“The how isn’t important right now. It’s the fact that he did,” Messenger stated, walking out into the hallway. The rose and the note dangled from her fingers in separate evidence bags. “We’d thought our measures would be enough, but clearly he’s even more capable than we’d realized.”
She placed her hand on her gun holster, as though checking to make sure it was still there. All of a sudden, she was like a whole new person—energized, ready to jump into action. Her phone beeped and she checked the message, then tucked it away. She looked at each of us.
“You’ll need to leave for a safe house,” she told us. “Tonight.”
“Leave? Now?” my dad exclaimed.
Darcy got up, dragging me off the floor.
“No way,” she said. “I can’t just leave. I’m graduating next week!”
“A safe house?” I said. “Why?”
“There’s something I didn’t tell you before,” Messenger explained, looking me in the eye in a way not many adults ever seemed to do—like I was her equal. “He’s never failed to finish a job before. Only one other victim escaped from him, and two weeks later he broke into her house and killed her entire family.” She took me by my shoulders. “Rory, I am not trying to scare you, but he will keep coming. He will never stop.”
My heart executed a series of folding maneuvers that made me feel faint.
“And as for you, I’m sure they’ll still give you a diploma, but are you really going to care if you’re dead?” the woman asked Darcy.
“Wow. You really don’t sugarcoat anything, do you?” Darcy asked.
Messenger stared her down. “Not my style. Now I suggest you all start packing. You’re leaving here in fifteen minutes. No photos, no personal items or IDs. Nothing that connects you in any way to this life.”
Turning her back on us and heading for the window over the staircase, she glanced out. Dozens of cops in rain gear scoured the wet lawn, the helicopters’ searchlight flashing its wide beam over everything from our old swing set to the dilapidated fence around what used to be my mom’s vegetable garden.
“We really have to do this? We really have to go?” my dad said through his teeth, bracing one hand over his head on the wall near his bedroom door. His face was ashen.
I saw his eyes travel to a framed picture on the opposite wall. The one professional shot of my family, taken when I was in third grade, Darcy was in fifth grade, and my mom was young, beautiful, and untouched by cancer. She smiled back at him, her blond hair gleaming, her makeup perfectly applied, her favorite pink turtleneck crisp and unfaded. It had been threadbare by the end, with sweat stains around the top of the collar and little holes frayed at the hem, but she had refused to take it off. It was her favorite thing and she didn’t want to let it go.
My heart slowly tore down the middle. I wished with every fiber of my being, with every bone in my body, with every ounce of my blood, that she was here right now. And I knew he was thinking the same thing, too. My mother would have known what to say, what to do. My mother would have taken charge.
“Look, Mr. Miller,” Messenger said, her tone soothing. “Hopefully it won’t be forever. But it’s the only way to keep your family safe.”
My heartbeat pounded in my ears. My skin prickled. My feet itched to move, to run, to flee. My father looked over his shoulder at us, and our eyes met.
We have to get out of here, I wanted to scream. Please listen to her. Please.
“Girls,” he said, his voice gravelly. “Go pack.”
In my room, I grabbed my big duffel bag, the one I usually packed for science camp, and started opening drawers, pulling clothes out at random, and shoving them inside.
I couldn’t believe this was happening. I couldn’t believe that Mr. Nell had found a way past the FBI into my house. That I was being forced to leave the only home I’d ever known. The house where my mother had lived. The house where she’d died.
Angry, terrified tears filled my eyes as I whirled around. Tacked to the mirror around my desk were dozens of blue, red, and yellow ribbons, awards for science and academic competitions. In the corner on my desk was my microscope, surrounded by schoolbooks, notepads, slides, and sample dishes. None of that stuff was coming with me, obviously, but I grabbed The Merck Manual off my shelf and shoved my iPad into my bag. It slid right out and bounced across the floor.
“No!” I screeched, releasing all my emotion on behalf of my prized possession. I knelt to pick it up, my eyes overflowing with tears as I checked it for dings and scratches. I turned it on, and it blinked happily to life. Irrationally, I laughed and hugged it to my chest.
“Rory?” my father called. “What the hell was that?”
“Nothing! I’m fine!” I shouted back, my voice breaking.
Why? Why did I have to cut through the woods that day? Why had Mr. Nell picked me? Suddenly, my tears wouldn’t stop.
Just breathe, Rory. Calm down and breathe.
I sat back on my heels and silently recited the periodic table.
Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine…