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Our eyes locked through the window. I saw his widen in surprise. For the briefest of moments—a hundredth of a second, maybe two of them—neither of us moved. We just stared in shock, unsure of what to make of each other, until Beardy raised the gun, pointed it at me, and pulled the trigger.

I fell backward as the bullet crashed through the window.

I dropped to the ground. Shards of glass rained down on me. The dog kept barking. I rolled over, cutting myself on the glass, and got to my feet.

“Stop!”

It was another man’s voice coming from my left. I didn’t recognize the voice, but the guy was outside. Oh man, I had to get out of there. No time to think or hesitate. I ran full throttle in the other direction. I turned the corner, legs pumping, nearly in the clear.

Or so I thought.

Earlier I had credited my attuned Spidey senses with gifting me the premonition of danger. If that was the case, those same senses had just failed me miserably.

Another man was standing right around the corner. He’d been waiting for me, baseball bat at the ready. I managed to stop my legs, but there was no time for anything else. The meat of the bat came toward me. No chance for me to react. No chance for me to do anything but stand there stupidly. The blow landed flush on my forehead.

I dropped to the ground.

He may have hit me with the bat again. I don’t know. My eyes rolled back, and I was gone.

Chapter 21

First thing when I woke up: pain.

That was all I could think of: massive, all-consuming pain and how to lessen it. It felt as though my skull had been shattered, that tiny fragments of bone were loose, that their jagged edges were ripping through my most sensitive brain tissue.

I moved my head slightly to the side, but that just made those jagged edges angrier. I stopped, blinked my eyes, blinked them again in an attempt to open them, gave up.

“He’s awake.”

The voice belonged to Cookie. I tried once more to pry my eyes open. I almost used my fingers against my eyelids. I swam past the hurt. It took a few seconds, but I finally got there. It took a few more seconds to focus and start to take in my new surroundings.

I wasn’t outside anymore.

That much was for certain. I looked up at the exposed wooden beams of a roof. I also wasn’t in Cookie’s house. She had a one-level ranch. This looked more like a barn or old farmhouse. There was a wooden floor underneath me, not dirt, so I ruled out the barn.

Cookie was there. So was Denise. Beardy came over and looked down at me with pure, unfiltered hatred. I had no idea why. I saw a second man standing by a door to my left. A third man sat in front of a computer screen. I didn’t recognize either of them.

Beardy waited, glaring down at me. He probably thought that I would say something obvious like, “Where am I?” I didn’t. I used the time to calm myself and try to gather my thoughts.

I had no idea what was going on.

I kept my eyes moving, trying to get a sense of the room. I searched for an escape route. I saw one door and three windows, all closed. The door was guarded too. I remembered that at least one of them was armed with a gun.

I needed to be patient.

“Talk,” Beardy said to me.

I didn’t. He kicked me in the ribs. I let out a groan, but I didn’t move.

“Jed,” Cookie said, “don’t.”

Beardy Jed stared down at me. There was rage behind his eyes. “How did you find Todd?”

That threw me. I don’t know what I’d expected him to ask, but it wasn’t that. “What?”

“You heard me,” Jed said. “How did you find Todd?”

My head was swimming. I didn’t see where a lie here would help me, so I went with the truth. “His obituary.”

Jed looked at Cookie. Now I saw confusion on their faces.

“I saw his obituary,” I continued. “It was on the college website. That’s how I got to his funeral.”

Jed wound up to kick me again, but Cookie stopped him with a shake of her head. “I’m not talking about that,” Jed spat. “I’m talking about before.”

“What before?”

“Don’t play dumb. How did you find Todd?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

The rage behind his eyes exploded. He pulled out the gun and pointed it at me. “You’re lying.”

I said nothing.

Cookie moved closer to him. “Jed?”

“Back off,” he snapped. “You know what he did? Do you?”

She nodded and did as she was asked. I stayed perfectly still.

“Talk,” he said to me again.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

I glanced at the guy sitting by the computer. He looked scared. So did the guy by the door. I thought back to Bob and Otto. They hadn’t looked scared. They looked ready and experienced. These guys didn’t. I wasn’t sure what, if anything, that meant, except that either way, I was in huge trouble.

“One more time,” Jed began through gritted teeth. “How did you find Todd?”

“I already told you.”

“You killed him!” Jed shouted.

“What? No!”

Jed dropped to his knees and put the muzzle of the gun against my temple. I closed my eyes and waited for the blast. He moved his lips close to my ear.

“If you lie again,” he whispered, “I will kill you right here and now.”

Cookie: “Jed?”

“Shut up!”