They said nothing else as they worked, carrying Grams’s boxes downstairs and more of Tom’s boxes upstairs, quietly going through their contents. Books and sweaters. A box of ammunition, but no gun.
She doesn’t want to be with me anymore.
The sentence repeated itself in his mind. He didn’t know if he believed it, didn’t want to know what would happen if he could.
His phone vibrated and he pulled it out, reading the text from Moto. “Holy shit,” he whispered, his eyes going wide.
“What is it?”
“The note in the book says, ‘TBV, thank you for all you have done. With your help and the influx of weapons, PFP will punish those responsible for the genocide.’”
“TBV… Vanderhoffen? But what’s PFP?”
“The People’s Freedom Party.” He filled her in on what he’d learned from Moto about Tom’s past.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” she demanded. “Jesus, Leo. This is my fucking family.”
“I just told you.”
“Yeah, because of that.” She gestured to the receipt, the color in her cheeks flaming. “My grandmother is letting a terrorist run Signet Firearms—one of the largest government weapons contractors in the country—and planning to give a bunch of sparkly new guns to his terrorist buddies, and you almost didn’t fucking tell me!”
“I was going to tell you. But right now, we need backup.” He took out his phone and dialed Moto, praying the call would go through. He raised an eyebrow at Charlotte. “That gun store receipt was dated six months ago.”
CALL FAILED.
“Shit.” He tried again. “We don’t know how deep Vanderhoffen’s involvement in the organization goes or how he’s planning to get weapons to them. I don’t even know who the fuck ‘them’ is, or where to find them.”
CALL FAILED.
He squinted to see the screen clearly. “Come on, I still have two bars. What’s the fucking prob—” As he was speaking, the bars disappeared. For a moment there was nothing, then tiny letters appeared reading EMERGENCY ONLY. “No. No, goddamn it. Not now.” He fought the urge to fling the device across the attic, then held it up, moving it from place to place while staring at the screen.
“What the hell are youdoing?” asked Charlotte.
“Looking for a signal. What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Searching for paranormal activity with the other Ghostbusters.” She got to her feet.
“I just had a signal, just now.”
“So send him a text. It will keep trying to go through. If the signal’s spotty, you’re never going to get a call to go through, but a text might make it.”
He brought the phone down and pecked at the screen with his thumbs, typing out a message to Moto. “I knew I should have called for backup,” he grumbled.
“Leo?”
He didn’t look up, but continued to type. “Yeah?”
“How is anyone going to get to the island? This storm isn’t over yet, and I highly doubt the bridges are crossable.”
Suddenly, a loud boom sounded from deep in the bowels of the house, a thundering vibration seeming to shake the entire structure. Charlotte’s eyes went wide. “Now what the hell was that?”
Cowboy was already on his feet. “That ain’t no fucking pickles,” he said, raced down the steep attic steps behind her. When they got to the second floor, an icy breeze blew up the staircase and rushed past his face as he ran. A woman screamed in the distance.
Charlotte gasped in horror. “Jesus, that’s Grams!”
10
“Help me! Somebody help me!” yelled Grams.
