Seconds later, Uncle Roy pulls up in the Caddy. This time Brandt doesn’t wait for me to open the door. He practically leaps into the back seat with the briefcase on his lap and we head across campus. Uncle Roy drives in silence. Out the window I see tiny dots of white swirling down through the street lamps. It’s starting to snow. Brandt pops a couple of ibuprofen. His phone chimes and he ignores it. We keep driving, the lights on the highway flashing by us in the oncoming night.

“Been meaning to tell you,” Uncle Roy says from the front seat, glancing in the rearview mirror. “I like that picture of you and your pal online.”

Brandt stiffens but doesn’t say anything, and I think I can actually hear his back molars grinding together. By now his grip on the briefcase is enough to permanently dent the leather.

“I gotta say, though,” Roy continues, “that statue must’ve been pretty cold, huh?”

“You want to shut your mouth, old man?” Brandt says. “Or maybe I’ll come up there and shut it for you.”

Roy eyes him. “You try.”

“Guys,” I say, “take it easy, okay?”

Roy returns his attention to the road. Brandt holds on to his briefcase. When we arrive at the office space in Lowell, he jumps out and heads up the stairs. I follow closely. On the landing, I put my hand on his shoulder.

“Hold on,” I say. “When we get into McDonald’s office, let me talk to him first. I think he’ll let you make the bet, but I just want to be sure.”

Brandt ignores me, shrugging off my hand, and barges through the door. Inside, it’s business as usual—Rhonda on the phone at the reception desk, smoking a Camel and working on her nails, programmers at their computers in the main office. Brandt walks past all of them and slams his briefcase onto the nearest empty desk.

“Somebody get me a laptop.” He looks around, whipping his gaze back in my direction. “Where’s your boss?”

Across the room, the private office door opens and Dad comes out. First he stares at Brandt, and then he looks at me, pointing one accusatory finger in my face.

“I thought I told you not to bring that piece of crap around here again.”

I take a step back. “He wants to make a bet, Mr. McDonald. I tried to talk to him, but he’s got cash in hand—”

“How much?” Dad asks.

Brandt dials in the combination on the briefcase and pops the latches, opening it up to reveal rows of cash, neatly stacked and bundled. “Two million.”

Dad stares at it for a second, then shakes his head. “It’s too much. I can’t cover a bet that big.”

“That’s what I tried to tell him,” I say, “but—”

“There’s nothing on your site about a house maximum,” Brandt says. “Which means you have to take this bet.” He steps forward. “And by the way, you can tell your daughter I said that she can go to hell.”

Dad glares at him. Something twitches in his jaw. Then he looks at me.

“Get him a laptop,” he says.

It’s Lupo Reilly who brings the laptop over and sets it up next to Brandt’s briefcase full of cash. Brandt sits down in front of it and Lupo hovers nearby, next to Dad. All the crew members are watching out of the corner of their eye, but Brandt’s too distracted to notice. Next to the briefcase, his iPhone sits there, turned on, screen up. Brandt logs on to the poker site, and Lupo takes possession of the briefcase, then clicks in his credit—two million in cash. Dad and I are standing five feet behind Brandt, just far enough back to get a full view of everything as it happens.

The hand gets dealt. Brandt looks at it and places his bet.

“Wait,” Dad says. “You’re betting the full two million on one hand?”

“Maybe I’m feeling lucky.” Brandt glances at the iPhone and then at the laptop, where he trades in two cards.

I look at Dad. He looks at me. I’m aware that I’ve been holding my breath for a very long time. I can tell Dad’s just as nervous.

Brandt looks at the phone again, then back at the computer screen. I try to swallow but my throat’s too dry. A single pinhead of sweat prickles against the right side of my rib cage. Brandt’s finger hovers over the return button, suspended there in space.

Two million dollars.

One tap and the money’s ours.

That’s when I hear the door fly open behind us.

“Don’t do it, Brandt.”

It’s a girl’s voice, one I would’ve recognized anywhere. We all look around at once, and I see Andrea burst into the office in a flurry of papers.

“Andrea?” Brandt gapes at her. “What the—”

“This whole thing is a scam.” She points at Dad. “That’s not Mr. McDonald—it’s Will’s father. There is no online poker site. They’re about to take you for two million dollars.”

Brandt’s mouth falls open, and for a brief, shining moment, all the wealth and entitlement drain away, leaving a pale, shocked kid caught with his pants around his ankles. For that instant, however short-lived, it’s almost more gratifying than the money.

Then he goes for the briefcase.

“Forget it,” Dad says, blocking the way, but Brandt manages to grab the handle of the case anyway. Dad rounds on Andrea, lunging for her with both hands. She steps neatly back out of his reach and fires a glance in my direction.

“The police are on their way,” she says.

I stare at her. “I can’t believe you did this. I stood up for you in front of Melville.”

“Noted and appreciated,” she says. “It’s time to do what you do best, Billy. Run away. New Jersey awaits.”

I take a step back, but my legs don’t work. They seem to have disappeared underneath me. I can see Andrea and Brandt heading for the door, and that’s when Dad makes his move, throwing himself at Brandt and trying to yank the briefcase from his hand.

“You’re not leaving with—”

Brandt whirls and slams the briefcase into my dad’s head, knocking him backwards. The case flies across the room. On the other side of the office, Rhonda is on her feet, lips drawn down in a rictus of panic. “Frank, no!” She reaches into her purse, and the world goes into slow motion as I see the automatic coming out, swinging toward Brandt and Andrea.

Rhonda fires.

Brandt ducks.

Andrea doesn’t.

Thirty-Six

FOR A SECOND NO ONE CAN SPEAK—OR IF SOMEONE DOES, I can’t hear a sound. The gunshot seems to have cracked reality itself in half. My dad is the first one to find his voice.

“What . . . ?” He’s staring down at Andrea on the floor, blood splattered across her white blouse, and then he looks up at Rhonda. I can see the whites all the way around his eyes. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t . . .” Rhonda manages, and the words seem to trail off into silence. The air around us smells like gunpowder. With a blankness of expression, Rhonda looks down at the gun in her hand and forces the next few syllables out. “Frank, I thought . . . you said . . .”

“You stupid cow. What the hell were you thinking?” Dad’s face has now gone white with alarm, and he stares at me. Sirens are rising in the distance, getting closer, and I can see him trying to remember every exit. “This isn’t happening.”

Meanwhile, all I can see is Andrea.

She’s sprawled out below me, pale and motionless, staring up at the ceiling, and I think of the way that Mr. Bodkins described her to me after my first day at Connaughton. Looks like she sleeps in a coffin. There’s a thread of blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, and her hair is over her eyes. Looking at her, I feel like somebody’s kicked me in the chest.

Somewhere off to my right, Brandt is making weird, high-pitched, asthmatic noises, and I can feel him trying to process what’s happening, the facts sinking in, and how he can’t possibly be here in the middle of this room. I know exactly how he feels. This isn’t part of the script. Dad and I were supposed to have Brandt’s cash and be out the door by now. Instead there’s a seventeen-year-old girl on the floor in front of me with a bullet in her chest, dying.