Furious Jones and the Assassin’s Secret by Tim Kehoe Page A

stairs. I was in a rhythm. My breathing was getting loud. I was sure the entire building could hear me now. My legs were burning. My right thigh felt odd. Like it was pulsing. Or twitching. I stopped to catch my breath. I was breathing hard. I bent over the railing and looked up toward the fifteenth floor. Then I felt the twitch again. It was my phone. It was vibrating in my pocket. I pulled it out. The screen said I had an incoming call from the Harrison, Smythe, and Moore agency.
    Shoot! Caller ID. I really hadn’t thought this through. Could he track me? Could he track my phone? Isn’t that what the CIA did? I hit ignore, shoved the phone back in my pocket, and continued down the stairs. I gripped the railing hard at each landing and flung myself around the corners. The eleven floor. Tenth floor. Ninth. I kept going. I hit the sixth-floor landing and thought I heard someone enter thestairwell. I stopped and tried to listen. My heart was throbbing in my ears. I breathed in deep and held my breath. Someone was definitely coming down the stairs. I started moving fast. A head start was all I had. I was jumping three stairs with every move now. I imagined Douglas was too.
    Five. Four. Three. I kept moving. Kept jumping. Two. One. I stopped and took a couple of deep breaths before opening the first-floor door. Someone was definitely moving quickly down the stairs. There was no doubt about it—Douglas was close.
    I pushed the door open and walked out into the corridor near the bank of elevators. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and walked toward the main set of doors. I walked past the security guard and gave him a nod. I was twenty feet from the door. Fifteen feet. Ten. Five. Then I heard my name.
    â€œFurious?”
    I kept walking.
    â€œFurious?”
    It sounded more like a question than a statement. I recognized the voice. It was Kristyn. I didn’t look back. I just kept walking. I pushed myself into the revolving door and looked over my shoulder as it turned. Kristyn was standing in the lobby, holding a bag of pastries. My scones.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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    I thought about heading to the subway, but where would I go? I couldn’t go back to my grandpa’s house. Obviously it wasn’t safe and, judging from the number of fire trucks that had rolled through the streets of New Canaan, my grandpa’s house must have burned to the ground.
    I needed to know what was going on. Why was the Salvatore crime syndicate killing my family? I needed to know what was in my dad’s new book. What had my mom discovered in Galena? I thought of my mom as Carson Kidd. And then I thought of the sticker and the code on my dad’s latest book. Kristyn had said it unlocked a couple of excerpts of the new book. Maybe there would be enough information to give me a better idea of what was going on in Galena. Isearched my phone for a bookstore. The closest one was five blocks away. I started to run.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    It wasn’t hard to find my dad’s books in the store. They were piled a hundred high as you walked in. The store seemed to be preparing for the excitement surrounding my dad’s new book. His death was sure to bring more publicity too. Lots more.
    I grabbed a copy of his fifth book, Miss Fire , and headed to the café. I purchased a Coke, a scone, and the book. I handed the cashier some more of my grandpa’s cash and felt bad as I looked down at the photo of my dad on the back of the book. I had never really gotten to know him. I’d always figured that we would spend time together later. I’d figured we’d make up for the lost years. But now that was impossible. And now I’d found out I didn’t really know my mom, either. Not really.
    I sat down and peeled back the sticker on the front of the book to reveal a seven-digit code along with instructions to enter the code at CarsonKidd.com. I pulled my phone out and started to type in the website when the phone