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gun, but Connor grabbed it first. Then Austin twisted and flipped out of the chair and got free of Olin and Dylan. “What the hell?” he screamed, stumbling backward as he tried to find his balance.

“Where are my parents?” Olin demanded.

Balance restored, Austin lunged at Olin even as Connor shouted to get his attention. They fell to the floor, each fighting to be the man on top. When Austin managed to pin Olin down, Dylan jumped on top of him, wrapping her arms around him and trying to pin his arms to his side, but he shook her off easily.

Connor fired a shot into the ceiling. “Hey!”

Everyone turned to face him.

Although they all looked surprised, Austin was the only one who also looked bewildered. Probably because Connor now had the gun aimed at him. “Son, what are you doing?”

“Son?” Now Dylan looked a little bewildered, too.

“It’s a long story.” To Austin: “Get the hell off him.”

“But . . . what about what you just told me?”

“Why do you think I told you that? Get off him.”

Austin reluctantly stood up, took several steps back so as not to crowd Olin when he, too, got to his feet.

“Where are my parents?” Olin said again.

“Tell him,” Connor said.

Austin glanced nervously between Connor and Olin. “They died. In a fire.”

“In a fire you set,” Connor clarified.

Olin’s face twisted with rage. “You son of a—”

Connor could tell he was about to launch himself onto Austin again, so he fired another shot into the ceiling to regain control of the situation. “That’s not the way we’re going to handle this.”

“Why not?” Olin sounded like he was doing everything he could to control his anger.

“I don’t want you going to jail.”

Olin looked at Dylan as if asking for a second opinion, and she gestured as if to say she agreed.

“We need some rope,” Connor said.

Dylan crossed to the cellar door. “Come on up!” she shouted. “And bring some rope with you.”

Kim emerged, holding a length of rope in one hand. It was so long that it dragged on the floor behind her.

Connor figured it must have been one of the ropes Austin had used to tie them up. Fitting, he thought, that they were now going to use that same rope on him.

While Connor kept the gun aimed at his father, Olin bound Austin’s hands. Then, as Connor looked around for something to tie him to so he couldn’t escape—the handle of the stove, perhaps—he had a better idea.

They weren’t just going to use Austin’s rope.

He shoved Austin forward to get him moving. “This way,” Connor said, directing him toward the cellar door. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER 60

Connor found his cellphone on the kitchen counter. He used it to call Olivia, gave her the address for the cabin, told her they would be there waiting. She asked where Austin was, and Connor responded only by saying that she didn’t have to worry about him. He wasn’t going anywhere.

The reason he wasn’t going anywhere, Olivia found out when she arrived, was that Connor and his friends had locked Austin in a cage in the cellar. “They are the cages he kept my parents in,” Connor explained. “That’s where they’ve been this whole time.”

Olivia had arrived with half a dozen black-and-whites in tow for backup and a second detective Connor didn’t recognize but Olin did.

“That’s the man who was working my case,” Olin said when he saw him.

The detective looked like he had stepped right off one of those CSI shows—tailored suit, trim, his hair just so. He walked right up to Olin. “So they found his parents,” he said, gesturing to Connor. “What about yours?”

Olin couldn’t get the words out, so Connor stepped in to explain what had happened.

The detective’s only response was, “Shit. I’m sorry.” At least he sounded sincere when he said it.

Getting back to a normal life was difficult. Connor followed the news for a while, hoping the police would catch the bombers. At first, things seemed promising. Using blast-radius technology and video surveillance from Albright Mall, they were able to identify a man named Logan Wright as their prime suspect and even made an arrest. So at least there was that. The other four bombers, though, would likely never be found. The talking heads on CNN and MSNBC speculated one or all of them might be dead, but there was no way to know for sure.

Oliva checked in with him and his mom regularly while she wrapped up her investigation. Mostly crossing the Ts and dotting the Is. Matt, or Austin as he now called himself, was in jail. Frank was dead. So the only thing that seemed to really be in doubt was who had killed Frank’s wife, Heather, in Prague. Connor wasn’t sure how much that mattered anymore. The story Roland had told Olivia tracked almost entirely with the one Austin had told him. The only difference was that, according to Roland, Frank had operated alone.

He never got the details of the murder, though. Those Olivia kept to herself. Connor didn’t need to know them and didn’t want to. All he cared to hear was that his mother was innocent.

Frank’s motive: That was simple enough. Kim made good money as a doctor and had inherited even more. Frank had wanted the lifestyle she could provide, and had set out to leverage the grief Kim believed they shared to get it.

When Connor asked Olivia why she hadn’t told him Matt had been set up the night she called to warn him he had escaped from prison, she said she hadn’t been able to confirm whether it was true and didn’t want to alarm him unnecessarily if it wasn’t. Besides, no matter who had killed Heather Callahan, Matt had abducted Frank and Kim, and at the time she was convinced Connor might be in danger as well.

The details of the murder Olivia put into her case notes, of course. And, if Roland was to be believed, it had been surprisingly simple.

Roland said Frank had ordered room service