The Orphans (Orphans Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “I need to get ready for class,” Mrs. Gamlen said. “But if you ever want to talk about anything besides your paper grade, I’m always available.”

  “Great. Thanks,” Charlie said, but he was really thinking the opposite. His little plan had failed miserably, and he was stuck with the damn B.

  As Charlie exited the classroom, he could feel his forehead beginning to throb. He went to his locker and popped a couple ibuprofen tablets. He closed his locker, and then retrieved his Moleskine from his pocket and turned to the back page.

  Charlie had a secret that he hadn’t divulged to anyone. While his notebook full of goals was common knowledge, what wasn’t known was that his notebook recorded more than just his goals. Starting on the last page and working backwards, Charlie had documented all of the failures that he accumulated.

  So far, his defeats had only been minor. Just stumbles here and there. Never big enough to curtail his overall plans, but they all left their own little scars. Every time Charlie was reminded of one of his failures, he would get angry. He used that anger as added motivation. He believed that it helped him refocus and gave him the edge that he needed.

  The most recent notation on Charlie’s list of failures was getting cut from the junior-varsity soccer team. It was one more thing—on the growing list of things—that he had hidden from his parents. Charlie had even gone as far as staying after school and making up stories to keep up the guise of being on the team. When his parents inquired about attending a game, Charlie just told them that they were playing a weak opponent and it would be a blowout, but that he’d let them know when there was actually a good matchup that was worth attending.

  Charlie jotted down his disappointing paper grade and then pocketed the notebook. He started to head to his next class, but stopped as his name was blasted over the loudspeaker. His presence was requested at the principal’s office.

  Charlie reluctantly made his way down the locker-lined hallways. He had never been called to the principal’s office before, and had no idea what to expect. When Charlie arrived at the office, Principal Salner was waiting in the doorway. Standing behind her was a stout police officer.

  Charlie immediately recognized the officer. His name was Lieutenant Carter. He was the same policeman that had informed Charlie of his parents’ accident. Charlie also recognized the pensive look on Lieutenant Carter’s face—it was the same pained expression that the officer had worn the night that he had showed up to Charlie’s house.

  CHAPTER SIX

  After a couple uncomfortable seconds, it was apparent that neither the principal nor the policeman were interested in being the first to speak. Charlie did them the favor of breaking the silence. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I am so sorry,” Principal Salner said, her sympathetic eyes attempting to comfort her student in addition to her words.

  The principal’s pity provided no answer to Charlie’s question, only the confirmation that what he was about to hear wasn’t going to be good. “For what?” he demanded.

  Principal Salner glanced at Lieutenant Carter; it was his turn to speak, whether he wanted to or not.

  Lieutenant Carter swallowed hard before breaking the news to Charlie. “Walter Sowell suffered a massive heart attack last night. By the time the paramedics arrived, it was too late.”

  Charlie’s face stayed blank as thoughts shot across his mind like bullets on a battlefield, with similar results. He couldn’t believe that Walter was really gone, and to a heart attack, of all things. Sure, Walter wasn’t exactly the epitome of good health—he’d never heard of an exercise he liked, much less tolerated—but he was just forty years old. And he had been at Charlie’s house only hours before, and had seemed perfectly fine.

  Charlie felt the opposite of fine. He felt similar to how he had felt when he found out that he had lost his parents, except worse. All of the feelings that he had worked so hard to repress resurfaced as his emotional recall pulled him back to that night. Charlie was hit with the loss of his parents and the loss of Walter all at once, like a tsunami of suffering. His lungs grew heavier by the second, as though they were filling up with mercury instead of oxygen, and his tear ducts continued to swell as Lieutenant Carter filled in the rest of the details.

  The officer explained that around midnight, a neighbor had noticed that Walter’s car lights were left on. When the neighbor stopped by to inform Walter of his oversight, they found the front door cracked open and Walter lying on his living-room floor, unconscious. The coroner estimated that Walter had been deceased for close to an hour before his body was discovered.

  This time, Lieutenant Carter spared Charlie any details pertaining to the speed and pain associated with Walter’s passing. Maybe it was because he had learned his lesson, or maybe it was just because he couldn’t make the assertion with any real certainty. Whatever his reason, he left it out. Instead, he simply reaffirmed the principal’s sentiment and then waited for Charlie to acknowledge what he had told him.

  Charlie was close to giving the confirmation the officer needed in the form of a full-on emotional explosion. But just when Charlie’s chest and eyes felt like they might burst like water balloons filled beyond capacity, Charlie’s fingers found his trusty notebook, and his focus shifted back to his plan. Instantly, the pressure in Charlie’s chest disappeared, and he regained his breath. He wiped the yet-to-pop tears from the corners of his eyes with his shirtsleeve and swallowed the mucus that had pooled in the back of his throat.

  “Is that it?” Charlie asked, seemingly unaffected.

  “Uh, yeah,” Lieutenant Carter stammered, not expecting Charlie to respond in such a manner or to be so casual in doing so. He shared a look with Principal Salner, who was equally perplexed.

  “All right,” Charlie said. “Then I guess I should probably get back to class.”

  “Are you sure?” Lieutenant Carter said. “I told Principal Salner that I could give you a ride home if you need it.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but I’ve already missed enough class as it is. Plus, midterms are coming up, too.” He nodded to Principal Salner. “But I will take a pass from you.”

  “Huh?” Principal Salner said, still too consumed by confusion to process what Charlie was requesting.

  “I’ve never done this before, but I’m assuming I’ll need some kind of pass, since I’m gonna be late to class. Mrs. Hasbrouck is pretty strict about tardiness.”

  “Yes. Of course. I’ll get that for you right now.” Principal Salner fumbled her pen as she filled out Charlie’s excuse slip.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Throughout the rest of the school day, whenever Charlie’s thoughts began to drift toward Walter or his parents, he would reopen his notebook and skim over his list of goals, and then his failures. The thoughts would cease, and his concentration would refocus the very second his eyes landed on his paper grade.

  The grade was still on the top of Charlie’s mind when he returned home. He kicked pebbles and muttered words that started with the letter B while he trudged up the concrete driveway. “Bull blank. Butt bag. Bass bucket—” Charlie cut off his little rant as his feet came to a stop just before a manila shipping envelope that had been left on the front porch welcome mat.

  Charlie reluctantly retrieved the envelope. It was the first package that had been delivered to their house in months, maybe years. Alan and Mary had always made sure to send everything to their office; it was the only way they could sign for things. But this package left on the doorstep had required no signature, and much to Charlie’s surprise, it wasn’t addressed to his parents—it was addressed to him. Even more shocking than that was who had sent it.

  Charlie’s eyes practically stretched out of their sockets when he read the black return-address label. Abbadon Capital was printed in dark red letters, just like it was on Terry’s business card. Adrenaline shot through his body and washed away any th
oughts of his paper grade.

  Charlie knew there was only one thing the package could be. It had to be an offer letter for his summer internship. While that would have required a much faster response time than the average person could have ever expected, Charlie knew that successful people like Terry didn’t become successful by operating like the average person, or by resting on their laurels. They acted quickly, decisively, and frequently. Charlie remembered that Terry had said so himself in one of his newspaper interviews. Charlie was so fond of the quote that he not only highlighted it, he also did his best to live by it. But as much as he had liked the quote when he first read it, he appreciated it even more now that he was on the receiving end of its application.

  Charlie swelled with pride, knowing that he must have impressed Terry so much that Terry considered it imperative to get his offer in writing before someone else beat him to it. Even before Charlie had ripped open the envelope and plunged his hand inside, he was already plotting his next move. It was the obvious play: He would have to counter Terry’s offer. Charlie was well aware that you must always counter any first offer, especially if it’s a good offer. That was another Terry quote. Terry would have to expect Charlie to do the same, to counter regardless. He might even rescind his offer if Charlie didn’t.

  Charlie’s visions of advanced negotiations vanished—along with most of the wind in his sails—when his fingers failed to find an offer letter or even any type of letter. All he came up with was a nondescript flash drive. While it wouldn’t have been out of the realm of possibility that Terry would put his offer on a flash drive, Charlie had a feeling that wasn’t the case, as the drive didn’t have the slightest hint of Abbadon’s company colors. It was royal blue with splashes of yellow.

  Charlie examined the drive in his palm. The color scheme seemed vaguely familiar to him. He flipped the drive over, checking the other side. A decal read pega systems.

  Charlie realized why it had looked familiar. It was from a company that his parents and Walter had started and sold no more than five years ago. Charlie even had the matching business card in his bedroom desk. He never kept the flash drives, though. That was all Walter. Walter loved to pilfer all of the old promotional electronics, particularly the flash drives. “You can never have too many flash drives,” Walter would always tell him. Charlie had heard the line so many times that it was still as fresh as the day Walter had first said it.

  Charlie repeated the line to himself. That’s when the truth hit Charlie like a Mike Tyson uppercut. The package wasn’t from Terry—it was from Walter.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Charlie burst into his house and bolted up the stairs. He didn’t have the slightest inkling as to why Walter had mailed the drive to him, why he had sent it using an Abbadon packing label, or why, at the very least, he hadn’t even bothered mentioning it the night before. Charlie had so many questions, but he knew there was only one way he might figure out the answers to any of them: He needed to find out what was on the storage device.

  Charlie didn’t slow down until he reached his bedroom. Even then, his momentum almost carried him out of his desk chair as he slid into the seat. He steadied himself and then hit the power button on his computer.

  “Come on, come on!” he huffed and puffed, short of breath from his sudden burst of exertion. The machine made no attempt to speed up its booting process. If anything, to Charlie, it seemed to have actually slowed down. He banged the side of his desktop computer, hoping it might respond better to physical intimidation.

  After a couple more smacks, Charlie’s computer finally finished booting. He jammed the flash drive into the usb port. The drive folder popped up on the screen. Charlie scanned the contents. There were dozens of files. Charlie recognized most of them as programs Walter had developed, programs that Walter had already shown Charlie. Charlie was certain that Walter would have only sent him the drive if he had wanted him to see something else, something more recent. Charlie sorted the folder by creation date. Three files jumped to the top: an mp4 video file named watch me first, a spreadsheet named contacts, and a pdf file named contract.

  The video file was the obvious first choice, not just because of its name, but also because it was the most recent of the three files. It had been created around eleven o’clock the night before, only a little more than an hour before Walter’s neighbor discovered his body. Much like the neighbor, nothing could have prepared Charlie for what he was about to see.

  Charlie double-clicked the video file, which began to play upon opening. On the screen was a poorly lit webcam shot of Walter. The darkness not only made Walter’s exact location impossible to determine, but also accentuated the whiteness of his eyes, which darted back and forth from the webcam lens to something offscreen—presumably another computer monitor—as he delivered a panicked message.

  “Hey, tough guy,” Walter said. “I don’t have a lot of time, but I’m sending you this because you need to know the truth. Your parents didn’t die from the car crash. They were killed. And Terry Heins was behind it all.”

  Charlie slapped the space bar on his keyboard, pausing the video. He buried his head in his hands. “You gotta be kidding me,” he said as he tugged his hair so hard it sent tingles throughout his scalp and down his spine.

  Not only was the news the last thing Charlie had expected to hear, it was the last thing he had wanted to hear. But now it was all Charlie heard, as Walter’s words played on a loop in his mind like a scratched cd that kept skipping back to the worst part of the song.

  After a minute, Charlie lifted his head. “No way. No way. This can’t be real. It can’t be,” Charlie said, hoping to stop Walter’s words from repeating. They did.

  Charlie considered removing the drive, throwing it away, and never thinking of it again. He got extremely close to doing that much. His fingers gripped the flash drive, ready to pull, but there was another voice inside his head that wouldn’t let him. The voice told him to stop. It told him that he needed to let the video play out. The voice was right. Regardless of whether he wanted to or not, Charlie needed to hear more. Charlie took a deep breath and then tapped the space bar again, restarting the video.

  Walter continued, “If I’m right, he’s killed a lot more people than just your parents, like hundreds. I don’t know exactly how he does it. He must drug them or something. I don’t know. I just know that they all had heart attacks. That’s what really killed your parents. They were on their way back from meeting with Terry when they crashed. I was supposed to be there with them, but I—” Walter stopped. His eyes turned to saucers as he spotted something on his second screen.

  Walter turned back to the camera and wrapped up the video as fast as he could. “I’ve included a couple files on this flash drive. One’s a list. I think it might be of all the people Terry is working with. The other looks like some kind of contract. I’m not sure what it’s for or what it says. I think it’s in Hebrew, but I’m not positive. It didn’t register with any of the web translators I tried. I gotta go. But you need to be very careful. There are a lot of powerful people on that list. I don’t know how high up this goes, or even where it goes. Just be careful, okay? I love you.”

  The video cut out and returned to the beginning image of Walter, his face frozen like he’d just seen a ghost.

  Charlie peered deep into Walter’s eyes. The manic urgency they conveyed was a stark contrast to what Charlie was used to—to the man he had known his whole life. Charlie barely even recognized the version of Walter that he was staring at.

  As hard as it was for Charlie to reconcile the image of Walter that was stuck on his monitor, the information Walter had imparted was an even greater challenge. Charlie knew that he should believe Walter without question. Walter had never lied to him before, no matter how small the stakes were. And these stakes were anything but small.

  Charlie was almost ready to accept everything Walter had said, but there was j
ust one thing holding Charlie back: the reality of what it meant for him and his life if it were actually true. With all the doubt swirling on both sides of Charlie’s mind, there was no doubt when it came to the most important fact—Charlie didn’t want that reality. He didn’t want his parents’ deaths to be anything more than an accident, or Walter’s to be anything more than some combination of genetics and poor dietary choices. He wanted to take the summer internship with Terry. He wanted that to be the launching pad for achieving all of the goals that he had laid out in his notebook. And so, Charlie did what many people do when caught between the pull of the universe and their own worldly desires: He became his very own devil’s advocate.

  Charlie rattled off every possible explanation he could think of for not believing Walter. Charlie told himself that Walter was just acting crazy in the video because he had clearly broken into Abbadon’s headquarters—that had to be why the package was sent from their office—and, well, because Walter was kind of crazy. Walter always had a thing for conspiracy theories, whether it was the government or just competing companies, and he rarely trusted anyone outside of his very small circle.

  Charlie also noted that Walter had even said in the video, “If I’m right,” which meant he wasn’t 100 percent sure that he was right. He was basically guessing. He had no proof that Charlie’s parents had died of heart attacks. If that had been the case, the police would have said something. It would have shown up in the autopsy.

  As persuading as each rebuttal Charlie had conceived was, the most compelling piece of evidence Charlie presented to himself was the lack of motive. There was no feasible reason Terry would want to kill his parents shortly after investing in their business. If their company failed, something that was almost certain to happen now, Terry stood to take a huge financial hit. No one as successful as Terry, or really even anyone who had ever had the slightest hint of success whatsoever, would ever intentionally sabotage their own investment. It went against everything Charlie had ever learned about business, as well as everything Charlie had ever read about Terry.