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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

GARRET

Once he’s gone I lock the door and check all the windows to make sure they’re locked. Then I search the house for listening devices and hidden cameras. I start in the living room, under the chair where he was sitting. Then I check the couch, under the cushions. As I’m searching the table in front of the couch, I notice my phone and turn it back on. I check it and see a text message.

It’s from my grandfather. It reads, You can stop searching. There aren’t any. If you don’t believe me, check your bedroom dresser.

How the hell does he know I was searching? Is he watching me? Or does he just assume it’s what I’d do, knowing I don’t trust him?

I go in the bedroom and open the top drawer of the dresser. Sitting on top of Jade’s socks is a device that checks for listening devices. My dad has one just like it. I don’t know where he got it, but I’ve seen him use it. You wave it over stuff and if it beeps, you know it found something. They make hidden microphones so small now that it’s nearly impossible to find them unless you have something like this.

I search the entire house with the device and find nothing. That doesn’t mean there isn’t something in here. The technology changes all the time. But I have to trust that there isn’t, because right now I need to call my dad.

It’s after five on the East Coast but I’m sure my dad’s still at work. I hope he picks up. If he doesn’t, I’ll just keep calling and texting every minute until he does.

He answers on the fifth ring. “Garret, I was just about to go to a meeting. I’ll have to call you later.”

“Tell them you’ll be late. This is important.”

“The meeting is only an hour. I’ll call you as soon as—”

“Grandfather was here.”

“What did you say?”

“Grandfather was here. Just now. In my house.”

“Did he tell you he was coming?”

“No. He broke in. He was here when I got home.”

“What did he want?”

“To tell me things. Things you have to know, Dad.”

“Like what?”

“I can’t tell you over the phone.”

“Why? What is this about?”

“Grandfather did something. Something bad. Something really bad.”

“Garret, we all have. It’s part of being a member. You know that.”

“Yes, but he did this to his own family. To you. And to me. And he’s about to do a hell of a lot more.”

“You’re overreacting. You misunderstood what he said. Your grandfather would never do anything to harm his family.”

“He had a gun, Dad. He had a gun pointed right at me.”

There’s silence and then, “Where is he?” My dad tries not to show his anger, but when he does, he really does. And right now, his voice is filled with it. “Where did he go?”

“I don’t know. He just left. You need to get out here. I need to talk to you.”

“Just tell me what he said.”

“I need to tell you in person.”

“Dammit, Garret! Just tell me!”

“I can’t tell you this over the phone!”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because it’s…it’s about Mom.” I take a breath. “And Jade.”

He’s quiet, then says, “I’ll leave tonight.”

The phone goes silent. He hung up.

I collapse on the couch, tossing my phone aside.

He’ll fix this. My dad will fix this. He always does.

I say the words over and over again in my head, but I’m not sure I believe them.

My dad is an expert at taking on enemies. He crushes them. Destroys them. Annihilates them.

But this time the enemy is family. His father. My grandfather.

So this time, I don’t know if my dad can fix this.

I need to get out of here. I need air. I need to move. I grab my keys and go out the door to the beach. I walk quickly along the sand, hoping the sound of the waves will calm my thumping heart, which hasn’t slowed down since I heard my grandfather’s voice and saw him in that chair.

How did he even get here? There weren’t any cars around when I got home. Somebody must’ve dropped him off and was waiting to pick him up.

I wonder how long he’s been planning this. It had to be months. He said he changed his plan when the robber didn’t finish the job. That was back in September, which means my grandfather could’ve given me this ultimatum a long time ago but he waited until now. Today. The 10 year anniversary of the plane crash. The day he chose to have my mom killed. The day he took her away from me. Away from my dad.

My grandfather purposely came here today, knowing exactly what day it is. To him, today is probably a celebration. The day he finally got rid of my mom. It’s not enough for him to tell me he killed her. No, he has to do it today, the exact same day that she died. He knows how much I loved her. How much I miss her. How my life hasn’t been the same since she left. Yet he looked almost happy when he told me what he did to her. And now he plans to do the same thing to Jade. He’s fucking psychotic. Pure evil.

He said he wouldn’t hurt Jade until after the New Year. And I think I believe him, which means I have just over a month until his deadline. Of course he made sure it was during the holidays, which is supposed to be the happiest time of the year.

It shows how much he wants me to suffer. I didn’t obey his orders and now he wants me to pay. He wants me to agonize over the decision from now until the clock strikes midnight on the last day of the year. And if I don’t do what he says, a whole new countdown begins. You’ll be left always wondering when and how. It’s like a game to him. An evil, twisted game that he has no intention of losing.

That’s why I believe him when he says he won’t hurt Jade until after his deadline. This is his game and he set the rules. If I’d set the deadline, he wouldn’t honor it. But since he did, he will.

My grandfather likes to control the timing of things, like when my mother would die. The realization of that hits me again.

He did that. My grandfather really did that. He had her killed. And he determined the timing. He watched my mom live her life, thinking she had all this time. He let my dad think the woman he loved was safe.

My grandfather was never nice to my mom, but he tolerated her. He saw her at family dinners and holidays. She knew he didn’t approve of her and she knew he didn’t like her and yet she went out of her way to be nice to him. She even made him a cake every year on his birthday even though he wouldn’t eat it.

And the entire time, all those years, he was planning her death. Waiting until the perfect moment. The moment when my dad, mom, and I were content, just living our lives, thinking nothing could go wrong. He saw how happy we were. And he destroyed it. He destroyed everything.

And now, 10 years later, he tried to kill Jade. He almost did. If my dad hadn’t been visiting us Labor Day weekend, we wouldn’t have put up those security cameras. I would’ve put cameras up eventually, but not that weekend. And if those cameras hadn’t been there, that guy would’ve gone through with the plan. He would’ve broken in the house when I wasn’t there. He would’ve shot Jade. He would’ve killed her. She’d be dead right now.

Fuck.

My job is to keep Jade safe. To protect her. And I didn’t. I didn’t do my job. The thing that saved her were those security cameras. Not me.

I saw that guy lurking around our house. I should’ve known he wasn’t just some random burglar. I should’ve chased him down that day I saw him. And when Jade saw him get shot a few weeks ago, I should’ve put it together. I should’ve known that was the work of someone from the organization. They cleaned it up without leaving a trace of evidence. The average drug dealer couldn’t do that.

My grandfather hired someone to kill that robber because the guy didn’t finish the job and because he knew things he shouldn’t. The grad student who got shot was just an innocent victim. A guy who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I bet the fake cop is dead now, too. If he knew why he was hired and who hired him, he’d definitely be killed.

But how was I supposed to know my grandfather was behind all this? The fake robbery? The fake cop? How was I supposed to put the pieces together when I didn’t know what the pieces were and how they connected?

Even my dad didn’t know what was really going on. He had people investigating it. He asked the other members if there were plans to get me back and they told him no, probably because my grandfather threatened them if they told my dad the truth. Then my dad asked my grandfather about it and my grandfather dismissed his concerns. He told my dad he was being paranoid and my dad believed him. He kept telling me not to worry.

So how could I possibly know what my grandfather was up to?

It doesn’t matter. I still blame myself. I’ll always blame myself because I didn’t do my job. I didn’t protect Jade.

I don’t know what I would’ve done if she’d been killed. I couldn’t live with the fact that I hadn’t done anything to stop it. I’d spend the rest of my life reliving the past, telling myself what I should’ve done differently. It would’ve destroyed me to know I’d done nothing to save her.

I reach down and pick up a rock in the sand. I run my fingers over it, focusing on the contours and the texture, trying to calm myself, but it doesn’t work. I throw the rock in the ocean and scream as loud as I can, “I fucking hate you! You hear me, Grandfather? I fucking hate you!”

I drop to the ground and just sit there, letting my eyes follow the pattern of the waves. It lulls me into a place where my mind is numb, and I remain there until my phone rings, startling me. It’s my dad.

“Garret, I’ll be there first thing in the morning. I just talked to my pilot. He’s getting the plane ready but I need to take care of some things before I leave, which means I probably won’t arrive there until the middle of the night.”

“Just come over when you get here. I don’t care how late it is.”

“But Jade will be home.”

“Yeah? So?”

“She can’t know about this.”

“You don’t even know what this is about.”

“No, but if it involves your grandfather I’m guessing it also involves the organization. Is that true?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not sure.”

Although the organization knows about my grandfather’s plan to reinstate my membership, I’m not really sure if they have anything to do with his plan to kill Jade. It sounded like that was all him. Like they weren’t involved.

“Then we need to keep her out of this, Garret. I know you don’t like lying to her, but telling her their secrets only puts her in danger. Just wait until we talk and then we’ll decide what to tell Jade.”

I hesitate because I have no freaking clue how I can possibly keep this from her. She’ll be able to sense something’s wrong and then she’ll ask me about it.

“Okay,” I finally say. “I won’t tell her anything.”

“I’ll see you in the morning. What time does Jade head to campus?”

“Around nine. I have class at 10 but I can skip it.”

“I’ll be there at nine. See you soon.”

I get up and walk back to the house and wait for Jade to get home.

Fuck. How the hell am I going to hide this from her?