Furious Jones and the Assassin’s Secret (9 page)

“The moving sounds rough.”

“It got old.”

“So what did you do for school?”

“New schools. All the time.”

“Wow, I don't think I could do that,” Emma replied.

“Yeah, well, it's amazing what you can do when you don't have a choice,” I said. “How's that Portland, Oregon, childhood looking now?” I asked.

“I didn't grow up in Portland,” she said. “The town I was raised in wasn't anything like Portland. How did your dad die?”

“He was shot,” I said. “Just like my mom. The only difference being my dad was shot onstage right in front of me in a crowded ballroom.”

“Oh my god, your dad was Robert Jones!”

E
mma and I stayed up
most of the night talking. She wasn't kidding—her life hadn't been easy. Her parents had gotten mixed up in a cult back in Oregon. Some rich guy had bought up an entire town and brainwashed everyone. Everyone, including Emma's parents. Her childhood was far from normal.

I told her all about my screwed-up gypsy life. Or at least the life I'd thought my mom and I had lived. I didn't tell her about my mom being a CIA assassin. Or about how my dad had stolen my mom's stories and claimed them as his own.

Time seemed to stand still as Emma and I talked about our lives. I had never met someone so kind, smart, and funny.

“Oh, no!” Emma's voice suddenly cut through the quiet hum of the bus.

“What?”

“Look.” She pointed outside. “The sun is coming up. We've talked all night!”

“Yeah.” I smiled. “That's all right.”

“No, it's not.” Emma looked worried now. “I need to function today. I need to be amazing.”

“Are we being a little competitive?” I asked as playfully as possible.

“You have no idea,” she said.

Emma said she needed to get at least a couple of hours of sleep before we reached Chicago. I was too worked up and nervous to sleep. I had no idea what was waiting for me in Galena, but whatever it was, it had gotten my entire family killed. Emma let me use her laptop as she took a nap. I searched for information about Galena and ended up at the
Galena Gazette
's website. It was the same paper that had concluded my mom's death was just a result of her being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I expected to see stories about corn prices and 4-H competitions, but the front-page headline read: ANOTHER GHASTLY ACCIDENT FOR GALENA.

Their website featured a couple of stories about how Galena was experiencing a rash of bizarre, deadly accidents lately.

I clicked and read the main article.

By all accounts, Derrick Triviski was a good man. A quiet man. “He kept to himself, really,” Sue Lechner, an Apple Orchard Drive resident, said last night. “You barely knew he was around, really. Until tonight.”

According to his neighbors, Mr. Triviski moved to Galena about a year ago and immediately landed a job at Bloom's Ace Hardware.

“He was a good worker,” Gus Bloom, owner of Bloom's Ace Hardware, said. “He did his job and kept to himself. Not much of a talker.”

According to Sheriff Daniels, Apple Orchard area residences reported hearing what sounded like a bomb going off around eight o'clock Thursday night. That loud boom turned out to be the explosion of Mr. Triviski's water heater.

“Oh yeah, my windows shook,” Lechner said. “I'd never heard anything like it. Kind of odd that such a quiet man would go out with such a ruckus. And a water heater, no less. It really makes you think.”

“We don't have anything conclusive,” Sheriff Daniels said, “but it certainly appears that Mr. Triviski was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

According to Bloom, it is not that uncommon for water heaters to explode. “Oh yeah, it happens. It happens all the time. I heard about a guy over in
Hazel Green who had one blow through the roof and land a half mile away. Of course, I've never known one to take a person with it. That's kind of new. I heard they found his body and the water heater on top of old man Freedly's barn. Can you believe that? That has to be a quarter of a mile.”

But, as many locals are quick to point out, Galena has experienced more than its fair share of uncommon and unfortunate accidents in the last several months. There have been well over a dozen bizarre accidents resulting in fatalities. And as unfortunate and bizarre as Triviski's water-powered rocket ride might be, the entire Galena area is still talking about the almost unthinkable string of events that took the lives of the entire Yaeger family earlier this year in the Galena River Bait Shop's leech tank.

E
mma got off the bus
in Chicago. She wanted to exchange phone numbers, but I told her I didn't have a phone. Which was true, but I'm not sure she believed me. She gave me her number and told me to call her and let her know what I thought of Galena. But I already knew what I thought of Galena. I hated it. It was the place my mom died. I didn't care how quaint it was, I was going to hate it.

I stared out the bus window for three long hours after leaving Chicago. Illinois was painfully flat until we got close to Galena. Then the landscape started to change. The bus was finally finding some hills, and I could see actual bluffs in the distance.

We descended down a long and winding stretch of highway
just outside of Galena, and I could see why Emma liked it so much. Galena really was just about perfect. The town was built at the base of a large bluff. Old brick buildings and tall church steeples dotted the hillside. It was . . . quaint. If you didn't mind a town full of mob informants and hit men.

I could see the river. And then I could see two massive floodgates on the edge of town with large walls and hills leading up to them. The gates were open but were clearly put in place to protect the main street, and downtown Galena, from flooding when heavy rain ran down from the hills, causing the river to rise.
Maybe they should close them now
, I thought,
and just trap all the criminals inside this tiny, violent, quaint little town.

There was a sea of red and blue lights flashing not far ahead of us now. The bus driver slammed on the brakes, and several people fell out of their seats. It looked like some sort of roadblock.

“Is everyone okay?” the bus driver asked before coming to a complete stop. I looked around and everyone appeared to be all right. I stood up to try to get a better view of the road, but there were too many cars in front of us to see what was going on.

“I'm sure they'll get us moving again in a minute,” the bus driver said.

Time dragged to a stop as I stared out the window for what felt like several hours. Finally, there was a knock on the
bus door and an Illinois State Trooper stepped aboard. He talked with the driver for a few minutes and then turned and faced the passengers.

“Good evening, folks. I apologize for the wait, but I'm afraid there's been an accident,” the trooper said. “Now, I know you're all real anxious to get to your final destinations, but I'm going to need you to be patient for a while longer while we contain the situation.”

Contain the situation
? What did he have to contain? Maybe someone had smashed into a truckload of chickens? Or cows? It could be hours if it was cows.

The noise level rose as the trooper turned to leave. I ran down the aisle and caught up to him as he was about to step off the bus.

“Excuse me, sir.”

“Look,” the trooper said, turning around, “I understand your frustration, son. But I'm asking you to be patient. Please.” He began to turn back toward the door when I reached out and grabbed his shoulder.

“Sir,” I said again as I took another step forward. “Galena is my final destination.” I pointed to the floodgates protecting Main Street. “Is it all right if I just get off and walk from here?”

The trooper started to speak when the bus driver interrupted.

“Now, you go sit down. I'm not gonna start trying to unload luggage on the side of no highway.”

I looked back to the trooper. “I don't have any luggage.” I motioned down to the book in my hand. “I've got everything right here.”

The trooper looked down at my book and then out the front window. “It's okay with me. But stay on the side of the highway and keep walking. I don't need any gawkers.”

I quickly pushed past him before the driver could argue. There was a line of cars in front of the bus blocking my view of the accident. I walked down the shoulder toward town. I was a hundred feet down the road and I still couldn't see an accident. No cars. No cows. No chickens. It looked like every police and fire truck from every nearby town had been called to the scene. I kept walking toward Main Street. I was walking past a road flare when I saw the first one.

They weren't on the road. Nothing but cop cars and fire trucks were on the road. These were off to the side. Three neat crimson bricks evenly spaced about ten feet apart.

“Hey! Hey!” An officer was running toward me. He was yelling, “You can't be here.” He had panic in his eyes.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“Son, you can't be here! You can't see this!”

“I'm just going to town. That guy back there said it was okay to walk into town!” I was pointing toward the town when my eyes connected with someone's eye. Or some
thing
's. The eye was nested in the first of the crimson-colored bricks.

“Oh my god!” I screamed. “Oh my god!”

The cop was still yelling, but I couldn't understand a word he was saying. My eyes were darting between the three bloodred hay bales on the side of the highway. As I looked more closely, I could see that all three red-soaked bales were speckled with bits of fingers, arms, hair, and bones. My legs gave out and I fell to the ground as the cop continued to yell.

I got to my feet and ran. I kept running until I reached Main Street. I could have run all day, but I knew it was pointless. The bales of hay would be stuck there in my brain forever. Every detail. Every piece of bone would sit in my messed-up head forever. Next to the million other snapshots of my messed-up life.

I slowed to a walk as I passed the floodgates. There was a group of older men gathered on the sidewalk talking about a farm accident.
Farm accident?

I felt sick as the image replayed in my head. I tried to push it out. I tried to think about something pleasant. I tried to think about Emma, but the hay bales kept coming back.

M
ain Street was exactly as
Emma had described it. Dozens of old brick buildings lined the long, narrow street on the other side of the floodgates. It was like stepping a hundred years back in time. Except for the stores. The Main Street businesses were the kinds of ma-and-pa shops and restaurants you would expect to find in a tourist town. I set out to find another pay-as-you-go phone. It had been more than twenty hours since I'd downloaded the last
Double Crossed
excerpt, and the new one had to be posted by now.

I walked up the north side of Main Street and found three wine shops, jewelry stores, and several cheese shops—but no mobile phone stores. I started back down the south side of the street and came across the toy store and candy store Emma had
mentioned. I was about halfway back toward the floodgates when I felt the blood drain from my head. I stared up at the awning and my eyes began to well with tears. It was the DeSoto Hotel, and it looked nothing like it had in the black-and-white photo. I looked at the sidewalk. I got down on one knee and examined it. Of course, there was no trace of blood from where my mom's body had been. The broken glass had been fixed and the bullet holes in the door had been patched. There was no trace of the violence that had taken my mom from me.

“Can I help you?”

I looked up. There was a man in a suit offering his hand.

“Are you okay, son?”

I wiped the tears from my eyes, took his hand, and he helped me to my feet.

“I guess my knee gave out,” I lied, staring into his kind eyes. Were those the last eyes my mom saw? I hoped so. I hoped they were his kind eyes and not the eyes of her killer.

“Just wait until you get to my age. The knees are the first thing to go.” He laughed. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I hope so,” I said. “I honestly hope so.”

I continued walking down Main Street thinking about my mom. And my dad. And Grandpa. I decided, one way or another, I was not leaving Galena until the people that had wiped out my family paid for their crimes. If I needed to, I swore I would devote the rest of my life to bringing down the Salvatore crime syndicate.

I
decided to forget about
the phone for the time being and find a place to stay. I hadn't slept in almost forty hours and needed to lie down, at least for a few minutes.

Emma had said that the cheap B&B was located at the top of a long narrow staircase that had been cut into the bluff. I found the stairs between Cannova's Pizzeria and Ostby's Antique Store. I figured I'd see if I could get a room, or even afford a room, at the B&B before it got dark. And maybe someone there would know where I could buy a phone.

The stairs were steep and worn. I climbed for what felt like twenty minutes before I stopped. Was I even halfway up? I had to be halfway up. I stood for several minutes trying to catch my breath. I pushed myself against the railing to make
room for a small group of people walking down the stairs. They were talking about the farm accident. Apparently news traveled fast in small towns.

I reached the top of the bluff after another ten minutes and two more breaks. The view was spectacular. I could see all of Main Street and the park and the river that ran behind Main Street. I could see the fire trucks still out on the highway. They appeared to be hosing down what was left of the farm accident.