Chapter 1: The World Stops Slowly

Day 0, September 18

Zhao Nara fumbled with her keycard. She staggered into her apartment and collapsed on the couch. The door to the apartment slowly drifted shut behind her, leaving her in the dark.

The light flicked on. It took several seconds for Nara’s eyes to adjust. Sandy stood at the end of the hall, staring hard at her. Sandy’s rose-gold hair was like a lion’s mane, and deep circles were smeared under her eyes. “It’s four a.m.,” snapped Sandy. “Where were you?”

“Friends,” slurred Nara.

“Yes, but where were you?” demanded Sandy.

“Eating out,” Nara mumbled. “I’m fine. Go away.”

“I’m not shutting the light off,” said Sandy. “I’m getting up for the day. Where’s Everett? I can smell the alcohol from here.”

“I’m fine,” said Nara. “Go away.”

“So you came alone?” asked Sandy incredulously.

Nara decided answering wasn’t worth the effort.

“He got you intoxicated underage and didn’t even walk you home?” asked Sandy. “That’s bad, even for him.”

Nara kept her eyes on the ceiling. She knew Sandy’s words should mean something, but they blurred into a meaningless hum that throbbed with every beat of Nara’s heart. Something about Everett not getting her home. Technically Everett had gotten her as far as the second floor, where his room was, and Nara had come the rest of the way alone.

Sandy huffed a sharp sigh. “Suit yourself.”

Nara did not feel good. She needed another shot or something. Wincing at the light, she dragged herself off the couch, distantly aware her footing was unstable. She wasn’t usually this bad off.

Nara shuffled to her dark room and shut the door. Groping for the bunk bed, she clipped her head against the beam of the upper bed. Nara cursed in Chinese, flopped down, and pulled the covers over her head.

She needed another drink.

***

Day 1, September 19

“Come on, you lazy rats!” shouted Jason Harkness over the roar of his saw. He pulled the chainsaw out of the felled oak and rocked the log with his foot until the last fibers snapped.

Jason loved this. When they’d first arrived, the house looked like it was under invasion by the forest. Scraggly branches had reached down toward the roof, and an army of trees consumed what was supposed to be the yard.

Not anymore. It always amazed him what a few hours of spinning blades and strong hands could accomplish.

Dozens of stumps dotted the ground. One of the boys was feeding an armful of leafy branches through the chipper with a satisfying noise. The heap of mulch, as high as Jason was tall, was steadily growing. Logs weighed down the trailer.

Chief Walter Harris lived in a one-story ranch of whitewashed brick, about two miles east of Silver Falls. Behind and slightly to the left of the house, a red, two-story barn loomed.

“You idiot!” Jason barked, standing to shove Dirk Agostini backward. “How many times have I told you—back off!”

“Ok, Jason, sorry, sorry!” said the kid, stumbling to catch his balance. Dirk Agostini had dark hair and a heavy tan, which came from a combination of working in the sun and being half Italian. Dirk, at the obnoxious age of sixteen, was smart and an absolute idiot at the same time.

Four of Jason’s six workers today were teenage boys. Two were barely over twenty. Jason wondered how many times he’d have to give them the same instructions before they’d listen. He hoped he never had to tell their parents one of them was dead or injured in an accident. Landscaping, especially tree work, was dangerous. Jason knew that all too well.

Dirk picked up a different branch and started dragging it toward the roaring wood chipper.

Jason wiped sweat off his forehead with his arm, feeling sawdust rub onto his face. His phone started buzzing in his pocket.

He shoved a hand, sticky with sap, into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Jason shut off the chainsaw and put the phone to his ear. “What’s going on, Shae?”

“Have you heard about the bank?”

Several guys stared at Jason from across the wrecked yard.

Jason muffled the phone with his hand and yelled, “Take your ten minutes now!” The roar of the chipper faded within seconds. “No, I haven’t heard,” said Jason, bringing the phone to his mouth again. “What happened?”

“Trust Bank went offline this morning,” said Shae. He could hear fear in her voice.

“Went offline?” asked Jason.

“Yep,” she said. “I stopped to get gas and my card didn’t work. I couldn’t even log into my banking app, so I looked it up, and they’re saying it was a cyberattack. I called the bank. They confirmed it and were all like, ‘don’t worry, we’ve got it under control’.”

Unease crept up Jason’s throat. “Who did the attack?”

“Cyberattacks are really hard to trace,” said Shae, “so nobody knows yet.”

Jason ran his teeth over his lip.

“I can pay the babysitter with cash,” said Shae quickly, as if coming to terms with the situation. “But I was going to get groceries tomorrow.”

“I wouldn’t be worried,” said Jason, quickly recovering his confidence. “I’ll be home in a few hours. Banks will probably be back by then.”

***

The single light over the sink left Jason’s kitchen a somber shade of gray. The microwave display read 9:07 in glowing digits. Jason sat at the butcher block island, watching a cop show on his phone.

The bank was still offline. If it stayed that way much longer, the FDIC would probably put forward a ransom, but Jason didn’t know when.

Shae came downstairs, the soft waves of her hair bouncing with each step.

“Did Kiley go down?” asked Jason, clicking off his phone. Their three-year-old, the baby, leveraged her role for all it was worth. She was especially good at not going to bed.

Shae rolled her green eyes and smiled. “I must have read that book five times before she fell asleep.” She pulled up a stool and sat at the butcher block island beside Jason.

“You’re a good mom.”

Shae smiled, but a glint of sadness crossed her eyes. She tucked her blonde hair behind one ear.

Jason cleared his throat and looked down. “I got something for you.” He shifted his weight and pulled a pistol from a holster at his belt. “I was going to wait until Christmas to give this to you, but with the way things are going…” He handed it to his wife.

Shae looked up with a frown.

“You need something accessible and light,” said Jason. “And this little girl,” he said, tapping the barrel, “she’s a good one.”

Shae turned the sleek weapon. It fit perfectly in her hands. “When will you feel like you’ve done enough?” she asked carefully. “I don’t think we could be any safer than we are.”

Jason swallowed. “Today that recording of President Anderson came out. Hours later one of the biggest bank chains in the country went dark. There’s no way he’ll be able to prove his innocence before the trial tomorrow. He was the last line of defense—for the entire nation.”

“You can’t say he ‘was,’” interrupted Shae. “He’s still the president. And I still think the recording was a deep fake.”

Jason scowled. “I don’t think so. If anyone had a good reason to kill Nichols, it’s Anderson. He’d never be able to defeat Nichols. He couldn’t even win the first time on his own; he had to bring on Schmidt as VP to get votes from the other side. That was three years ago. He’s only become more controversial since then.”

“Anderson’s not the kind of person who’d kill another man for power.”

“I don’t know,” said Jason. “Is it worth it to kill one person if it means you can save the rest of the country? It would be easy to justify.”

“You think if they can get Anderson out of the way, they’ll push the Commerce Initiative through.”

“Of course. What else would they do?”

Shae tightened her mouth. “Even if Taylar Schmidt replaces Anderson, and she pushes the Commerce Initiative through, and we can’t pay the taxes, and we lose our businesses—I don’t think our lives will be in danger. Why do I need a gun? What do you think is going to happen?”

“All I know,” Jason snapped, “is if half the country suddenly can’t pay their taxes and has to watch their life’s work get stolen by the corporate machine, there will be revolt.” His eyes met hers. “I’ve spent six years building this company, and I will not go down easily if they try to—”

A face peered down from the banister.

Lightning struck Jason’s heart.

It was only Troy. His face was shaped like his mom’s, but with the brown curly hair, the freckles peppered across his tanned skin, Troy was looking more and more like—

“Can I get water, Mom?” asked Troy.

“Hurry up,” said Shae briskly. “Then back to bed.”

Troy hurried down the creaky stairs. His eyes lit up when he saw the little handgun. At eleven years old, he rarely got to shoot anything bigger than his BB gun. “Where’d you get that?”

“From your dad,” said Shae, holding it out for him to see. “Nine millimeter. Isn’t she pretty?”

“What will you do with your old one?” asked Troy. He took a calculated sip of water.

“I’m not giving it to you, if that’s what you’re wondering,” said Shae.

Troy’s face fell. “What about Amber?”

Shae laughed. “What’s Amber going to do with a gun?”

Troy looked awkwardly to the side. “Shoot things?”

“What is a teenage girl going to be shooting?” asked Shae.

“Gongs, squirrels, teenage boys, I don’t know!”

Shae patted his back. “Sorry, bud. Go to bed. Your dad and I are spending some time together.”

“Oh sure, of course,” Troy mumbled. “Since he’s actually home for once.” He started for the staircase and scuffed at the floor.

A pang of regret pierced Jason. “That’s enough, Troy.”

Troy slid his hand over the banister and padded upstairs.

“Jason,” Shae pleaded in a whisper.

“He can’t talk to me like that.”

“But you know there’s a reason he said it.”

Jason leaned back and rubbed one eye. Suddenly he felt very tired.

“It meant a lot to him when you played football with him the other day,” said Shae. “Maybe…maybe if you take a day off soon, we can go do something fun, all of us together.”

All of us. He hated that phrase, because it wasn’t true. “I’m booked for the next two weeks.” Then he said, more slowly, “I’ll take a day off after that.”

“Thank you,” said Shae, reaching over to squeeze his hand. “Maybe we can go whitewater rafting before it gets cold, that place in Tennessee the kids have been talking about…”

Jason tuned out the rest of the details.

He knew—the entire day with his family, he’d be painfully aware of the person who wasn’t there. Because of what Jason had done. All day, he would miss the buzz of chainsaws and weedeaters, the managing of employees, and the pounding of deadlines that typically busied his—

“Are you listening to me?” asked Shae.

Jason snapped back to reality. “What?”

“I said, would Saturday work, as in, three Saturdays from now?”

“Yeah,” he said after a second.

Shae’s eyes narrowed in concern. “Are you really that worried? We’re going to be ok, no matter how the trial goes tomorrow.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Or are you hoping everything goes wrong?” asked Shae. She narrowed her eyes at him and smiled naughtily.

Jason folded his arms. “I can’t change what decision the court makes. But you had better believe, if they want to play stupid games, I am ready to give them very stupid prizes.”

“Oh, I know,” said Shae, patting his arm consolingly. “Just…don’t do anything you’d usually do.”

Jason half-closed his eyes.

“Come on. Don’t think about it any more today. It doesn’t help. Tomorrow everything will work itself out.” She pushed her wooden stool under the island. “I mean it, Jason. We’re going to be fine.”