Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
“So listen. I have a little fact-finding mission to undertake. I could use a lookout.”
“Oh, yeah?” Fenn takes a seat on the bench to pull his shoes on. “This doesn’t involve Duke, right? Because I’d give it good odds he’s got his dorm room booby-trapped.”
“Not Duke. Tonight’s my only chance to find something I can use to keep Roger quiet about catching Sloane in the dorm last night. If I don’t figure out what he’s been up to, that’s my ass out of school.”
“All right. So what’s the plan?”
“Feel like going for a drive?”
“You asking me out on a date?” He eyes me in mock dismay. “But we’re related.”
I just sigh.
Since Silas is using his car to see his girl, Fenn comes through with a ride he borrows from another senior. And since this is Sandover we’re talking about, the car is a Porsche Cayenne SUV with baby-soft leather seats and an engine that purrs like a kitten. That afternoon we wait in the gas station parking lot about a mile from campus on the route Mr. Swinney always takes. Right on schedule, he cruises by in his blue compact. Fenn waits a couple seconds then pulls out on the road to tail him.
“Gonna have to keep some distance,” I remind Fenn. “He’ll get suspicious if there aren’t many other cars on the road.”
“Yeah, I got it.”
The compact gets smaller as Fenn drops back and does five under the speed limit to let Roger take a comfortable lead. Hopefully, at a sufficient distance, he won’t recognize the SUV or notice the same one is about to follow him down these lonely two-lane roads for the next two hours.
Thinking back to the day I was awkwardly holding my mom’s bridal bouquet at the altar while Fenn stood beside his dad with two empty ring boxes, I would’ve rather leapt out of a window than spend my weekend stuck in a car with him, chasing a man across New Hampshire. We barely said two words to each other the entire trip when our parents first dropped us off at Sandover. Now I couldn’t imagine asking anyone else along for a covert recon.
Turns out I like hanging out with Fenn. And this place is starting to feel like home. Something I haven’t felt in I don’t remember how many moves. Hell, even the swim team gig is growing on me. Most of the guys are cool. Except Carter. Fucking Carter. But still, it’s nice feeling like I belong somewhere.
Suddenly it occurs to me how much I stand to lose in this fight with Duke. If I fail and he makes good on his promise to blow up my spot, it’s not only goodbye Sloane. This unlikely series of accidents that’s become my life gets yanked from my grasp and I become an outcast again. Shipped off on another second chance to no doubt somewhere far worse.
Guess I better start taking this training shit seriously.
The sun is just dipping behind the trees when Roger’s car veers off the county road to climb a winding path into the shadow of the mountains.
“Drop back,” I order.
Fenn instinctively turns down the radio and gives our mark a considerable distance. The blue compact is barely a blip crawling around curves ahead of us. I watch the odometer slip from thirty, twenty-five, until we’re hardly moving.
“We’ve got to be close,” he says.
“According to his last few trips, it’s about a half-mile up and a quarter-mile west still.”
“Shit.” Fenn slams on the brakes.
I’m thrown forward in my seat. “What? Did he spot us?”
He throws the car in reverse and quickly backs down the road, then tucks the rear end up onto the soft dirt shoulder and conceals us between the trees.
“That was his car parked up there.” Fenn kills the Porsche’s engine. “I think I saw him walking into the woods. Looked like there was a path.”
“Awesome. I guess we’re going it on foot.” I glance over at him. “They got a lot of ticks in New Hampshire?”
“Only outside.”
Wonderful.
With no hiking gear, escape plan, or any idea what we might find on the other side of this forest, we traipse into the woods after Roger, following a trail we pick up near his parked car. I mean, shit. If he can make this hike every week, it can’t be that hard.
Fenn picks up a fallen limb and cleans it of wayward twigs to construct a walking stick. “Thinking about the ticks will keep your mind off the hillbillies and hunters, at least.”
“Huh?”
“Sure. Wild-eyed doomsday preppers and off-the-grid tax dodgers. Then you’ve got your run-of-the-mill poachers and Second Amendment dudes.”
“Seriously?”
We step quietly, well aware Roger could be lurking just beyond the shadows.
“Oh, hell yeah. You ever heard the horror stories about the Appalachian Trail? It runs through somewhere around there. All sorts of psychopaths and serial killers wandering around stalking hikers to their deaths.”