“Hope not. See, I’m gettin’ my license in a couple of months. I was really hoping for that T-Bird. It’s a green convertible. Do you know it?”
She continues texting for a moment, then says, “Only green convertible around here belongs to Argent Skinner. If he’s selling it, he must be having a harder time than usual.”
“Or maybe he’s buying somethin’ better.”
She gives a dubious chuckle, and Lev gives her a winning smile with slightly puffy lips. She takes a moment to reassess, decides even with a driver’s license he’s still too young for her attention, and says, “He’s on Saguaro Street, two blocks up from the Dairy Queen.”
Lev thanks her and heads off with his burger and slushy. If he appears overeager, it’ll just play into his cover story.
Having passed the DQ earlier that morning, he knows exactly where to go—but as he reaches the corner, he hears something that sounds out of place in a town like Heartsdale. The rhythmic chop of an approaching helicopter.
Even before it arrives, a series of police cars pull onto the street. Their sirens are off, but their speed speaks of urgency. There are more than a dozen vehicles. There are Juvey squad cars, black-and-whites, and unmarked cars as well. The helicopter, now overhead, begins to circle the neighborhood, and Lev gets a sick feeling deep in the pit of his gut.
Rather than following the cars, he comes at the scene from an adjacent street, cutting through a few backyards, so as not to be seen. Finally he finds himself peering through the slats of a wooden fence at an unkempt ranch-style house that is in the process of being surrounded.
A house with a green convertible T-Bird parked on the driveway.
6 • Connor
That same morning, Argent comes down with a TV and plugs it into the outlet attached to the single dangling light fixture.
“All the comforts of home,” he happily tells Connor.
Argent, who must watch bad TV and infomercials all night long, didn’t wake up until after Grace had been gone and back, delivering her message to Lev. “Mum’s the word,” she had said. Connor has never known anyone else who actually used that expression. Now, as she enters behind Argent, she gives Connor a surreptitious zipped-mouth gesture.
The little TV pulls in a weak wireless signal from the house that makes everything painful to watch.
“I’ll figure out how to make it work better,” Grace tells Conner.
“Thanks, Grace. I’d appreciate that.” Not that Connor has any interest in watching TV, but showing Grace more appreciation than Argent shows her is key.
“No worries,” Argent says. “We don’t need a signal or cable to watch videos.”
By Connor’s reckoning, he’s been in captivity for about twenty-four hours now. Lev better have gone on without him. An antique shop near the high school in Akron where they first got separated. That should be enough for Lev to find it.
Argent, who called in sick at the supermarket, spends the morning playing his favorite videos, his favorite music, his favorite everything for Connor.
“You’ve been out of circulation for a while,” Argent tells him. “Gotta reeducate you on what’s cutting-edge in the world,” as if he thinks Conner was literally hiding under a rock for two years.
Argent’s theatrical tastes lean toward violent. Argent’s musical tastes lean toward dissonant. Connor’s seen enough real violence not to be entertained by it much anymore. And as for music, knowing Risa has broadened his horizons.
“Once you let me out of this cellar,” Connor tells Argent, “I’ll take you to see bands that will blow you away.”
Argent doesn’t respond to that right away. Since yesterday, Connor’s been mentioning things that they might do together. As buds. Connor suspects that whatever time frame Argent has in his head for Connor’s conversion, the turning point has not yet been reached. Until it is, anything Connor says will be suspect.
Argent leaves Connor with Grace to run some errands, and she is quick to bring out a plastic chessboard, setting up the pieces. “You can play, right? Just tell me your move, and I’ll make it for you,” Grace tells him.
Connor knows the game but never had patience to learn strategy. He won’t deny Grace the game, though, so he plays.
“Classic Kasparov opening,” she says after four moves, suddenly not sounding low-cortical at all. “But it’s no good against a Sicilian Defense.”
Connor sighs. “Don’t tell me you have a NeuroWeave.”
“Hell no!” says Grace proudly. “The brain’s all mine, such as it is. I just do good at games.” And then she proceeds to trounce Connor with embarrassing speed.
“Sorry,” says Grace as she sets up a second game.
“Never apologize for winning.”