Six Years

I cocked the fist again. He lay on his stomach and put the wrong cheek down. I told him that. He turned his head the other way. I grabbed his wallet out of his back pocket.

“You robbing me now?”

“Shut up.”

I checked his ID and read his name out loud: “Edward Locke from right here in Flushing, New York.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So now I know your name. And where you live. See, two can play at that game.”

He chuckled at that.

“What?”

“No one plays that game like Danny Zuker.”

I dropped his wallet onto the pavement. “So you plan to tell him about our little altercation?” I asked.

“Our little what?”

“Are you going to tell him about this?”

I could see him smile through the blood. “The minute you’re gone, bro. Why, you wanna threaten me some more?”

“No, not at all, I think you should tell him,” I said, using my calmest voice. “But, well, how will it look?”

With his face still on the pavement, he frowned. “How will what look?”

“You, Edward Locke, just got taken down by some chump you don’t know. He broke your nose, ruined your nice suit—and how did you save yourself from a bigger beating? Well, you sung like a bird.”

“What?”

“You sold out Danny Zuker after two punches.”

“I did not! No way I’d ever—”

“You gave me his name after only two punches. Do you think that will impress Danny? You seem to know him pretty well. How do you think he’ll react to your story of selling him out like that?”

“I didn’t sell him out!”

“Think he’ll see it that way?”

Silence.

“Up to you,” I said, “but here’s what I might suggest. If you say nothing, Danny will never know about this. He won’t know you messed up. He won’t know someone got the jump on you. He won’t know that you sold him out after only two punches.”

More silence.

“We understand each other, Edward?”

He didn’t reply and I didn’t bother pushing for one. It was time to leave now. I doubted that Edward would be able to see the license plate from here—Benedict’s license plate—but I didn’t want to take any chances.

“I’m going to leave now. Keep your face down until I’m gone and then all this goes away.”

“Except for my broken nose,” he pouted.

“That’ll heal too. Just stay down.”

Keeping an eye on him, I walked backward to the car. Edward Locke never so much as budged. I got in my car and drove away. I felt pretty good about myself, which, ironically, was not something I was proud of. I got back on Northern Boulevard and drove past the funeral home. No reason to stop there. I had stirred up enough trouble for now. When I stopped at the next traffic light, I quickly checked my e-mail. Bingo. There was one from the website who investigated charities. The subject read:

Here is your complete analysis on Fresh Start

It could wait till I was back, couldn’t it? Or maybe . . . I kept my eyes peeled. It didn’t take long. Two blocks up I spotted a place called the Cybercraft Internet Café. It was far enough away from the funeral home, not that I thought that they’d go searching nearby parking lots for me.

The place looked like an overcrowded tech department. There were dozens of computers lined up in narrow cubbies along the wall. They were all taken. No customer, other than yours truly, looked older than twenty.

“It’s going to be a wait,” a pure slacker yah-dude with more piercings than teeth told me.

“That’s okay,” I said.

It could indeed wait. I wanted to get home. I was just about to leave when a group of what had to be gamers let out a shout, slapped one another on the back, offered up complicated handshakes of congratulations, and rose from the terminals.

“Who won?” Slacker Yah-Dude asked.

“Randy Corwick, man.”

Slacker Yah-Dude liked that. “Pay up.” Then to me he said, “How long you need a terminal for, Pops?”

“Ten minutes,” I said.

“You got five. Use terminal six. It’s hot, man. Don’t cool it down with something lame.”

Terrific. I quickly signed on and opened up my e-mail. I downloaded the financial report on Fresh Start. It was eighteen pages. There was an income statement, expense graphs, revenue graphs, profitability graphs, liquidity graphs, a graph on useful versus depreciated life of building and equipment, something about liability composition, a balance sheet, something called a comparables analysis . . .

I teach political science. I do not understand business or numbers.

Toward the back I found a history of the organization. It had indeed been founded twenty years ago by three people. Professor Malcolm Hume was listed as the academic adviser. Two students were listed as copresidents. One was Todd Sanderson. The other was Jedediah Drachman.

My blood chilled. What’s a common nickname for someone named Jedediah?

Jed.

I still had no idea what was going on, but it was all about Fresh Start.

“Time’s up, Pops.” It was Slacker Yah-Dude. “Another terminal will be open in fifteen.”

I shook my head. I paid the rental fee and stumbled back to my car. Was my mentor somehow involved in this? What kind of good works did Fresh Start do that involved trying to kill me? I didn’t know. It was time to head home and maybe discuss this all with Benedict. Maybe he’d have a clue.

I started up Benedict’s car and, still dazed, headed west on Northern Boulevard. I had programmed the address for the Franklin Funeral Home into the GPS, but for the ride back, I figured that I could just hit “Previous Destinations” and Benedict would have his home in there. So when I hit the next red light, I turned the knob and clicked on “Previous Destinations.” I was about to scan down for Benedict’s address in Lanford, Massachusetts, but my gaze stopped cold at the first address, the place Benedict had most recently visited. The address didn’t read Lanford, Massachusetts.

It read Kraftboro, Vermont.

Chapter 26

My world tilted, teetered, rocked, and flipped itself upside down.

I just stared at the GPS. The full address was listed as 260 VT-14, Kraftboro, Vermont. I knew the address. I had put it in my own GPS not long ago.

It was the address of the Creative Recharge Colony.

My best friend had visited the retreat where Natalie had stayed six years ago. He had visited the place where she married Todd. He had visited the place where, most recently, Jed and his gang had tried to kill me.