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“What are we doing back here?”

  “You feel like talking to reporters right now?”

  “Not right now, no.”

  “That’s why we’re back here.”

  “There are reporters in front of my building?”

  “There were when I came by to feed your fish this morning.”

  “My fish died months ago,” Jason said.

  “Yeah. I guessed that from the empty tank. You could have told me.”

  “Reporters, huh?”

  “You’re big news, remember, hot stuff? You want to talk to them, I’ll drive you around front and you can make a grand entrance.”

  “I’ll get out back here, thanks.”

  “That’s what I figured. I’ll come up after I find a spot on the street.”

  “Nah, no need for you to hang around.”

  “It’s not even eight o’clock. I figured we’d crack a beer and watch some mindless action flick, something with fast cars and sexy women and absolutely no serial killers in it.”

  “Not tonight.” Before his friend could protest, he said, “You don’t need to stay, Ben. I’m all right. I just need some rest.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Thanks again for the ride.”

  Jason’s keys hadn’t been found at the stable, so he entered his apartment using the spare he’d given Ben long ago. Inside, he flicked on the living-room light and crossed to a window that overlooked the street. He edged a curtain aside and looked out. Sure enough, there were several news vans out there with media personnel milling about, waiting for him to make an appearance. No one seemed to have noticed that a light had turned on in his apartment.

  In the kitchen, he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and downed two-thirds of it in a long series of gulps. From his pocket he pulled his cell phone, which the authorities had recovered at the stable along with the phones of many of Crackerjack’s other victims. It had been processed and deemed fit for release back into his possession. But the battery was dead so he plugged it in to a charger he kept in an outlet near the toaster. Then he noticed that the little green light on top of the cordless phone receiver was blinking, indicating that he had a message on his home line. He hit the “Speakerphone” button and a robotic voice told him that he had 213 messages.

  Whoa.

  The first several were from Sophie, starting five days ago. In the earliest one, she sounded annoyed that he was late visiting Max. In the next, she sounded both annoyed and a little concerned. Finally, late that first night, she was nothing but concerned—which, given all of their issues, he found a bit gratifying. She said she was giving up on his cell phone, figuring that its battery had died or he’d lost it somewhere. He glanced at it on the counter and wondered how many messages waited for him there. Meanwhile, the speakerphone had moved on to messages from the following day: a couple more from Sophie, one from Megan at work asking why he hadn’t shown up, and two from Ben, who said that Sophie had called him because she was worried about him, and now Ben was worried, too—which must have been true because his messages contained no wisecracks. She and Ben alternated messages for the rest of that second day. Then there were no more messages until yesterday morning, after Jason had come out of Wallace Barton’s stable.

  The first reporter to call was from the Boston Globe. The next was from the Herald. Then Channel 4 had left a message, followed by the local Fox affiliate, then the Boston Beacon, then the Globe reporter had checked in again, then . . .

  Jason turned off the machine. He’d listen to the rest of the calls tomorrow. Right now, all he wanted to do was rest.

  That was what he told himself anyway. But he was lying and he knew it. What he wanted was to see his family: his son and his wife, from whom he was technically estranged—a word he hated—but with whom he was still irrevocably in love, despite her feelings toward him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The first indication that things were somehow different was the absence of a scowl on Janice’s face. Jason was aware that their frosty relationship was the setup for a hundred mother-in-law jokes, and he’d seen it in just as many TV sitcoms. He’d never found it terribly funny before he was married, and it was even less funny now that he was living it. But he’d become accustomed to Janice’s perpetual frown, and he almost didn’t recognize her without it. He had no idea if it was there when he wasn’t around, but in his presence it never slipped from her face, as permanent as the age lines carved in granite on Abraham Lincoln’s face on the famous statue in his memorial in Washington, DC.

  But when she opened the kitchen door tonight and saw Jason standing on her back porch, there was barely a trace of it—despite the fact that the presence of news vans in front of the house had made him come to the back door. Moreover, he’d arrived completely unannounced, which usually made the perpetual scowl deepen even more, something that seemed impossible unless seen with one’s own eyes. But not tonight. She wasn’t smiling, not even remotely, but she didn’t frown when she saw him, either, which was practically a hug from her.

  “Jason,” she said, “I see you noticed the vultures out front. Come in.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that.”

  He stepped inside and immediately removed his shoes and lined them up neatly to the left of the door. It galled him to have to do that in his own house—well, the house he used to live in and still co-owned—but Sophie asked him to do it to please her mother, so he did.

  “How are you?” she asked. Another first. He wondered if he should try to get abducted by a serial killer more often.

  “I’m okay, thanks.”

  “You look like you lost a little weight, but otherwise no worse for the wear.”

  Not surprisingly, he had dropped a few pounds while starving in that stable. But he’d been a little overweight when Crackerjack had snatched him, so he could afford it. He was down to about what he weighed when he and Sophie had gotten married. With a little effort, maybe he’d be able to keep the love handles from coming back.

  “Like I said, I’m okay.”

  “Well . . . good. You . . . you did the world a favor ridding it of that . . . person.”

  He shrugged.

  “Max will be happy to see you,” she said, and she actually seemed to mean it, as opposed to the way she usually said it, which somehow contained subtext implying that the boy would be better off if he never saw his father again.

  “And Sophie?”

  “I assume she’ll be pleased to see you, too.”

  “I meant, how is she? How did she hold up while I was gone?”

  The older woman thought for a moment, most likely trying to decide whether to be honest or disingenuous, to respond with something resembling kindness or with snarkiness. Finally, Janice 2.0 said, “After a day or two she seemed concerned. When she heard you’d turned up unharmed, she was relieved.”

  “I’d like to see her.”

  “So turn around.” It was Sophie’s voice.

  He did, and there she was, rolling her wheelchair across the kitchen, stopping in front of him. Her honey-gold hair, usually thick and wavy, hung a bit limply, as though it had dodged a few shampoos. Dark circles surrounded her soft brown eyes. And though she typically went light on makeup—her natural beauty needing little enhancement, in his opinion—at the moment, she wore none. It might have surprised her then to know that, to him, she’d never looked more gorgeous.

  He wasn’t sure what to do next. They’d been separated for two years and had taken to greeting each other the same way every time—exchanging polite smiles devoid of depth or meaning, the kind of smiles you give a neighbor you run into in the supermarket. Like her mother, though, Sophie surprised him tonight. She reached up, took one of his hands, and pulled him down into a hug. It didn’t last long, but it was the first one she’d given him in two years, so it felt nice.

  “I was worried,” she said. After a moment, she added, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “It’s good to see you, Sophie. I wasn’t sure I
ever would again.”

  “You look . . . thinner.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s not bad on you.”

  A compliment?

  They looked at each other for a moment, into each other’s eyes, and to Jason, hers looked a little different to him. Like something was missing. A tiny coldness, maybe. That gently simmering animosity, bubbling far, far below the surface, but always there since the accident. But tonight, in this moment, a little of the iciness in her eyes seemed to have melted. He wondered if maybe—

  “Something to drink, Jason?” Janice asked.

  The spell, if indeed there had been one, was broken. He glanced at his mother-in-law and was about to decline but decided that if she were here in the kitchen fixing him something to drink, she wouldn’t be hovering around them if Sophie invited him into the living room, which he hoped she would.

  “That would be great. Maybe an espresso,” he added, glancing at the machine on the counter. It would be more time consuming to make one of those than it would be to pour a soft drink. He didn’t even like espresso. “Thanks, Janice.”

  She nodded curtly and turned away to fire up the espresso machine.

  “Where’s Max?” he asked.

  “He was feeling tired after dinner so he’s lying down,” Sophie said. “Last I checked, he was still asleep. I can only imagine how much you want to see him, but I’d like to give him just a little longer, okay? He hasn’t been sleeping well the past few days.”

  That was okay with Jason. As eager as he was to see his son, he wouldn’t mind a little more time alone with Sophie, something he rarely, if ever, got these days.

  She executed a neat turn and rolled out of the kitchen, across the hall, and into the living room. Jason knew better than to offer to push her. She came to a stop beside the sofa and he took a seat on the end closest to her. In the kitchen, the espresso maker whooshed.

  Suddenly he heard Janice say, “Oh, for the love of God. Not another one.”

  Jason said, “What was—”

  “Another reporter calling, I assume,” Sophie said. “We finally turned the ringer off but a light flashes on the phone base when a call is coming in. It’s driving my mother crazy.”

  “They’ve been calling a lot?”

  “You have no idea.”

  Actually, he had some idea, considering the number of unheard messages still waiting at home for him.

  “Max is okay?” he asked. “How did he hold up while I was . . .” He trailed off. “Was he scared?”

  “Yeah, he was. I tried to shield him from it as best I could, and he didn’t understand exactly what was going on, but he could tell I was worried, and that made him anxious. And like I said, the phone won’t stop ringing. Friends, reporters, the police—and they were here a few times, of course, the police, which I imagine could be a scary thing for a six-year-old boy.”

  “It could also be exciting for a six-year-old boy.”

  “Not when he sees his mother . . . upset while talking to them.”

  He shouldn’t have been remotely pleased that she’d been upset, but he was. “I suppose not.”

  They said nothing for a moment.

  “Wanna talk about it?” she finally asked. He shrugged. “You don’t have to, Jason, but if you want to, you can.”

  “Not tonight.”

  He’d tell her all about it eventually, if she really wanted to hear. How hungry he’d been. How scared. How hot during the day and how cold at night. How much he had thought about her and Max. Wondering how Max would handle it if his father never came home. Wondering if Sophie would feel—

  “Oh, for the love of God,” Janice said in the kitchen. “Another one? Why don’t they stop calling already?”

  “Seriously,” Jason said to Sophie. “Sorry about the reporters.”

  She shrugged. “I understand it. I do. Ex-wife of a local hero, one of the men who finally took down Crackerjack.”

  You’re not my ex-wife, he wanted to remind her. Instead, he said, “I’m no hero, Soph.”

  “That’s not what everyone is saying.”

  The feel of the hammer in his hands, sinking into Wallace Barton’s skull. The man’s dead, vacant eyes. His caved-in skull. The way it felt to end the life of another person . . .

  “I’m not.”

  She searched his eyes for a moment and he felt a little uncomfortable. At last she said, “Well, let’s see, shall we?”

  She picked up a remote control from the coffee table, turned on the flat-screen TV above the fireplace, and flipped to a local news station.

  Then there he was, on TV, in full color and high definition: Crackerjack. Jason’s only prior glimpse of Wallace Barton’s face had been after his mask had slipped off, after Jason had smashed in his head with a hammer, leaving him bloody with empty, staring eyes. The eyes on the screen, though, were full of life, even crinkled a little at the corners because he had been smiling whenever this photo had been taken. He looked so . . . alive.

  Sophie must have seen something in Jason’s face because she said, “Sorry. Want me to turn it off?”

  He shook his head. With his eyes on the screen, he barely noticed Janice coming into the room and trying to hand him an espresso in a tiny cup, and Sophie taking it for him and placing it on a coaster on the coffee table, and Janice sitting at the far end of the sofa, as far as possible from Jason, and Sophie asking if she wouldn’t mind leaving them alone for a little while, and Janice leaving with the beginnings of her generally ubiquitous scowl creeping onto her face. Jason barely noticed these things because he was watching footage from the stable where he’d been held prisoner for nearly five days. And listening to a newscaster with a pleasing timbre to his voice and flawless diction—and no doubt perfect hair and teeth—recounting yesterday’s dramatic events . . .

  “The killing of a killer,” the newscaster intoned.

  Jason knew some of the facts. Detective Briggs had shared them with him.

  Wallace Barton, aka Crackerjack, was fifty-two years old at the time of his death. The dilapidated stable was in a remote, overgrown corner of his forty-six-acre property. Three decades ago, when his parents were alive and the stable was still in use, a wide, hard-packed dirt road ran to it from the family’s farmhouse. But then Wallace’s mother passed away, and when Wallace Sr. followed two months later, Wallace Jr. inherited almost a hundred acres, along with a horse stable and apple and peach orchards. With no head for business, he sold the horses and more than half of the land, let the orchards die, and lived off the proceeds of the sales of the land and the animals. He had no remaining family. There was no indication that he’d had a single friend in the world when he died.

  In the final decades of his life, Barton was a recluse, rarely leaving his property . . . or so everyone thought. It was now known, of course, that he must have left long enough to hunt for victims.

  On the screen, the video footage of the stable changed to still photographs—of the stall where Jason had been held; of another stall, which he assumed had been Cobb’s; and still another, this one containing the table Jason had seen, with the leather restraints and the dark-stained surface.

  He was no longer listening to the newscaster. He could imagine the words. He’d lived the words.

  “I shouldn’t have turned this on,” Sophie said. “I’m sorry. You don’t need to see—”

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  On the TV, a cop was now describing the crime scene. Jason thought he recognized him as one of the first to arrive at the stable, but he couldn’t be certain. He’d been so confused then. Eventually a photograph of Jason’s face appeared on screen. He looked ragged, his face pale and thinner, his hair hanging limp over his forehead, sweat darkening its typical strawberry-blond color. Someone had to have snapped the shot while he was outside Barton’s stable, waiting for an ambulance to take him away. Then his photo was replaced by one of Ian Cobb, obviously taken at the stable, as well. Though he’d had his arm and ribs broken, he�
�d spent only a day in captivity, so he looked healthier than Jason did. He also had bright green-and-gold butterflies painted around his eyes. A moment later, a series of brief person-on-the-street clips began as ordinary citizens opined on the big story of the day.

  A middle-aged woman: “I think he got what he deserved.”

  A young man: “It’s a relief, you know? That guy was crazy.”

  A young woman with a toddler on her hip: “It’s about time someone got him. The police sure didn’t do much to stop him.”

  A middle-aged man: “I’m just glad it’s over. He liked to kill other guys, so I could’ve been his next victim, right? Or one of my buddies.”

  Another young woman: “Thank God those two men got away. And killed him. They’re heroes.”

  Then the newscaster was on-screen briefly—Jason had been right about the perfect hair and teeth—saying, “And what does one of those heroes have to say?”

  And then Ian Cobb’s face, without the butterflies this time, was on the screen again, only this time it was video. He was walking away from the hospital, its entrance visible behind him. Several microphones were thrust toward him as he walked. He moved at a casual pace, not running away, not even hurrying, but he seemed to have no interest in being interviewed. He looked uncomfortable, unused to being the center of so much attention. Which made perfect sense. One minute he was a quiet nobody, and the next he was a screaming headline.

  “Like I keep telling people,” Cobb said, “I’m not the hero. I didn’t do much. You should talk to Jason Swike. He’s the one who killed Crackerjack. I owe him my life. Without him . . . well, he’s the real hero.”

  Finally, Jason took the remote control from Sophie’s hand and turned off the TV.

  Was that true? Was he the real hero? It was still so hard to remember exactly what had happened. There was fighting, Cobb screaming for help, and Jason hitting Barton. But it was Cobb, not Jason, who had gotten loose, who had started their escape . . . but then again, he’d been screaming for Jason to help him, saying that he couldn’t hold on. He had a broken arm, after all, not to mention broken ribs. It had sounded like he’d been on the verge of losing the fight. And it was Jason who had ended it, after all. That much was true. If Jason hadn’t acted when he did, Barton probably would have regained the upper hand, which would have left Jason and Cobb to become his next victims. So maybe it was true. Maybe he really was . . .