Chapter 5: The Birthday on the Fridge

I took the stairs down to the garage because the elevator was too slow.

Abe looked up from his paperback and saw my face, and the book was on the ground before I reached him.

"Finn," I said. "A man at the daycare. He said he was his father."

He had my door open before I finished.

He didn't ask a single question.

He drove the way he had on Wacker, only now I wanted him to.

Ten minutes from the Loop to Evanston, and I didn't look at the speedometer once.

Little Acorns had a green iron fence and a gate with a code.

A man in a grey windbreaker was standing outside it, on his phone.

Abe was out of the car before it had fully stopped.

The man saw him coming and turned to run.

He made two steps.

Abe caught him by the collar and put him face first into the iron fence, one arm twisted up behind his back.

It took less than a second.

It made almost no sound.

"Who sent you?" Abe asked.

His voice was low and level, and it was worse than shouting.

"Nobody, man, it's a job, it's a text job."

The man's cheek was squashed against the bars.

"Five hundred bucks to pick up a kid. They said the mom said it was okay."

"Who's they?"

"I don't know. A number."

Abe took the phone out of the man's hand and put it in his own pocket.

Through the classroom window, I could see small faces.

Twelve of them, pressed to the glass, and one of them had a cowlick.

I put my hand on Abe's arm.

"They're watching," I said.

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