The pounding on Henry’s door jerked him out of a sound sleep five minutes before his alarm went off. Instead of the little jazzy tune from his phone, there was that insistent banging. He sat up in bed, the covers twisted around his legs, and tried to figure out where he was and what he was supposed to do. It didn’t stop, a constant thump, thump, thump that was just out of sync enough not to be a metronome.
Loon Lake Retreat. The cabin. And the pounding meant he should get up and go see who it was.
Henry looked down because he honestly couldn’t remember what he usually wore to bed: a T-shirt and boxers. Hell. The knocking meant he didn’t have time to put anything else on, so if Emily wanted to talk to him so damn badly—
The door swung into him as soon as he turned the knob enough for the tongue of the latch to clear, and Henry swore as the bottom caught his foot and tore one of his toenails. At first he didn’t even notice that he’d been shoved back against the wall, even though his head rebounded off the sheetrock, and there was a hand balled around the front of his T-shirt. “Who the fuck called here on Tuesday?” someone snarled.
Henry tried blinking. “Percy?”
The fist pushed into his chest, not a punch, but then only because the knuckles were already digging into his sternum. “Who … the fuck … called here … on Tuesday?”
The question didn’t make sense.
Percy took a slow breath through flared nostrils. “Jane heard you tell Truman you overheard the call. Alyssa’s not here for me to ask, so who the fuck called here on Tuesday?”
Tuesday? Was that Tuesday? And wait, Jane heard him say that? What, lurked outside the linen closet? And why hadn’t he seen her?
Well, okay, that last one was answerable: he’d stormed his way out of there without looking around. Maybe he could’ve bowled her over, or pushed her into the wall the way Percy—
Percy drew his arm back this time, pulling Henry up so he could slam him into the wall again. “Do I really need to repeat the question?”
Um. Okay. The phone with its two buttons, either of which might help him out, was in the main room. The two of them were in the little hallway separating the bathroom from the bedroom. The cabin door hadn’t closed all the way, but it wasn’t like Henry could make a run for it. At this point he was up on his tiptoes, and one of those toes felt like it was on fire. “I don’t know who Alyssa was talking to.”
Percy sighed and dropped his head, shaking it regretfully, but the pressure on Henry’s chest didn’t change. “Listen, Henry. Buddy.”
“I was in the chair by the fireplace, the thing was roaring, and I couldn’t hear the person on the other end of the phone,” Henry insisted, forcing himself to speak slowly not because he sounded more confident but because this conversation needed to be brought down a peg. “I know she kept saying ‘sir,’ and I think she said the resident he was trying to contact was also a guy, but mostly she just kept saying sir, leave me your contact information and she’d pass it on so the resident could correct the pass phrase.”
Percy’s eyebrow—why hadn’t he noticed before that Percy only had one eyebrow?—lowered in a scowl. “Then why did you tell Truman you knew who it was?”
“I didn’t tell Truman I knew who it was. I told him Alyssa knew who it was, but I don’t think he knew even that much. He said …” Henry shook his head a little. “He said she shouldn’t tell him. But.”
There wasn’t much space between them, but Percy leaned in all the same. “But?”
“Jonathan took the call.” Henry cleared his throat. “Alyssa told him it was a number, some sort of code, and he took it on the phone in the kitchen.”
Percy blinked and his eyes unfocused slightly, going to one side. “In the kitchen.”
“Yes.” Why was that the part that mattered? Jonathan knew who was on the other end of the phone. And hey, they didn’t actually have any proof that the whole revealing of their real names thing was because of that phone call. It came after, and honestly right now Henry couldn’t think of any other explanation for it.
Slowly Percy’s eyes came back to Henry’s face. “What did Alyssa say?”
“What—?”
Percy slammed him back again. “What did Alyssa say?”
“She didn’t have a chance to say much! She said hello, and asked for the pass phrase, and tried to tell the guy it was the wrong pass phrase so she’d have to give his name to the resident so he could get the right pass phrase, and she picked up a sticky note or something, but she never wrote anything down. I guess the guy raised a stink, because that’s when—no, wait.” Henry shook his head again, hating how he recoiled in anticipation of another blow. “The guy, the caller, probably asked to talk to a manager, because she said something like certainly, sir, and put him on hold, and then Jonathan came out and she told him the code and he took the call in the kitchen.”
Even though he wasn’t moving, Percy’s chest heaved like he couldn’t catch his breath. “What happened then?”
“Then?” Henry blinked, but that wasn’t him being stupid or stalling. It was his brain struggling to keep up, and that brain was going to suffer another collision if Percy thought otherwise. “Then you came in.”
“I came in?” Percy repeated, and he really should’ve brushed his teeth this morning.
“Wait, no—Jonathan called Alyssa into the kitchen. That’s when you came in. To get your email,” Henry explained, trying not to babble.
“To get my email.” He echoed the words slowly, like he wanted to give Henry a chance to correct them.
So it was fine when Percy was the one repeating everything? “You came in, and told me they usually leave a radio at the desk when it’s empty, and that’s when Jonathan came out and got you your email. And you left again.”
Percy’s breath came in little gasps. “I left again.”
“And then Jonathan left, and Alyssa went back to the desk,” Henry rushed.
“Right after I left again,” he mused.
“Yes.” That was it. That was all he knew. If he relaxed even slightly, it would be into Percy, and he really, really didn’t want that.
This time his eyes drifted to the other side. “And they called us all together … hours later.”
“Yes.” Hours later. Hours in which something else might’ve happened to make Jonathan call them together and tell them the news. Or hours in which Jonathan might’ve been contacting his lawyer and figuring out if he needed to call them together.
This time Percy looked down and, after trying to figure out if this was a bad idea, Henry did, too. The nail seemed to be completely gone from the big toe on his right foot. If there was any of it left, it was under all that blood. Percy shifted his own foot back, away from the chance of getting it wet, and took a steadying breath that seemed to pull in more evenly. “Okay.”
This was not exactly a situation that seemed to be okay.
“Okay.” Percy’s other hand—why hadn’t Henry realized that he hadn’t seen Percy’s other hand?—came out from behind his back and pointed a gun at Henry’s head. “Okay.” Yeah, this was very much not okay.
Rebecca Frost 
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