The Milestone Protocol Ernest Dempsey (best short novels of all time .txt) 📖

the tree trunks, but he saw the mound Diego indicated and shook his head. “Okay, Corin!” he shouted. “You can come out. I found Diego first.”

“Pfft. If I hadn’t laughed at you, I doubt you would have found me,” Diego charged.

“I heard you sniffle,” Desmond defended. “Gave away your position. Would have only been a matter of seconds before I looked up.”

“Okay, whatever.”

The pile of leaves moved, and then, like a monster rising from the earth, Corin stood up, shedding the dried camouflage. The leaves dumped onto the ground around her. She brushed off the ones that still clung to her coat and jeans. Beaming at the two boys, she trotted through the woods to where they stood, slowing to a stop six feet from them.

“I can’t believe you covered yourself in leaves and sticks,” Desmond mused. He looked at her like her clothes were made of lava.

She chuckled. “Why? You know I don’t mind getting a little dirty. That’s why the other girls call me a tomboy.”

“They do?” Desmond joked, pretending he’d never heard the phrase that no fewer than ten other girls had used for her.

She cocked her head to the side and put her hands on her hips, giving him the I know better than that look.

“Okay, maybe a few times.” He resisted his urge to smile but couldn’t fight it off long enough. Within four seconds he was laughing with the other two.

The three settled down after a minute, and Corin turned to her stepbrother. “Have you heard anything back from Tommy yet?”

Diego shook his head. “No, not yet.” He retrieved the phone from his jeans pocket and checked the screen to confirm. “Nope. Still nothing.”

“I wonder what’s taking him so long.”

“He’s a pretty busy guy,” Desmond hedged. “I mean, he does run a big operation with the IAA, and he’s overseas right now. What time is it in Sweden?”

She rolled her shoulders, admitting she had no idea. “I guess you’re right,” she conceded. “I just wish we knew what happened. I hope no one was hurt.” She felt like she’d said that a million times already.

The mood shifted on the breeze, from one of childlike laughter and fun to adult concern.

An alarm went off in Desmond’s pocket and he jolted, startled. He pressed one of the buttons through his jeans, and the alarm went silent. “I guess it’s getting close to time for us to go back,” he said.

“Yeah. Our parents are going to start wondering where we are with it getting dark so early now.”

The three began marching back toward their neighborhood, which wrapped around the tree park on three sides. Beyond the far boundary—the only place there were no houses—the forest path eventually led to the middle school the three kids attended.

They told jokes as they ambled through the woods, occasionally kicking a loose pile of leaves—though one contained a surface root that Diego nearly tripped over. As the homes of their subdivision came into view through the narrowing stands of trees, Desmond noticed something odd and slowed his pace.

“What’s the matter, Dez?” Diego asked, turning toward his friend.

“I guess my parents are having some people over for an early dinner,” Desmond answered.

Drawing closer to the street at a slower pace than before, three black SUVs came into full view, all parked in a line along the curb in front of the Ellerbys’ home.

Desmond stopped moving, halting in his tracks. His eyes remained locked on the Chevy Tahoe in the back of the line.

“What’s with you?” Corin asked. “Are they friends or—” Then she realized the problem. All the vehicles were the same make and model, which she’d failed to really consider. But beyond that, the one in the rear displayed a government-issued license plate.

“Are those FBI trucks?” Diego asked, keeping his voice just a shade above a whisper.

“I don’t know,” Desmond managed. “If they are, why would they be at my house? My parents haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Have you?” Corin chuckled. Her smile vanished when Desmond issued a warning with a finger to his lips.

“No. I don’t think so. Nothing the feds would want to know about.”

“The feds?” Diego hissed with derision. “Since when do we call them that?”

“Since we started seventh grade?” Corin breathed.

“No,” Desmond whispered. “Since we became friends with the team at IAA. I overheard Sean say it a few times when we were last there.”

Corin rolled her eyes but said nothing.

Desmond crept closer to the edge of the forest, careful to stay out of view by using the larger trees for cover.

He stopped at a particularly wide oak and peeked around the corner. Two men stood outside the house, just short of the front porch. They both wore aviator sunglasses and were chatting about something. The three kids were too far away to hear any details, but it was apparent that the two men were stationed as guards at the front of the house.

“Guards,” Diego said.

“But what are they guarding?” Desmond wondered.

“Yeah,” Corin agreed. “Are they trying to keep people out? Or keep people in?”

The question sent another shiver up Desmond’s spine. His skin pebbled under his coat sleeves at the thought.

For thirty seconds, no one said anything as they watched the two men speaking to each other in professional, but matter-of-fact mannerisms. As suspected, big yellow letters—FBI—gleamed off the back of the nearest man’s dark blue windbreaker.

“Whoa,” Diego said, noticing the bright letters, too. “It really is the FBI.”

Desmond ran the possibilities through his mind. If his parents hadn’t done anything wrong, and he was certain that to be the case, then that meant he was the guilty party. Except he hadn’t broken any laws that he knew of. Besides, he was a kid. What could he have done that would warrant a visit from the FBI, much less three SUVs’ worth of agents?

The answer struck him almost immediately. “The phone,” he realized.

The other two looked at him curiously.

“What about it?” Diego asked.

“My text to Tommy. Do you think—”

“They tracked it?” Corin’s eyelids opened wide, the epiphany