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  He expected her to protest. He expected the door to be locked. He expected the big bruiser from outside to be standing in his way. Instead, Cecily said, “When you change your mind, call me. But do not wait too long. Wilson Klein is only the beginning of this.”

  Max wanted to whirl around and offer a snappy reply, but his desire to leave that building overcame his desire to be sarcastic. He hurried down the stairs, and when he reached the bottom, an electronic sensor slid open the door out.

  The bruiser was nowhere to be seen. He thought about walking to the Porter Agency office — only a few blocks away — but he did not want to hear Drummond’s attitude. The old ghost would simply reiterate what Max had already thought and said — that the Porter Agency wanted nothing to do with Cecily Hull.

  He got out his phone and ordered a ride share to take him home.

  A half-hour later, Max sat in bed with Sandra curled under his arm. He recounted the entire evening partly to get her up to speed and partly to release all the tensions that had built up over the course of the night. When he finished, she asked to see the pictures he had taken of the dented car.

  Max reached for his phone and showed her all the symbols. “You recognize any of it?”

  She shook her head. “There are so many ancient languages and private witch languages that nobody could know them all. If you want me to, I can look into it.”

  Setting his phone back on the nightstand, he said, “This really isn’t any of our business. The fact that Cecily Hull wants us to investigate it suggests that it must be connected with some group making a play against her attempts to control all of the witches.”

  “Then doesn’t that make it our problem?”

  “Only if we’re going to get into the business of deciding who runs things around here. That’s the same old game we got caught up in before. It seemed like a good idea the first time around with the Hull family, but that didn’t really work out. We got rid of them — for a while — but then the Mobleys and the Magi all thought they should each take over. Somebody’s always going to try to grab the power. I think for us, the best we can do is wait until the dust settles and figure out how we fit in.”

  Sandra kissed his chest before propping up on her arms. “You know what’s so strange is the way those symbols were all over the car. I’ve seen symbols laid out on the ground or on the corners of buildings or any number of other places, but there always seems to be an order to it. This just looks like a madman spewed everything out on his car.”

  A gentle knock sounded against the door, and PB stepped in. In a meek voice, one Max had never heard out of the young teen’s mouth before, PB said, “I think I know about those symbols.”

  Max and Sandra both bolted up straight. Sandra said, “You know what those symbols mean?”

  Max said, “You were eavesdropping on us?”

  PB started to turn back but J stepped into the room. Despite being smaller, J crossed his arms and blocked the way. The two boys exchanged a look before PB turned back. With a heavy sigh, he said, “I got something important to tell you.”

  Chapter 4

  MAX SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN SURPRISED that PB and J heard his discussion with Sandra. This wasn’t their old, large house. This was a starter home. There were only a few feet of hallway between the bedroom doors and the walls were thin.

  The four gathered together in the living room — the largest space in the house with barely enough square footage to place two couches and a wall-mounted flatscreen. PB and J settled on the blue couch (PB’s favorite) while Max and Sandra sat on the brown couch that hid stains well. Sipping from coffee mugs — coffee for Max and Sandra, hot cocoa for the boys — they watched each other with a mixture of love and wariness.

  Max wondered if all families felt this way when confronted by something big — at least, something that felt big. He had concern for PB, fear over what the boy might say, and an unsettling shiver that this could be the landmine he always worried about stepping upon. If he and Sandra failed to handle PB’s problem, the boy might never trust them again. After all, how could PB and J accept them as parents if they failed their first test?

  PB had grown in the last few years — his chest had broadened, his face had become more angular, his muscles more defined. Yet he never lost the cautiousness in his eyes. The boy acted like a war veteran always on the search for the next threat, the next ambush. Max wanted to assure him that they would not be behind such an attack but lacked the words to cut through the boy’s defenses. If he and Sandra screwed up this time, PB might never listen to them again.

  J, on the other hand, approached life with a gleeful joy that never failed to warm Max. He had spent the same time on the streets as PB, and he was smaller, easier to pick on. As a black male, he suffered plenty of prejudice from people and the systems of society. Yet despite all of that, he never gave up on the world. He let his intelligence shine.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Sandra said. “We’re here to listen.”

  The words sounded hollow to Max’s ears. The look on PB’s face suggested that he felt the same. J nudged PB with his foot, and PB shoved J back.

  “Don’t make us wait all night,” J said.

  “Shut up.” PB tried to avert Max’s eyes. “I’ll get to it when I’m ready.”

  As soft and kind as Max could pipe into his voice, he said, “Take all the time you need.”

  At length, PB said, “Only reason I’m bringing this up is that I heard you talking about a bunch of symbols and that they were like a madman threw them all over the place. Y’all have come across strange writing before on your cases, and I never heard you describe it like that. Thing is — that’s exactly how I thought about the writing I saw.”

  Max pulled out his phone and brought up the pictures of the car. “Take a look.”

  PB swiped through several of the photos and nodded. “That’s them.”

  “Who?” Sandra asked.

  “The people who killed my dad.” PB lifted his head, and his eyes shimmered. “Same people I think are coming after me.”

  Max could feel Sandra’s tension rising up alongside his own. With a shiver in her voice, she said, “What makes you think —”

  “I ain’t stupid. I know what I saw.”

  Max put one hand on Sandra’s leg and the other out toward the boys. “Let’s all calm down and hear what’s going on. You tell us whatever you’ve got to tell us, and we’ll do everything we can to help you, to protect you.”

  J leveled a stern look at PB.

  “I said I would,” PB said. “Stop given me the eye.”

  But PB held still, closing his mouth with a subtle shake of his head.

  As if PB had punked out of a dare, J said, “Oh, come on, man. After all this, you going to have to tell them.”

  A memory flashed in Max’s head — floating above his own body at Forsyth Hospital. Mother Hope had cursed him into that strange existence, and at one point, PB snuck into the hospital room while everybody else was away. Thinking Max could not hear him, or perhaps wishing he could, PB tried to tell him a large and terrible secret. The fear on PB’s face matched the fear he now held.

  “Close your eyes,” Max said. “Think about that time at the hospital.”

  PB’s head snapped up. “You heard me then?”

  “I guess so. I didn’t realize it until now. You trusted me then when I couldn’t do anything to help you. Trust me now. Trust us.”

  Like an older man confessing to a priest, PB hunched his shoulders and kept his eyes upon his fidgeting fingers. “I loved my dad. He took care of me and my mom. Made sure we had a roof over our heads and food on the table. He wasn’t always around, but he did his best. My mom — she was high all the time. When my dad was away, I spent most of my days trying to keep her from doing anything stupid.”

  “Sounds like my childhood,” Sandra said.

  PB gazed at her for a moment and shared a knowing nod before he lowered his head again. “One night, I don’t know why I d
id this, I guess I was just fed up, but when my dad said he had to go out for a couple hours — and that often meant a couple days — I had to know where he was going. I got it in my head that he had another family. I kept picturing him with a perfect wife and a couple kids who did nothing wrong, and he gave them all his money, and well, I just had to know.” PB shuddered. “I kind of wish it had been another family. It would’ve been easier to take.”

  Max sipped his coffee, but he had no need for the caffeine boost. PB’s intensity electrified the room.

  “We lived downtown,” PB continued. “So, my dad just started walking, and I followed. Block after block. He ended up in a part of the city where all the signs are in Spanish, and he met up with a bunch of other people in the yard behind a little, blue house. I didn’t get it at the time, but I’ve had years to think about it — I’m pretty sure all the backyards that met up against that one, that all the people who owned those yards were there that night, too.

  “Anyway, I hid behind some bushes and watched. They all took off their clothes and put on these black robes with hoods on them, and they made a big circle. A bunch of those weird symbols were painted on the backs of the robes.”

  Max looked to Sandra, but she put up a hand to stop him from speaking. A nod in PB’s direction reminded him that the boy had enough trouble getting this far in his story. They should let him speak to the end.

  “One of these guys wore a purple robe — different from the others. I figured he was the leader. He rambled on for a while about a bunch of crap I didn’t care about. I still don’t. Stupid sounding names and words and things. But I did get what the point was — money and power. The leader said that soon they were going to have all the money and power they could dream of, and I’ll never forget this part — he said they were going to rival Skull and Bones.”

  “What’s that?” J asked.

  “I didn’t know at the time but I looked it up later.” To Max, PB added, “You’d be real happy. I did some serious research.”

  Max smiled. “I’m sure you did a great job. What did you find out?” No point in ruining PB’s moment by showing off that he already knew the answer.

  Huffing a little, PB said, “Skull and Bones is this not-so-secret secret society. It’s kind of like a fraternity for rich people. They help each other out through their lives with powerful stuff like getting to be Senators and Congressmen and for running businesses. Stuff like that. Probably a bunch of illegal crap, too.”

  J said, “Woah. And your dad was one of them?”

  “Seemed like it. But it also seemed like they were trying to recruit my dad and all those other folks. Because they started asking for tribute — which I found out later was a fancy way of saying give them money. And that’s when I started thinking about all the stuff that had been stolen from our house. Stuff I assumed my mom had pawned off for drug money. But then I started thinking that maybe my dad had been pawning it off to get money to give to these whack jobs. Or maybe he just gave them the stuff he stole. I don’t know, but it was real crazy to me. When I got older, that’s when I started thinking the whole thing wasn’t a special secret society, but it was a cult.” PB dabbed his palms against his eyes. “I think my dad tried to join a cult.”

  Max didn’t know what to say. As PB had described it, this group did indeed sound like a cult — a bunch of people filled with desperation choosing to give their worldly possessions to a charismatic leader who promised wealth and power at some nebulous point in the future. Max could almost believe it. But those symbols — they were the aspect of this that did not ring true to a blind cult. Those symbols spoke more of a coven or at least a loosely-organized group that explored witchcraft. Of course, that could still operate like a cult. But the world that Max resided in took the witchcraft aspect far more seriously.

  Another nudge from J’s foot and PB said, “I’m getting there.”

  “There’s more?” Sandra asked.

  PB nodded. “They spotted me. At least, I’m pretty sure they did. I shot out of there fast like if the police had shown up. I never felt my heart pound so freaking hard. I didn’t stop running until I got home.

  “My dad comes back later that night and goes straight to bed. Next few days things between him and me are really tense, but he never mentions any of it. After two days, I started thinking maybe I’d gotten away with it. Maybe they hadn’t actually spotted me, and I just got scared.”

  Max had a dark thought. “But that was wishful thinking, wasn’t it? They did spot you.”

  “My dad disappeared. Not like before, not going away for a few days. He flat out was gone. Usually he slipped away with some clothes and such. But he left everything behind. Including his wallet with all his cash. My mom and I, well, neither of us reported it. I think I hoped he’d be coming home like normal sooner or later. But in the end, when I was starting to get ready to call the police, they came knocking on my door. They were rude and mean, talking like my dad didn’t really matter because we were poor and crappy people, but the cops did make it clear — my dad was dead. Said it was a car accident.”

  “But you don’t believe that.”

  PB lifted his head and stared straight into Max’s eyes with a ruthless, feral glare. “I don’t have to believe it one way or the other. I know. Next morning, I walk outside and find all those symbols painted on the sidewalk in front of my house. That’s when I thought they looked like a madman threw it all up on the concrete. You get it? They killed my dad. They killed him because I followed him. They killed him because I saw what I wasn’t supposed to see. I’m the reason he’s dead.”

  “No. None of this is your fault.”

  PB launched forward until he stood in the middle of the room, breathing hard and sweating. “I’m the reason they killed him. Me. And now there’s another one of them out there killing people again, painting weird symbols everywhere. They’re going to come for me soon. You look into that guy who died, and I guarantee you’re going to find that he saw something he shouldn’t have seen. Just like me. These people — they don’t take to the loose ends. That’s what I am. I ran away from home so they wouldn’t go after my mom. When you found me and started having me work for you, I figured they’d never bother looking for me right under their noses, right here in Winston-Salem. I don’t even use my real name. But I can see now that I was stupid. They’re coming for me, and I can’t stop it.”

  Sandra rushed over and wrapped her arms around PB. Though he tried to stay tough, stay stoic, in the end her embrace forced him to fall against her chest. He buried his tears against her.

  Max stood and pulled out his phone. “Don’t you worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He tapped a number and waited for the ring. When he heard a greeting, Max said, “Cecily Hull, you’ve just hired the Porter Agency.”

  Chapter 5

  WHEN MAX WOKE, he stayed in bed, stared at the ceiling, and listened to Sandra getting breakfast ready. Running on only four hours of sleep and dealing with the physical crash that followed his caffeine-adrenaline boosts left him with a desire to curl under his covers and blot out the world. Not even a full Thanksgiving dinner could bring on sleep as strongly.

  But then he heard PB mumble something and Sandra returned with a sarcastic groan. He heard J bounce into the kitchen with all the exuberance of a puppy ready to play. Eager to set the table and get his day at school started, J jabbered nonstop. No chance Max would be getting back to sleep.

  He sat up in bed, rubbed his eyes, and gave his cheek a firm slap. He had a job to do. More importantly, he had a job to do for PB. After a quick shower and half-a-cup of coffee, he settled at the kitchen table with the boys and Sandra. To PB, he said, “I don’t want you to be worried about any of this. We’re a good team and we know how to find answers.”

  PB spread his hands out as if placating an idiot. “Why would I be worried? Just because there’s a bunch of crazy people in robes out there thinking about killing people — probably me. No reason to worry about that. Th
is’ll be a snap.”

  “I didn’t say it would be easy. I’m just saying we’ve got your back.”

  “Okay, boys,” Sandra said as she started clearing the table. “It’s still a school day. Get your stuff together.”

  “I have to go to school today?” PB said.

  “Absolutely. Grandma Porter is expecting you.”

  Max still winced inside whenever he heard his mother referred to as Grandma Porter. They had tried out a few other names — Gammie, Granny, Meemaw— but nothing quite fit. Max even suggested Professor Porter since she was PB’s main homeschooling teacher. But despite the witchy images the name Grandma Porter inspired for Max, everybody else had grown accustomed to the moniker.

  “I just thought,” PB went on, “that with it being dangerous right now, I shouldn’t be following my normal routines. Isn’t that what you suggest to your clients when somebody is after them?”

  Max said, “Right now, it’s more important that you’re someplace we know is safe. My mother will take good care of you, and if anything were to happen, she can contact us right away. But nothing’s going to happen. We don’t even know if anybody is actually after you.”

  “We don’t know that they’re not after me, either.”

  Sandra rattled the dishes in the sink before turning around and placing one hand on her hip — never a good sign. “Number one, you’re going to school. Number two, if these people really wanted you dead, they had many years to take care of it. Don’t go around thinking you’re some superspy that kept yourself below their radar all this time. And number three, you’re going to school. Now clean up and get ready.”

  PB and J knew enough to hurry out of the kitchen. Once they were in the bathroom brushing their teeth, Sandra turned to Max. In a softer tone, she said, “Am I telling the truth? Was he right? Do you think somebody’s actually after him?”