The Inner Circle by Robert Swartwood Read Free Book Online Page B

listening to the night sounds—the traffic, the rain, the wind—and started counting.  
    Nine seconds later—what I had roughly estimated, the person behind me hurrying at a distance of about fifty yards—a figure appeared around the corner, coming fast, and I grabbed the figure by the throat and threw him against the wall and had the barrel of my gun in his face almost instantaneously.  
    Then I paused, my shoulders dropping, and said, “Ian, what the fuck?”

    •     •     •

    I AN LOOKED LIKE he was about to piss his pants. His eyes were real big and he was breathing heavy and it didn’t occur to me until a few seconds passed that I should loosen my grip around his neck. When I stepped back and put my gun away, Ian rubbed his throat like I had completely crushed it.  
    “Well?” I said.  
    “I had Ronny drop me off.”  
    “Ronny wouldn’t drop you off.”  
    He ducked his head and nodded. “At the next red light I told him to keep going and hopped out. I ran the whole way back to catch up with you.”  
    “I know. You weren’t very inconspicuous about. So why are you here?”  
    “What?”  
    “You heard me.”  
    He looked down at his feet, shrugged. “I’m not ... the strongest person in the world. I know that. I know I’m not very brave either. But this ... I want to help.”  
    “The girl might not even be there.”  
    “I know.”  
    “Ronny’s right—this whole thing could get us killed.”  
    “I know . But I just ... I have to do this.”  
    “Why?”  
    “Because I don’t”—he swallowed, shook his head—“I don’t want to remember this night and know I was a coward.”  
    “You have a piece?”  
    His face reddened. “I forgot it.”  
    I gave him one of the guns and a spare magazine. Then, frowning at him, I asked, “Didn’t Ronny try to stop you?”  
    “He did. But I told him we would be okay. I promised we’d see him back at the house later.”  
    I glanced back at the Beachside Hotel only two blocks away, then nodded at Ian. “All right,” I said. “Then let’s keep that promise.”

 
     
     
    14

    The truth was I had no plan. As I’d been nearing the Beachside, no coherent thoughts had been going through my mind. I’d just been seeing snapshots of different parts of my life—Jen and Casey at our home in Lanton, Carver and Maya and everyone else, then just Carver’s face as he choked on his blood—and I think a part of me knew what I was doing. That this was suicide, sprinkled with a touch of valor. That now, without Carver, whatever life I and the rest of us had was over. That so far we’d been living on borrowed time, and it was time to pay up.  
    But when Ian showed up things changed. Now it wasn’t just my life on the line. Now I also had to worry about Ian, which gave me some purpose, some goal to try to attain. We would do this together—we would try to save this girl’s life before she was taken to some other place, to some other game—and in doing so we would keep each other accountable. We would keep each other alive.  
    So this is what we did the morning Carver died, that Saturday morning around three o’clock, as the drizzle increased to heavier rain and the occasional lightning began streaking the sky nonstop: we split up and hid on separate sides of the Beachside Hotel.  
    I went for one of the cars near the corner, a Honda Civic. I got on the ground to see if anything was rigged up underneath. Next I glanced inside, looking for an alarm, something that might make noise if opened. There was nothing there, so I tried the door. Unlocked. I opened it and slipped inside, shutting the door so the interior lamp wouldn’t be lit more than a few seconds.  
    I had put my earpiece back in. Ian—presumably in a car or truck of his own on the other side of the hotel—did the same. After about thirty seconds, I heard his voice.  
    “Ben?”  
    “Yeah.”  
    “You set up?”  
    “Yeah.”  
    “You in a