Page 102 of The Chain House

It sounded like they were in a car. “Where are you?”

“We’re a mile away from you,” she said. “We have a man with us. Leland Mosby. He knows Luther Wright. He knew him when he was a boy. We were just in his bookstore, and someone shot it up trying to get to him … or us … I don’t know, but we need somewhere to go.”

“They’re following you?”

“We got out the back of the store but yes, we think at least one of them is following us.”

Sam looked up to find Agent Givens staring wide-eyed, his phone to his ear, nodding and listening, and Governor Hawthorne—who’d been paying attention to Sam’s call with Jennifer—must have noticed Agent Givens’s bloodless face as well. “What happened?”

Sam said Jennifer: “Give me a second.”

Agent Givens lowered his phone. “The house was a trap. Minks was expecting us. It just blew up, with four of our agents in it.”

“Sam?” Jennifer shouted over the phone.

Agent Givens said, “Who is that?”

“Jennifer,” Sam said, and then quickly told him the situation.

Agent Givens said, “This man Mosby knows Luther Wright?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll see that they get safe passage into the prison.” And then he left the room.

Sam said, “Jennifer … stay on the line. Wait for my directions. We’re getting you inside the prison.”

He heard her urging Carl to go faster.

And then he heard Carl say, “I’m already going ninety-five. The truck is shaking.”

Jennifer’s voice returned, “Sam … you need to talk to your father. He’s out there. He’s trying to find Minks … Luther.”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “He might not have been who you thought he was, Sam, but he’s … he’s always been what you needed, and you need him still, Sam. And he needs you.”

“My life was a lie,” Sam said. “My entire life, Jennifer. He’s not even my father!”

“But he’s your dad, Sam,” she said. “Not Sal Batise. I don’t care if he’s your biological father, Sam. He doesn’t care about you.”

“He does,” Sam said softly, but even as he said it he could hear the doubt in it, the pathetic false insistence of it.

“He’s playing you, Sam. You can’t trust anything he says.”

“I’m seeing this to the end,” he said. “I am all he has right now.”

“He’s a pathological narcissist, Sam. He doesn’t give a fuck about anyone but himself,” she said. “He uses his charisma and flair to control. He’s making you feel special so he can control you.”

“Bullshit,” he said, but knew she was right.

“He divides people to control them,” Jennifer said. “It’s been less than a day, and he’s got you under his thumb already. He’s turning you away from your real family.”

“I know who my mother is …”

“Sam, stop,” she said. “Your true mother died of cancer when you were a boy, and she was a hero and her favorite color was yellow, and …”

Agent Givens returned into the room and said to Sam, “Tell them to pull around to the back. There’s a sign for delivery trucks, a dirt road leading through the woods and around the back.”