“I can’t tell you that right now.”
“Because it involves the mystery man and he is none of my concern?”
She nodded.
Eddie looked around the room, imagining all the sound waves bouncing all around them. “Would you like to hear something else?”
“Not . . . now.” She had trouble getting the words out. Skylar had lost control of her breathing.
“Okay.”
She got up and started pacing around the room. Her head was spinning. She had no idea what she was going to do. Think, Skylar. Think! Do something! The only thing she was certain of was that her world was collapsing around her.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
“Do you know what I want to hear?” he asked innocently.
“No, Eddie.” She continued to pace. Should I go to the police? The FBI? The CIA?
“I want to hear my mother sing.”
She stopped dead in her tracks. It was suddenly crystal clear. Skylar knew what she had to do. And that was to get Eddie and his echo box the hell out of Harmony House. Beyond that, she didn’t have a clue. But she did know what the first step was. “You know what, Eddie?”
“No, I don’t.” He had no idea what he was supposed to know.
“I want you to hear your mother sing, too.”
“My father used to tell me she sang a lot when I was inside her stomach. Will you see if Dr. Fenton will give me permission to go to the house I grew up in?”
“I think we should go there right now.”
He looked confused. “Right now?”
“Right now.” She sounded certain. Defiant, even.
“Dr. Fenton said I should never try to leave without his permission.”
“What if I told you he already gave me permission?”
He made his BUZZER sound. “Not true, Skylar.” She had forgotten who she was talking to.
She spoke very carefully. “Eddie, what if I told you I didn’t think it was safe for you here anymore?”
He listened intently. The statement was true. And, therefore, upsetting. “Why isn’t it safe here anymore?” He glanced around nervously.
She looked him directly in the eyes. “You need to trust me on this for a little while. Can you do that?”
He thought for a moment. “Yes.”
“I would never ask you to do anything I didn’t think was in your best interest.”
He nodded. True.
“Good. Let’s go.” She spoke quickly, deciding that time was of the essence. She immediately helped him pack up the echo box and the laptop.
“Are we going to walk there, Skylar?”
“No, I think it would be better if we drive.”
“I don’t know how to drive.”
“That’s okay. I do.”
“Do you have a license?”
She nodded. “I do.”
“Have you ever gotten a ticket?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do wrong?”
“I was speeding.”
“How fast were you speeding?”
“I don’t remember, but it was faster than the posted limit.”
Eddie took a moment to consider what he should do. “I have been told many times that everybody makes mistakes.”
“Some more than others.” She was thinking of her faith in Dr. Fenton.
He watched her with interest. “You are moving very fast. Are we in a hurry?”
“Yes, we are.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want anyone to try and stop us. The sooner we leave, the better.”
Realizing it wasn’t a true-or-false statement but a judgment, he took a moment to consider his response. He didn’t like judgments. They were too hard to understand. But he did like Skylar. That much he was certain of. “Okay.” Together, they quickly carried the echo box and laptop out of Marcus Fenton’s office and headed toward the front entrance. “Skylar, do you know the address of where we are going?”
She paused. “No, but I have it in my office. Would you like to see it?”
“Yes, I would. Private spaces reveal much about people. My room is a good example. At least seventeen people have told me they’ve learned a lot about me just by being inside my room. I would like to know more about you, so, yes, I would like to visit your office.”
They veered up the stairs. Eddie counted each one. Seventeen steps to reach the second floor. Thirty-one steps down the hall. Skylar’s was the fifth office on the left. It looked out onto the yard where they had taken their walk to nowhere in particular. Eddie stared out the window as Skylar riffled through the papers in the many file boxes labeled Parks, Edward, searching for his childhood address. She couldn’t find it. “Shit.”
He practiced saying the word just like she had said it. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
She kept looking.
Eddie said, “Three seventeen West Susquehanna Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19122.”
“What’s that?”
“The address.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew it?”
“You didn’t ask. You asked if I wanted to see your office.”
“Let’s go.” She led him quickly out the door and down the stairs.
Eddie counted the same number of steps in the hallway and down the stairs that he had counted on the way up. Thirty-one and seventeen. Nothing had changed. That was a relief.
They carried Eddie’s equipment out the door and to her car. Skylar glanced toward the beige Impala, which remained empty. Thank God. She placed the echo box and the laptop supercomputer in her trunk, then opened the front passenger’s door for Eddie.
“I haven’t been inside a car in eight years, four months, and eleven days when I was taken to a dentist’s office for minor oral surgery.”
“There’s no time like the present.” She helped him into the seat.
“No, there is not. Every moment is unique and can never be repeated.” She made sure he was buckled in before getting in the driver’s seat. “Won’t the security guard try to stop us, Skylar?” Eddie stared at the driveway guard, whose back was toward them, as Skylar pulled out of her parking space.
“I’m pretty sure he’s only concerned about keeping people away.” Her voice quivered. She was nervous.
And Eddie could hear it. Which made him uncomfortable. He clenched his hands and started to fidget, particularly when he saw the security guard’s holstered sidearm. “Did you know the security guard has a gun?”
“Yes, I did.”
“I will be scared if he tries to shoot us.”
“I will be scared, too.” The guard continued facing out, but Skylar decided not to take any chances. “Eddie, would you do me a favor, and put your hands over your ears for a minute?”
“Okay.” He covered his ears and started counting seconds as Skylar hit the gas. VROOM! She accelerated past the gate before the guard ever had time to close it.
It took him a moment to process what had just happened. Then he grabbed his emergency phone. “Mr. Barnes, we have a problem.”
CHAPTER 32
Michael Barnes’s Office, Harmony House, May 27, 10:27 a.m.
The call from the Harmony House gate guard was nothing to panic over. Sitting in his office, Barnes asked the obvious question. “Why didn’t you stop them?”
Barnes was not a man who riled easily. Over the course of his various careers in the military, law enforcement, intelligence, and security, he’d been shot at too many times to count. He’d been hospitalized from injuries sustained on seven different occasions, two of which were life threatening. He had pulled his own trigger more times than he could remember. Three different people he cared about had died in his arms. One was the only woman he ever really loved. That was thirteen years ago. It was only after she was gone that he’d been free to become the machine he was now.
The guard answered nervously. “I didn’t see the vehicle until it was too late. My focus was on approaching traffic, not departing.” He tried not to sound too guilty, or too apologetic, either. After all, it was his boss who had instructed him to focus on external threats and not internal ones.