Matt didn’t know what effect the cold outside air would have on Finch, but it couldn’t be good for him to be breathing cordite fumes. He opened the door to clear the car interior, dug out his wallet-phone, and punched in 911.
Moments later Matt leaned against the car fender as paramedics trundled Finch into an ambulance. The emergency services people hadn’t said anything about the bullet hole in the front seat. Matt had no idea what the ER doctors would make of the empty shoulder holster Finch was wearing.
He tried to kill me, and I end up saving his life, Matt thought, still feeling shell-shocked. He headed up the walkway to his house, his feet moving faster and faster as he neared the door. By the time he got inside, Matt was running. He tore down the hallway to his room, one hand digging for his wallet and the card Nikki Callivant had given him.
Matt almost punched his computer console into life. Reading from the card, he barked out Nikki Callivant’s private communications code.
A moment later Nikki’s elegant face appeared in the holographic display. “Matt?” she said in surprise. He could still barely hear her.
“Does your Grandpa Clyde use a short-barreled Smith and Wesson?” he demanded.
“Why are you shouting? What’s—”
“I’m shouting because I’m half-deaf! Your dear great-grandfather kidnapped me — tried to use that gun on me. The only reason I’m here is because he had a heart attack.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Nicola Callivant said, but her expression was beginning to get frightened. “Grandpa Clyde—”
She suddenly looked over her shoulder, apparently holding a conversation with someone who’d come into her room. Matt couldn’t hear what they were saying. If the pickup was getting it, their voices were too soft for his abused ears to register. But he could imagine the news Nikki was receiving.
Her face was pale when she turned back to Matt. “What did you do to him?”
“It’s more what he did to me. Apparently, he was ready to kill if that would protect your family’s dirty little secrets.”
“You’re crazy,” she said flatly.
“Fine,” Matt spat. “I’ll call my connections at Net Force, and let them find Grandpa Clyde’s gun. Let him explain what he was doing in that car in front of my house—”
“No!” Nikki cut in. She looked at her watch. “You’re at home?”
“Where else?”
“I can be there in forty-five minutes. Will you at least wait that long?”
Matt nodded.
She cut the connection.
Sagging back onto his bed, Matt took in a long breath. Forty-five minutes. It was a bad omen.
He staggered to his computer. This time he wasn’t leaving anything to chance. He was going to leave word for Leif and James Winters, telling them exactly what was going on, in case his plan to get the evidence for who was really responsible for all this mess didn’t pan out. One way or another, he was going to put a stop to this.
Nikki Callivant actually beat her estimated time of arrival, but even so, she cut it pretty fine. Matt’s parents were almost due back home. Matt had left a message for them, too.
He wanted them to know exactly where he was going.
Swinging round onto the expressway that would take them to Delaware, Nikki was tight-lipped and quiet. Finally she asked, “Are your ears any better?”
“Yeah. The ringing’s down to a mild roar. Looks like I didn’t bust an eardrum.”
“When I was little, Grandpa Clyde sometimes took me to a firing range. He always made sure I wore these big plastic earmuffs. Even so, the noise was awful.”
“I’ll tell you something. It’s even worse in a small space like a car. Maybe because it’s so sealed in.” As Matt spoke he cracked the window, letting a trickle of cold air play across his face. By this time he should be sitting down for supper with his folks.
He hoped the note he’d left didn’t scare them.
“You’re treating what — whatever happened like some big conspiracy,” Nikki’s voice took on an odd note as she flashed him a look from behind the steering wheel. “My family — we’re not like that.”
“Let’s see how your dad and the rest react to your new, lower-class friend,” Matt replied.
He suddenly understood her tone. Nikki wasn’t trying to convince him. She was trying to convince herself.
They rolled on, barely speaking, through suburbs and then a stretch of country. Matt glanced at his watch as they pulled up at a gated compound. Nikki had actually shaved a few minutes off her previous record.
A guy in a blue coat — obviously a guard — appeared from the gatehouse. He greeted Nikki respectfully, but kept his eyes on Matt.
“It’s all right, Marcus,” Nikki said. “He’s a friend.”
The gate opened, and they were in.
Matt supposed he must have seen pictures of the Callivant compound somewhere. In real life the place seemed smaller, less — well, rich—than he expected. There was a big house, though, blazing with light. Nikki parked her car, got out, and took Matt’s arm.
Matt might have thought that was funny, but he was glad of the silent support as they went up the front steps. As they crossed the entrance hall, a man who was just a little too tight-faced to be handsome intercepted them.
“Nikki, Marcus said you’d just come in. I thought you said you were going to the hos—” The man suddenly realized there was a stranger present and shut up.
“This is my father, Daniel Callivant,” Nikki said. “Dad, this is Matt Hunter. He’s the one who called the ambulance for Grandpa Clyde. That was pretty nice when you think about it. Matt says Grandpa Clyde was trying to shoot him at the time.”
Daniel Callivant handled it pretty well, but he hadn’t expected any such confrontation in his own home. For an instant, just an instant, his unguarded expression revealed that he knew who Matt was — and what Clyde Finch had been doing off in Maryland.
Nikki caught it. Her breath sucked in, then she said, “I think we’d better see Grandfather Callivant.”
“He’s working on a speech,” her father objected.
“I think this is more important.” Nikki began leading Matt deeper into the house.
“Nikki!” her father called after her.
“There’s a solarium in the back,” Nikki told Matt as they skirted a formal dining room. “It sort of serves as a community den. We do a lot of living on this level because of the Senator—”
A door stood ajar ahead of them, and the sound of a national newscast leaked out. Then the door opened all the way, revealing a man in a wheelchair.
“Nikki, what are you doing here when Clyde needs you?”
Walter Callivant still looked like a senator, even though it had been years since he’d held the office. He had a mane of pure white hair, and a handsome, dignified face, with, as one political writer tried to put it poetically, “the look of eagles.”
On closer examination, however, the eagle looked old. Callivant’s skin stretched tightly over his bones. A blanket covered him from the waist down, concealing legs that hadn’t been used almost as long as Matt had been alive.
The Senator’s cold blue eyes shifted from Nikki to Matt. From the look of contemptuous dislike, Matt suspected that Daniel Callivant had managed a quick briefing. Maybe a place this big had house phones.
“I have to see Grandfather,” Nikki insisted.
“With this — person?” The Senator’s tone of voice would have been better suited if he’d said “worm.”