The Long Way Home (24 page)

Because this didn’t make sense, did it? What was happening here—none of it made any sense. If this was Sherman talking to the Homelanders, they wouldn’t expose themselves online like this, would they? They were so secretive, so good at keeping themselves in the shadows. This didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel real. And so maybe . . .

Maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe it was all phony. Maybe it was all just some kind of ploy to fool me, to keep me staring at the screen, to keep my attention diverted while . . .

My hand shot out quickly to the laptop and snapped it shut, turned it off. The light went out, the little parlor plunged into darkness, became one with the surrounding blackness of the Ghost Mansion.

They knew!

Suddenly I was certain of it. They knew about the Private Eye program. Of course. Mrs. Sherman must have told her husband that she thought she’d heard someone in the house. Maybe Sherman himself had seen the marks on the front door and guessed that the house had been broken into. His first thought would have been for the safety of his files, his computer . . .

I’d been careless. I’d been foolish. And now Sherman knew I had been in his office. He knew I had put the Private Eye program in his computer. He—he or someone—was sending false, nonsensical messages to keep my attention diverted to the screen while he traced my address, while he tracked me here.

I sat in the darkness, tense, listening. Did they already know where I was? Were they already on their way? Were they already outside, surrounding me? Or inside, already coming up the stairs.

I listened. For a moment or two, the house seemed silent. But the house was never silent, not really. There were always the creaks and groans of the wood settling. There were always the rapid footsteps of the vermin in the walls. There was always the wind outside in the graveyard, the leaves tumbling, the crickets in the dark.

Slowly—as slowly as I could—I unfolded from my sitting position and rose to my feet. I took a deep breath and let it out silently. Crouching slightly, I turned to face the parlor doorway.

I had to get out of here. I had to get out of here before they came for me. If I was outside, at least I’d be able to see them approach. At least I’d have room to run.

I started moving. Slowly. Step by step. Trying to keep the floor from creaking. I didn’t pause to take anything with me. All those great supplies my friends had given me—the sleeping bag, the food, the backpack— there was no time to gather them up. I had to leave them all behind. I’d still have my wallet. The money—that would help. Plus the Swiss Army knife that was still in my pocket. But all the rest—I had to leave it. I just had to go.

I moved on tiptoe, hardly breathing. I moved in the direction of the doorway, which I could just make out—a rectangle of deeper darkness in the darkness of the room. As I moved, I listened with every fiber of myself. Listened for the sound of the door downstairs, or the odd creak of a floorboard. Anything that would let me know the Homelanders were there with me in the dark. There was nothing.

Now I was at the doorway. Now I was stepping out— slowly, slowly into the hall. I had to get to the stairs. I took another step . . .

And I felt the icy-cold circle of a gun barrel pressed against the side of my head.

Mr. Sherman’s voice came out of the darkness.

“Too late, Charlie,” he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Homelanders 101

The bright beam of a flashlight pierced the dark, shot into my eyes, blinding me. I held my hand up, trying to block the light, trying to see him. I could just make out his figure, dimly visible in the outglow of the beam. He’d pulled the gun back from my head and was holding it close to his body so I couldn’t get at it. He waggled the barrel toward the doorway.

“Get back in the room,” he said. “Move. Now.”

I moved, turning away from the light, hoping my eyes would adjust. Sherman used the flashlight to show the way back into the parlor.

“Sit down on the floor,” he ordered. “Sit cross-legged.”

I did what he told me to do. I sat on the floor and crossed my legs. I looked up at him over the flashlight, shielding my eyes with my hand. I could see his face now. His bland, youthful, all-too-familiar face. He was smiling.

“I know you’re a dangerous guy, Charlie,” he said in a kind of friendly tone, the usual tone a teacher might use talking to one of his students. “But by the time you can untangle yourself from that position, I should be able to shoot you in about five different places.”

He had a point. With me sitting cross-legged and him standing above me with a gun, it would be pretty difficult for me to unwind and get at him before he opened fire. But that’s not what I was thinking about. I was thinking about the fact that he seemed to have come here alone. That was weird. Why would he do that? If he was one of the Homelanders, why wouldn’t he bring some kind of fighting force along with him?

Well, whatever the reason, I figured it was good news. It meant I had a chance against him, if I could figure out a way to get in the first strike.

“I wouldn’t think about it if I were you,” Sherman said, as if he were reading my mind. “The only reason you’re still alive is because I want some information from you, but if you give me any trouble, believe me, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

“Like you killed Alex,” I said. The words just came out of me—and as soon as they did, I realized they were true.

He gave a little laugh. “You’re the one who killed Alex, Charlie. Remember? The jury said so.”

I shook my head. “They were wrong. I never would’ve done it. Alex was my friend. I wouldn’t have murdered him. In fact, I wouldn’t murder anyone and you know it. That’s why you framed me.”

And I realized that was true too. And I felt relief, such incredible relief. I mean, it’s kind of crazy, I guess. There I was, sitting there helpless, with Sherman holding a gun on me, ready to kill me, wanting to kill me, and the relief just washed over me like a wave. I hadn’t killed Alex. I wouldn’t kill Alex. I wasn’t a murderer. I knew it.

“It had to be someone Alex knew,” I said to Sherman now, squinting up at him over the flashlight beam. “It had to be someone who could approach him in the park in the dead of night. Someone he’d stand there and talk to and argue with. It was you, wasn’t it?”

I saw Sherman give an indifferent shrug in the shadows. He didn’t bother to deny it anymore. Why should he? It wasn’t as if he would let me live to tell the tale. “You know, it really was your fault to some degree,” he said. “Partly your fault, anyway. I spent a lot of time recruiting Alex. We’d already brought him into the fold, educated him about our mission. But then he started to get cold feet, have doubts. That night, I was watching him to see if he was going to give us away to anyone.”

I nodded. I knew that was exactly what Alex was going to do that night. He was going to go to Sensei Mike. Mike would’ve straightened him out, gotten the truth out of him, gotten him to confess that Sherman was recruiting him for the Homelanders. But he never made it to Mike. He got in the car with me instead.

“I followed both of you that night,” Sherman said. “I heard you arguing in the car. I don’t know what you said exactly, but you really must’ve reached him, Charlie. By the time I caught up with Alex in the park, he was talking about leaving us, about going to the police. It was too late to let that happen. He knew too much.” He shook his head. “A lot of good work wasted. Just like with you.”

When he mentioned me, he moved the flashlight so it shone directly into my eyes. I had to turn my head and look away into the darkness.

“With me?” I said.

“You’ve made things very hard for me in the organization, Charlie. After Alex—and now you—I’m beginning to lose support. In fact, if I don’t redeem myself, I could be in quite a bit of hot water. That’s why I came here alone tonight. I need to know what happened exactly. Where did I go wrong with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you seemed . . . You seemed so committed to us. So committed to the cause. I mean, I was counting on that. That’s what I told them. I told them, a guy like you, a real true believer, with all your religion, all your blind patriotism, you were a natural for us. I knew if I could just turn all the passion of that belief to our side, you’d become one of the greatest warriors we had.”

“But that . . .”
That’s stupid
, I almost said. I mean, I don’t go around believing in things just to believe in them. I believe in the things that make people free. I believe in the things that bring people to their best lives, that give them the full lives God meant them to have, in good times and bad. Those free lives, those full lives—I’ve seen them— those are proof of the things I believe. So how could a band of angry, murderous, bitter men like Sherman convince me to believe something else? It was crazy.

I almost said those things out loud, but I didn’t. Because I suddenly realized: it was crazy. Everything he was saying was crazy. He seemed to think he had convinced me to become one of the Homelanders. But just as I knew I wouldn’t have killed Alex, I knew I never would have become a terrorist. I never would have joined him and his killers, no matter what was happening to me. And yet, they thought I had. Sherman obviously thought I had.

You seemed so committed.

Why? Why did I seem so committed? What had happened to make Sherman think I was one of them?

“You worked on me just like you worked on Alex,” I said. “You recruited me to become one of the Homelanders.”

“Oh, I told them. I told them,” Sherman said. “The situation was just so perfect, it would’ve been foolish to pass it up.” He said this in a kind of whiny, self-defensive voice. It was as if he were arguing with the Homelanders again, trying to convince them to let him recruit me. The argument going on in his mind seemed to make him agitated. He began pacing back and forth in front of me, moving one hand as he talked so that the flashlight beam danced wildly around the room.

I began to shift my legs a little beneath me, began to see if I could maneuver myself into a position to strike.

“I mean, after the police found Alex’s blood on your clothing,” Sherman went on, excited. “After that, I knew if we just helped them along, if we just . . . supplied the murder weapon with your DN A, we might clinch the deal and get you convicted. It was perfect! A true believer like you! When you saw how unjust everything was—how your precious American system failed you—how God failed you when he didn’t send his angels down from heaven to rescue you from being sent to prison—I figured you’d be bitter then, angry, betrayed—the perfect moment for me to get you to see the light. And you did. You did see the light. Better than Alex ever did. You understood everything, just like I thought you would. You were one of us, Charlie. I know you were. You couldn’t have been pretending. I told Prince—I told him—but he just wouldn’t believe me.”

Prince. I knew that name. I’d heard it when the Homelanders captured me. He was their leader. The head of the organization. I was beginning to understand.

“Prince was afraid I was going to betray you like Alex did,” I said.

Sherman snorted, getting more agitated, pacing back and forth faster, waving the flashlight around. “Prince! He was convinced you were working for someone else. He was convinced you were trying to infiltrate us.”

The idea sent a thrill of hope through me. Maybe that was the answer. Maybe I was working for someone else, joining the Homelanders only to bring them down. “He thought I was working for the law against you,” I said. “He thought I was some kind of spy for the police or something.”

I untangled my legs a little more, a little more. Not so much that he would notice, just enough that I’d be able to move quickly.

“I told him that was ridiculous. I told him,” Sherman whined.

Of course he had. Because if Sherman had recruited me, and I was some kind of spy, then Sherman was to blame. And I bet when this Prince guy blamed you for something, you didn’t survive the experience. So that’s why Sherman had come here alone tonight. He was hoping to prove I was innocent, hoping to prove he’d been right to recruit me, right to trust me to become part of his organization. He was hoping to get the information he needed to save himself from Prince’s retribution.

Which gave me an idea. Sometimes the simple truth is the best strategy you can come up with.

“I’ve lost my memory,” I told Sherman.

Sherman stopped pacing. He shone the flashlight on me. I saw his eyes gleaming as he stared. “What? What did you say?”

“I never betrayed anybody, Mr. Sherman. I didn’t infiltrate anybody. I couldn’t get Prince to believe me. I couldn’t get anyone to understand. It’s not that I’m against you. It’s that I just don’t remember.”

“But how . . . ?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything. A whole year is gone.”

“How can that happen? That doesn’t make sense.”

“I know . . . but it’s true. I didn’t betray you, I swear. I just can’t remember.”

For another moment, Sherman stared, openmouthed. Then I saw his teeth flash in the shadows. He was smiling.

“But that explains it,” he said. I could hear the hope in his voice. “That makes sense. You didn’t mean to betray us. You just lost your memory—and when you lost your memory, you lost . . .”

“All the work you’d done convincing me.”

He gave a little laugh to himself as if in wonder. It was all coming clear to him now. I could practically hear him thinking it through. This explanation might get him off the hook with Prince. If he could convince his leader that I was telling the truth, that I’d lost my memory, then it wouldn’t be as if he’d brought a spy into the organization. It wouldn’t be his fault.

“They captured me,” I said. “They tortured me. But I couldn’t tell them anything because I didn’t remember. I escaped to stay alive, that’s all. If they hadn’t tried to kill me, I wouldn’t have run.”

“Right,” said Sherman, still thinking about it. “Right. That makes sense.”

“I’ve just been really confused,” I said earnestly—as earnestly as I could. (Beth was right: I could be a pretty decent liar when I put my mind to it.) “Trying to figure out what’s right, what’s wrong. Trying to figure out who my friends are.”