Furious Jones and the Assassin’s Secret by Tim Kehoe

General Como at the event?”
    â€œYes,” I said.
    â€œHow well do you know Joe Como?” Douglas asked.
    â€œNot at all. I just met him that night.”
    â€œDid he approach you? How did you end up sitting together?”
    â€œWe kind of bumped into each other,” I said.
    â€œWhat did you talk about?”
    â€œNot much,” I said.
    Douglas didn’t respond. He just stared at me for several long seconds.
    â€œBelieve it or not, Furious, I cared about your mother, and I care about you.”
    I said nothing.
    â€œI have reason to believe you’re in serious danger,” Douglas said.
    â€œYou think?” I asked. “My mom, dad, and grandpa have all been murdered. I’d say it’s fair to assume I’m in a little danger.”
    â€œYour grandpa?” Douglas sat up. “What are you talking about?”
    I suddenly remembered I needed to be careful. My grandpa didn’t trust Douglas. And he seemed to think he might have even had a hand in my parents’ deaths. I couldn’t trust him. I couldn’t trust anyone.
    â€œWhat happened to your grandpa?” Douglas asked again.
    I could feel my eyes watering as I sat looking across the table. God, I had no one.
    Douglas pulled out his cell phone and, without saying a word, walked out of the room. This was my chance. If I was going to get away, I had to go now.

CHAPTER TWELVE
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    I couldn’t sit around here and wait to see if my grandpa was right or not about not trusting Douglas. Clearly Douglas had been unable to save my mom from whatever had happened in Galena, so how would he save me? No, I needed to go. I needed to find some facts and figure out what was going on.
    I stuck my head out into the hallway and Douglas was standing about five feet from the conference room door. He was on his phone and facing away from me. I looked at the exit next to me. It was two feet away, but Douglas would surely hear the door. I needed a distraction. I needed Douglas to move.
    I had absolutely nothing left to lose, so I pulled out myphone and tapped the Internet icon. My browser was still on my dad’s contact page. I clicked on Sloan’s phone number and stepped back into the conference room. A woman answered.
    â€œHarrison, Smythe, and Moore, how may I direct your call?” the woman asked.
    I spoke softly into the phone, “Director Douglas, please.”
    There was a short pause and then she put me on hold. I lowered the phone to my side and stood near the door. A minute later I heard a woman’s voice in the hallway. And then the deep rumble of Douglas’s voice. Then silence. Seconds later I heard Douglas’s voice coming from my phone.
    â€œHello. Hello? Who’s there?”
    I clicked cancel, shoved the phone into my pocket, and opened the door.
    â€œOh, hello.” A tall brunette was standing directly in front of me. She was probably the woman who had answered the phone. “Agent Douglas will be right back.”
    â€œTell him I’ll meet him in the lobby,” I said as I pushed the exit door open.
    â€œAh, no! Wait, I—”
    I didn’t bother with the rest of her protest. I stepped into the stairwell, grabbed the metal railing, and started moving quickly down the stairs.
    This was crazy. There was no way this would work.
    I started taking two steps at a time. Then I started jumpingthe last several stairs at each landing. There was a landing at each floor and halfway between each floor. That meant I had to clear thirty landings to get to the bottom. To get free.
    How many had I passed so far? Three? Maybe four? I tried to move faster. The entire staircase was made of metal. Like one big metal structure sitting inside a giant concrete shaft. It was loud. The noise from my jumping echoed in the shaft. I’d never hear Douglas coming after me. He was sure to have hung up by now. Was he already on the stairs?
    Go! Go! Move! Move!
    I was flying down the