I take the oars from him and start rowing, needing to do something other than sit here. “Don’t suppose any of those factoids you’ve got filed away could help us figure out what happens next?”
The sun is rising, lighting up the shadows under Grant’s eyes and the bedraggled muss of his hair. He rubs his forehead.
“Is there any chance this is some kind of guerrilla marketing tactic for the book?” he asks, his voice dragging with fatigue.
I shake my head, though it’s darkly funny imagining a PR associate absolutely shitting her Aritzia trousers when she finds out what we’ve done.
“What I really don’t understand is how Jack found me,” I say. “He couldn’t have followed us, could he? Did you see him when we left the city?”
Grant shrugs. “I don’t know. I was a little busy watching my life flash before my eyes.” With a yawn, he adds, “Did you check your phone? Maybe he tracked you somehow.”
I stop rowing, frozen by the memory of Jack plucking my phone from my hand and “adding his number” outside the library. I snatch my phone from my pocket. Nothing seems amiss—no sketchy new apps, no notifications. There’s the built-in locationsharing app, but I doubt he’d be so obvious. Then again, that probablywouldbe Anna Matthews’s idea of high-tech.
I tap through, and there it is:
Jack Smith can see your location.
God. I reallyamthe stupid character you yell at for being so stupid. And Smith? That’s the best he could do for a fake last name? It’s just adding insult to nearly fatal injury.
I revoke Jack’s location sharing permissions—a couple of hours too late, one could reasonably argue—and chuck my phone to the boat’s floor, cursing. “You see why I need you?” I say to Grant, a little more aggressively than I mean to. “So I don’t keep falling for shit like this. You know what to look out for. I can beat the bad guys, but you can tell me when they’re coming.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “It’s not a formula, you know. That’s kind of the point. Crime novels are supposed to be suspenseful.”
I laugh. “Yeah, right. Like you don’t read them and gloat about solving the crimes before the characters can.”
He shoots me the kind of silent glare that tells me I’m not wrong. But then something ticks in his brow—something a little more honest, maybe even vulnerable—and he says quietly, “I don’t want to kill anyone else.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “I’ll be the criminal; you be the mastermind.” I grab the oars back. “Maybe you could start by helping me figure out how we’re going to get to the Gifter, since we’re currently stranded at this house with no transportation or food or water or heat.”
“We can take the car,” Grant says softly.
“The one that’s now a submarine?”
“No, the one in the driveway,” he says. “Jack drove here. His car is still out front. I took his keys out of his pocket before Iwrapped him up.” He pulls them out of his own pocket and gives them a lethargic shake.
I stare at the keys, catching sparkles from the rising sun. I’m too exhausted to be relieved.
When we make it to shore, Grant helps me drag the rowboat back under the house, positioning it carefully to look like it hasn’t been used in months andcertainlynot to transport a dead body to its watery grave.
“And now,” I announce, “to the Gifter.”
Grant pulls Jack’s keys from his pocket and plods toward the driveway.
“Great,” he sighs. “I’m driving this time.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“You’re weirding people out,” Grant mutters.
The day is young, but Boston Common is bustling with early risers getting a jump on their weekend. Allegedly, I’ve given about half of them the creeps.
I huff impatiently. Have I spent the last half hour staring deeper into strangers’ eyes than is considered socially acceptable? Sure. Is the busker in front of us backing away slowly, his beatboxing taking on a slightly nervous timbre? Perhaps. But such is life when you’re on a high-stakes hunt and all you have to go on is one pair of blizzard-like eyes.
We continue along the path in the opposite of a victory march. We’ve combed through every square foot of the Common, checked all the adjacent street corners, looked down alleys. Nothing.
I sink onto a bench in defeat. “They’re not here.”
Grant sits beside me, habitually bouncing his leg as he frowns at the park around us. “Couldn’t be simple,” he sighs. “Couldn’t be a magical wish giver who hands out business cards with contact information.”
