As the two fell into silence, Greg’s mind became his enemy, flashing from image to image, like a slide show from his demented imagination: Carrie on a small cot in prison, feverish with the returning virus; or her beaten and dying on a cold cement floor, clothing savagely ripped from her by patrolmen without a shred of decency. Sometimes all the images combined into one giant possibility that loomed in his mind like a tsunami just offshore. Some things were definitely worse than dying.
“It wouldn’t be right for you to be okay without her,” his grandma said. “And because of that, I know you’ll get her back for me.”
“I will,” he promised softly.
At all costs, he promised himself.
“I better find Richard,” he said, straightening.
He meant to give her a parting wave, but when he glanced back at her, he noticed something he never had before, a resemblance that caught him by surprise. The shape of her eyes. The pointed chin. The high curve of her cheekbones. His grandma looked like his mom—or rather, the other way around. And as he stood there, on the verge of losing everything, it wasn’t his grandma that stared back at him. It was his mom, with all the love, compassion, and empathy a mother feels for a child in pain.
On impulse, Greg swept his small grandma up in a hug that was sure to squeeze the last few years out of her.
“Carrie will be fine,” she said, patting his back. “She will be just fine. And before you know it, we’ll all be back together.”
The front door swung open.
“Any luck in town?” Richard called. Then he stopped, seeing Greg.
Greg released his grandma and took a quick breath to gather his emotions again. “No sign of Jamansky. Only four patrol cars came and went all night. None his.”
Richard seemed relieved by that answer, but he was kind enough not to rub it in Greg’s face.
“How’s everything here?” Greg asked.
“We’re still trying to get people settled in houses,” Richard said. “Moving in the middle of the night was…”
“Madness,” his grandma said. “Pure madness.”
Richard nodded tiredly. “There’s nothing quite like fleeing through the pitch-black woods with crying children and whiny adults, all the while knowing that when you get to your dark destination, you have no idea where to put everyone.”
“That good?” Greg said.
Richard smiled tiredly. “People have emptied most of their homes, but we still have to clean out CJ’s garage.”
“I can help.”
Both Richard and his grandma looked at him.
“You’re not heading back into town?” Richard said.
Greg would have loved to hunt down David Jamansky, but he feared that a confrontation in his current state of mind would end badly—very badly—and he’d never find out where Carrie was.
“Not until I come up with a better plan,” he said. “Right now, I’d love somethin’ to occupy my thoughts.”
An hour later, Greg stood in front of his grandparents’ abandoned home in Logan Pond. Their house looked exactly like it had a few days ago—at least the exterior did—but now it felt abandoned. The whole neighborhood did.
He’d volunteered to pack up every box from the garage into Old Rusty, Terrell’s giant wagon contraption. He also volunteered to do it alone, giving him time to think, to figure out what to do next. What he didn’t need, and what he hadn’t anticipated, were the memories.
The second he walked into the garage, the past hit him. He and Carrie, rummaging through boxes, looking for chains and tires for bikes that were half as big as Greg needed. She’d torn through the boxes like a maniac, trying to help him find transportation during his training home. And now…how would he get her home?
Clenching his fists, he told himself to stop sitting around moaning. He needed to do something. But all he felt like doing was curling up on Carrie’s mattress in her bedroom and wait for her to magically walk back through her front door.
There had to be a way to contact Commander McCormick directly. Greg might even be able to craft his story in a way that might help him avoid a court-martial. But with that came a circle of thoughts that led him back to where it always did.
Sighing, he forced himself to move. Instead of packing up the garage, he decided to check out the size of Old Rusty so he knew how much he could fit in each load.
He walked around the side of the house, through the wooden gate, and into his grandparents’ backyard. Before he knew what he was doing, he had passed up Old Rusty and started wandering the long rows of crops.
Up and down, back and forth Greg walked the massive garden. Supposedly, the Marinos had picked all the ripe vegetables that morning, but Greg still saw plenty—plus all the work that needed to be done: weedy carrots, out-of-control cucumber plants, withered pea vines that somebody would want cleared out. Only that somebody wasn’t there anymore.
He stopped by a single plant in the middle of it all.
Carrie’s tomato plant.
It stood three feet tall, healthy, and completely out of place in the rows of dead peas. She’d saved it from the raid in March, babying it like only she could until he told her to plant it, like the arrogant jerk he was, long before tomatoes were supposed to go in the ground. Now it stood taller than the others. Little yellow flowers ducked out beneath the leaves.
Kneeling in the soil, Greg started weeding around the stem. He plucked big weeds, even the tiny ones, careful to keep from disturbing the plant’s roots.
Carrie was a fighter. Wherever she was, whatever nightmare she was experiencing, she could survive this.
She had to.
Except…his mom hadn’t. And his mom had been every bit the fighter Carrie was.
Neither had his sister Kendra.
Lost in thought, he barely heard the sound. Stopping, he held his breath to listen. Then his head jerked up. It sounded far away at first, but was unmistakable, and growing louder. The hum of a car engine in the neighborhood.
A patrolman.
Greg jumped to his feet and ran to the fence in time to see a patrol car pulling down the street in front of his grandparents’ house at a leisurely pace. When he saw the driver, he nearly knocked over the fence.
David Jamansky.
Wild, violent thoughts ran through Greg’s mind. Carrie’s arrest was just the final straw in a long line of offenses from that man. And now Greg would make Jamansky talk just like Jamansky had forced Ashlee to. Greg would find out exactly what had happened to Carrie and her siblings.
He watched through the fence slats, hardly able to focus with the fury coursing through him. But a single thought cut through it all.
Why had Jamansky come?
Alone, too.
Even more bizarre, Jamansky pulled into Carrie’s driveway, got out of the car, and sauntered up her sidewalk with a smile on his face. A smile. He wore jeans, a button-down shirt, and a smile?
Once Jamansky reached Carrie’s porch, he disappeared behind the brick and out of Greg’s view.
Greg saw his chance.
He threw open the gate and sprinted down his grandparents’ yard, across Denton Trail, and over two more yards. He stayed close to the houses in case Jamansky reappeared. The whole time he cursed himself for leaving his gun with the others. He needed that 9mm, tiny as it was. Although with the rage burning through him, he felt armed enough.
As he reached Carrie’s yard, he slowed. He couldn’t see anything, but he heard Jamansky pounding on the front door.
“Carrie, open up! O’Brien, enough games! Open this door!” More pounding combined with a lot of cursing. “Carrie!”
Greg stopped dead in his tracks.
Carrie?
Why was Jamansky calling for Carrie when he’d been behind her arrest?
Unless…
…he hadn’t been.
But that didn’t make sense.
Greg’s mind raced. Today was Wednesday. Jamansky said he would come back Wednesday to give Carrie som
e message from Oliver who obviously wasn’t in Virginia.
Wednesday.
Today was Wednesday.
Was it possible…? Did Jamansky not know?
Greg looked around. A tall tree stood in Carrie’s front yard. The trunk wasn’t wide enough to fully hide him, but it would protect his organs well enough—at least the vital ones.
He crept up behind the tree trunk. Jamansky was too preoccupied, pounding and yelling at Carrie’s front door, to notice.
The patrol chief pounded two more times and then gave up. Swearing loudly, he kicked the door. Then he glanced around. Greg slimmed himself behind the tree trunk. Somehow, distracted as he was, Jamansky missed him.
Peering around the tree trunk, Greg saw the tall patrolman grab the handle of Carrie’s door and slowly push it open. The guy was going to search her house.
Over Greg’s dead body.
“What are you doin’?” Greg barked, stepping out into the open.
Jamansky whirled around.
twenty-four
JAMANSKY WHIPPED OUT HIS GUN.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” Greg called, ducking back behind the all-too-skinny tree trunk. “You have two rifles trained on you right now, so I suggest you drop your gun. Now. Drop it!”
Jamansky froze, eyes darting around.
“You’ve got three seconds before my buddies start shooting!” Greg yelled. “So, unless you want a hole through that tiny brain of yours, you better drop it. Three…two…”
His gun clanked to Carrie’s cement porch.
“Now kick it out of the way,” Greg ordered, knowing confidence and command was the only way to pull off this lie.
David Jamansky squinted in the bright sun, trying to see who was speaking, but he obeyed, sending his gun skittering off the porch. If Greg had been any closer, he would have snatched it, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think that gun was Jamansky’s only weapon.
“Now hands up,” Greg ordered. “Up high where we can see them. Up now!”
Veins bulging with rage, Jamansky’s hands slowly lifted.
Greg breathed a little easier. “Why are you here?”
“I’ll tell you as soon as you show yourself.” Jamansky said, scanning every inch of Carrie’s tree. “Show yourself, coward!”
Greg stepped out into full view.
For five full seconds, Jamansky couldn’t have looked more shocked than if Greg had dropped a nuclear warhead on him. Then his expression turned to murder.
“Pierce!”
Jamansky started to reach for another gun, but Greg shouted, “You gotta death wish? My best shooter can hit a Coke can from half a mile away, so go ahead. Believe me, I want you dead a thousand times more than you want me.”
Jamansky’s hands rose obediently again while his eyes swept the area, trying to figure out where the shooters could be.
“Why are you here?” Greg asked again.
“I could ask you the same thing,” Jamansky shot back. “I guess you’re not so dead after all. What did you do, go AWOL, Pierce? Or did they kick you out? I can’t wait to report to the feds that you’re hiding out with a bunch of illegals. They’re going to love that.”
“8A374B1552M,” Greg said.
Jamansky’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
Greg took a slow breath. It wasn’t too late to back out. It wasn’t. But he needed answers, and Carrie and her siblings didn’t have time for him to sort everything into perfectly gift-wrapped boxes. If he rattled off the numbers, Jamansky wouldn’t need to check Greg’s green card—a card he no longer had.
“With your right hand,” Greg said, “slowly grab your authorizing device and punch in the following code. No funny business either. I’d hate to soil that porch with your vile blood.”
As commanded, Jamansky reached one-handed for his authorizing device. Greg repeated his numbers one by one, wondering how long it would take to alert Commander McCormick that he was alive. Minutes? Seconds? Then again, the code might not alert the Special Patrols Unit at all.
A pointless hope.
Greg knew the second his face popped up on the screen because Jamansky started shaking his head. Hopefully he noticed that Greg now outranked him.
“This says you’re dead,” Jamansky said.
“Obviously a cover. I’m on a special mission that requires certain people in certain places to assume certain things that may or may not be true. Now,” Greg said, “slide your device back away and tell me why in the blazes you’re here at this house.”
“I came to see Carrie Ashworth,” Jamansky said easily. “I assume you know your cute little neighbor. Obviously you do, because first your stepdad kept her from me, and now you are. Where is she, and why are all of you playing bodyguard?”
Greg gritted his teeth. “What do you mean, where’s Carrie? What kinda game are you playin’? She’s in prison! She was arrested yesterday.”
“What?”
It was like Greg had dropped another bomb. Jamansky’s mouth gaped open. Then suddenly his face reddened with rage.
“You idiot!” Jamansky yelled. “She’s legal now! Why did you arrest her? I needed her. I had this whole plan worked out, and you’ve ruined everything. Didn’t you do a single ounce of homework before you came charging through here?”
Every sentence out of the guy’s mouth only confused Greg more.
“I didn’t arrest her! She was taken yesterday in Shelton’s township office by your guy, Giordano.”
Jamansky’s eyes twitched. “I don’t believe you. Why would he arrest her?”
Greg just stared at him. Even the most gifted liar couldn’t have pulled off that kind of response. Jamansky legitimately didn’t know about Carrie’s arrest. He didn’t know. Which meant…Greg couldn’t force him to give away her location.
His hopes plummeted. His voice lost some of its strength.
“What happened?” he asked. “Why did they take her?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Jamansky said. “She was legal!”
As Jamansky swore up a storm, Greg felt himself going numb. His insides. His mind. But he couldn’t shut down, not yet. Gritting his teeth, he let the anger charge him forward again.
“You will find out what happened to her,” he said. “That’s an order.”
“An order?” Jamansky scoffed. “Who do you think you are, Pierce?”
Greg pointed to the small device. “You know exactly who I am now, so find out where she is. You’ve got one day to report back to me.”
For a moment, the air between them was charged. Then Jamansky’s expression morphed from fury into curiosity.
“Hold on. Why do you care where she is? What’s she to you? Obviously, you’re involved with this illegal clan somehow, something I’ll be happy to report to your superiors. But why do you care where Carrie is?”
Greg’s nostrils flared. He refused to answer.
Jamansky nodded slowly. “Interesting. So, you’re making a play for Oliver’s girlfriend? Wasn’t Ashlee enough for you? Now you’ve got to steal Oliver’s girl, too? And while he’s away at training, too. That’s heartless. Maybe I should let him know what you’re—”
“Who’s the one makin’ a play for her?” Greg cut in.
Jamansky didn’t even bother restraining a smile. He brushed down his crisp button-down shirt. “What if I am? Carrie seems like a nice, sweet girl, don’t you think? Truth be told, she’s quite taken with me.”
Blood pulsed through Greg, hot and violent, but one wrong misstep and he’d lose any possibility of getting her back.
So he redirected.
“You and I both know Oliver Simmons isn’t in training,” he said, “so cut the lies. What’d you do to him?”
In an instant, Jamansky was seething again. “Exactly what he deserved. We caught him involved in illegal activity for six years. I hope he dies in JSP.”
As a special op and government employee now, Greg needed to agree with that comment. Oliver had disobeyed the law—a lot
of laws—and he needed to be punished. Greg couldn’t worry about Oliver. Not yet.
Jamansky’s eyes scanned the houses again.
“They’re gone,” Greg said.
“Who?”
“The illegal clan. They packed up and moved out after Carrie’s arrest. They left for good.”
“What?” Jamansky’s head whipped around. “Why?”
Not the best of poker players. In that split-second reaction, Greg saw a glimpse of the patrol chief’s plan. Get close to Carrie, then arrest her entire clan.
Greg shook his head. “I watched them pack up and move out last night. They didn’t all leave together, though. They left in small groups, some in the middle of the night, the rest this morning. My best guess is they’ve disbanded.”
“Disbanded? And supposedly you had nothing to do with that?”
“They weren’t my concern,” Greg said. “As I said, I’m on a special mission.”
“Or so you claim.” Jamansky glared at him across the yard. “I had a lot of money riding on that clan. Guess I’ll have to round them up another way.”
Not if Greg had anything to do with it.
“So, Mr. Special Op,” Jamansky sneered, “why don’t you figure out where Carrie is? If you are who you say you are, you have access to more information than I do.”
Good point.
Thinking quickly, Greg said, “I’m stuck here until I’ve completed this assignment. I can’t be seen, but I can give you an order. You will find out where Carrie and her siblings are, and you will report back to me tomorrow.”
“Her siblings?”
“Taken at the same time. Amber, 16. Zach, 13. Find out where they are.”
Jamansky studied him across the twenty feet that separated them. “What’s in it for me?”
Greg’s jaw clenched. “Not dying.”
The patrol chief’s gaze swept the area again, stopping on Greg’s home across the street—which, if Greg had actual shooters, would have been where he’d stashed them. For all Jamansky knew, Greg had a whole squad of federal patrolmen on this assignment with him.
“What if I can’t find out by tomorrow?” Jamansky said evenly. “It could take days to track them all down.”
Citizens of Logan Pond Box Set Page 105
