Tick Tock

Chapter 101

When my cell phone woke me in the dark, I rolled off the bed and stumbled around before finally fishing it out of the pocket of my pants.

It was a 212 number, which meant Manhattan. I didn't recognize it.

I was still so dead to the world that when I tried to answer it, I actually hung it up instead.

I wiped my eyes as I yawned. No wonder I was out of it. Mary Catherine and I had gotten back pretty late from the concert. If that wasn't bad enough, MC, Seamus, and I had stayed up watching a hilarious eighties Brat Pack-era comedy called Heaven Help Us about a Catholic boys high school in 1960s Brooklyn. I shared many of the same sorts of friendships and screw-ups and absurdities at Regis, a Catholic boys school in Manhattan. I couldn't remember the last time I'd laughed that hard.

The phone rang again as I was getting back into the bed. I managed to actually answer it this time.

"Bennett."

"It's three o'clock. Do you know where your children are?" a voice said.

That sat me straight the hell up.

"What?" I said.

"Dad?" Ricky said a moment later. "Dad, I'm sorry."

At the sound of Ricky's scared voice, I shot out of bed as if I'd been Tasered. A bunch of books and a radio flew off a shelf as I crashed my shoulder into it, blundering around in the dark.

Was this a dream? I thought, staring at the moonlit window in shock. No. It was a nightmare. I could hear the phone being taken from Ricky.

"Who the fuck is this?"

"You know who this is," the voice said. "And you know what you have to do. Lawrence taught me. Now I'm going to teach you."

Apt!

"Carl," I said. "Please, Carl. I'll do anything you want. Don't hurt my son."

"Come down to the beach due east of your house, Bennett. No cops, no gun. You have three minutes before I cut his throat. Three minutes before you'll be down on your knees, trying to get his blood out of the sand."

"I'm coming, I'm coming!"

I dropped the phone, trying to think. What could I do? The son of a bitch sounded absolutely fucking insane, and he had Ricky. I pulled on my shorts, looked for a shirt, then stopped looking. There was no time.

"Mike? What is it? What's going on?" Mary Catherine called after me as I banged open the front door.

I decided I couldn't tell her. Apt had said just me. He sounded way too crazy to mess with.

"Nothing, Mary. Go back to bed," I hissed.

"What do you mean nothing?" she said, coming out after me. "It's three in the God-loving morning! Where are you going?"

I didn't need this shit. Not now. She started following me. I didn't have time to explain. How could I stop her?

"Do I have to say it? I'm going to meet Emily, okay? Are you happy now?"

Mary stopped dead-still on the porch steps. It killed me to hurt her like this, but I didn't have a choice.

"How could you?" she said very quietly as I started to run.

"Just get back in the house!" I yelled.