciliatory as he said, “I’m not trying to disrespect him, and I know we can’t do anything to help him now, but . . .” He was reluctant to say any more of what he was thinking, and said finally, “What do we know?”
At first it didn’t look as if anyone would reply, but then Debbie cleared her throat and said, “Sam called this morning, that’s his father, because he thought Hailey would want to know—he knew about Hailey going missing but he knew she was due back. He was distraught, naturally.” Her voice caught a little and Finn noticed Hailey squeezing her mother’s hand. “Theirs is an old building and there are several rooms in the basement, one used as a laundry room. Jonas hadn’t come home for dinner. Then, last night, one of the residents went down to the laundry room and she had her dog with her, one of those little toy things. The dog ran off into one of the empty rooms, and when she went to look for it, she found Jonas hanging from one of the beams.”
Hailey started to sob quietly, burying her face farther into her mother’s shoulder.
“When was he last seen?”
“Not since getting out of school.”
“He didn’t leave a note?”
“Not that we know of. We didn’t ask.” Debbie thought about it and added, “But Sam said they couldn’t understand it, that there’d been nothing to suggest he was unhappy.”
Ethan said, “I guess all parents think that.”
Finn was once again aware of the parallels with the Portmans’ own situation a few days earlier, but he didn’t think Ethan had meant to make a comparison, and the other two didn’t appear to pick up on it.
Hailey said, “Mr. and Mrs. Frost are such cool people.”
“That’s Jonas’s surname,” said Debbie.
“He knows that, Mom.” Finn hadn’t known it, but then Hailey’s thoughts touched on something else and she looked newly upset as she said, “His poor sister! She’s so cute, how terrible for her.” Finn remembered Jonas saying how his little sister idolized Hailey.
“You should go and see them,” said Finn.
Hailey took a moment to realize he was talking to her and then said, “Oh, I couldn’t, and they wouldn’t want to see me, not now.”
“I have to go and see them,” said Finn. “Ethan, Debbie, I wonder if one of you could call them, ask them if it’s okay for me to go over there, tell them who I am.”
Before they could answer, Hailey said, “I don’t get it, why would you want to go see them? You hardly knew him.”
“I don’t want to go and see them, but I feel I have to, just to satisfy myself that he really did kill himself.”
Debbie said, “Finn, he hanged himself.”