Jesus Jackson by James Ryan Daley

Author:James Ryan Daley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2014-05-27T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty

As agreed, Henry was waiting behind a tree at the edge of my lawn at precisely five o’clock. Getting past my mom was easy (Tristan must have done her job well) so I was feeling pretty good as I walked up and patted Henry on the back. “So you ready, Detective H-Bomb?”

Henry looked up at me, anxiety painted all over his face. “I don’t know about this, Jonathan.”

I reached down, helping him up. “What’s not to know? It’ll be fine.”

“But what about Alistair?”

“Alistair won’t be anywhere near that house.”

“But what if he is? What if he shows up unexpectedly?”

“Then we run away. He’s not going to do anything to us at his own house.”

“Fine,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Let’s get this over with.”

So we began the thirty-minute walk to the St. Claire house, and I filled Henry in on the details of the plan. It was really very simple: I go in, and start working with Cassie until I have the lay of the land, then excuse myself to use the bathroom. On the way to the bathroom I stop in Alistair’s room and open the window (making sure to close his door on my way back out). Then Henry climbs in, makes a copy of the hard drive on Alistair’s computer, and climbs back out when he’s done.

Also (as I assured Henry a hundred times during the walk) if for any reason things seemed too dangerous, we’d just abandon the whole thing, I’d finish my homework with Cassie and we’d come up with another idea for another day.

“Just remember,” I told Henry. “We need real, solid, irrefutable evidence this time, so make sure to get as much as you can from his computer. Videos, email, phone records, whatever. Did you bring something we can use to copy files from his computer?”

He nodded and pulled a tiny portable hard drive from his pocket. “It’s 512 gigabytes,” he said. “Should suffice.”

“Good,” I said. “Perfect. But don’t lose sight of the other evidence either. If you see a football jersey or a dirty pair of cleats, you grab those too.”

“He’s at football practice now, Jonathan. He will be wearing his jersey and cleats.”

“Right,” I said. “Good point. But still, you know, keep an eye out. ”

Henry rolled his eyes. “Sure.”

All in all, it seemed like a solid plan: conservative, uncomplicated, well-thought-out, and with plenty of opportunities to adapt, adjust, alter, or abort. And at the beginning, at least, everything looked quite positive.

First of all, we couldn’t have asked for a better house—it turned out to be a sprawling ranch, all one-story, with plenty of tall shrubs around the yard, easily capable of concealing little Henry. So I was feeling optimistic when I stepped up to the front patio and rang the doorbell, finally setting our plan into action.

Cassie’s mom came to the door. This, I must admit, was a little disconcerting. I expected her to be home, of course, but in my imaginings I somehow figured that she would be permanently out of sight, holed up in the den or the kitchen like my own mother always was.

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