The Fort (Aric Davis)

patio. “Go get Mom,” he said. “I want to see if she’ll be impressed with our progress yet. We’re finally getting places, thanks to your early start.”
    Tim left his dad and the tamper behind him but brought the water bottle along for the trip. The ache in his arms stayed with him, though, as he slowly walked around and then into the house through the open garage door. “Mom,” he called as he walked inside and kicked off his shoes. “Dad wants you to go outside and look at the ground.”
    “Did he finish it?” his mom asked from the kitchen. “It’d be amazing if he did—we haven’t even had the pavers delivered yet!”
    “Not yet,” Tim said, walking to the sink and dumping out what was left of the water in his bottle, “but we’re making progress.” He turned the sink to cold and let it run for a minute before refilling the bottle.
    His mom was doing some prep work on dinner, or at least that’s how it looked to Tim as he sat at the table. He considered getting himself a snack but decided that a moment to sit trumped the growing hunger pangs in his belly.
    Tammy washed her hands, then dried them on a towel before walking out through the garage. She had to go the long way around too, since the slider and the patio were out of service.
    Alone in the house, Tim remembered Becca. He stood, then crept to her room, as though on some sort of clandestine mission. When he knocked on her door, Becca made some neutral sound that wasn’t a no, and he walked inside.
    Becca was reading again, the same book as before, but when she saw it was him she dropped it in her lap and stared at him. “What do you want?”
    “Mom and Dad are both outside. Can you call whoever was with Molly when she was taken?”
    Becca narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure I’ll have time? I really don’t need Mom any further up my ass.”
    “Yes, I’m positive. Just hurry! I’ll go stand by the door as a lookout.”
    “Fair enough,” she sighed. “But you better let me know if they’re coming, because I’m going to be on the phone in their room. That’s like double trouble if I get busted.” Tim looked at her quizzically, and she rolled her eyes. “Jesus, sometimes I wonder if we’re really related. I can’t use the kitchen phone. Mom would be able to see me from outside. Now get out of my room and go watch the door.”
    Tim ran toward the door to the garage. We’re just lucky Mom can’t use the slider like normal, because of the patio. He smiled, the first time he’d done that since his work on the never-ending project had started. It was finally good for something.
    Tim stood waiting by the back of the family room, where he had a good view of the door from the garage. For what felt like an eternity he waited for the sound of the knob turning, or for Becca to appear and tell him that it was done. He felt weird, somehow both tense and sleepy. He was wondering if maybe this was how high schoolers felt during exams, or how his dad felt grading exams, when he heard Becca walking from their parents’ bedroom to her own at almost the exact same moment the knob to the garage door started to turn. He slipped down the hall into the bathroom, in case his mom checked for him, and when he heard her in the kitchen again he darted off to Becca’s room.
    He opened the door without knocking, slid inside, and closed it after him. “Well?”
    “It was a dark green Dodge Dart, the Colombia model. Jeff, one of the guys who saw her get in, remembered.” While Tim was repeating that to himself— dark green Dodge Dart, Colombia model —Becca went on talking, probably stir-crazy from being grounded. “Jeff’s a pretty good guy, but…Did I tell you I’m kind of scared to hang out with anybody from that crowd again? It’s a total bummer, like, I busted ass to get in with the cool kids, and they seem pretty stupid in retrospect.”
    “I’m glad you could help. Same for your friend,” said Tim, once he was sure he had the car’s make and model down. “But what you guys did, and then didn’t do, was pretty awful. Ripping off a bunch of jerks is one thing, but then you lied to the cops, even when one of your friends was in trouble.” He stood.
    “So what now?” Becca asked, but like she was only mildly interested. Tim wondered if she’d heard anything he’d said.
    “Now I think we have to find that car, and then…Well, after that, I don’t know.”
    “Just don’t do anything stupid, OK? And keep us out of it. How