White Space Season 2

intended to kill his son’s girlfriend, but didn’t?”
    “I can’t think of anything else it could mean.”
    “Was the teacher on the list? Sarah Hughes?”
    “No, just students he shot. Except my friend Manny, who he did kill, it was Katie’s name.”
    Houser stared straight ahead as if trying to process the new information. “You have any idea what was on this flash drive you were sent to find?”
    “No, sir,” Milo said, the itchiness crawling like spiders along his arms now nearly too unbearable to ignore. He wanted to get home, inside his house, and scratch. “I need to get home now. My dad will be wondering where I am soon.”
    “Yeah, that’s cool,” Houser said, making a right and heading back toward Milo’s. “Thanks for talking to me. I’m going to give you my card. If you think of anything else, I want you to call me, OK?”
    “I don’t know,” Milo said. “Mr. X told me I shouldn’t talk about any of this on the phones, that they’re listening to us. He said they use the city’s cameras to monitor us, too.”
    “Who is they ?” Houser turned to Milo. “Paladin?”
    “Mr. X definitely thinks they’re part of it, though he’s been super vague about pretty much everything. I’m not sure if that’s because he doesn’t know, or if … ” Milo didn’t finish saying what he was thinking, which was that maybe Don was a few kernels short of a cob.
    Houser filled in the blanks, “Or if he’s crazy?”
    “Yeah,” Milo admitted, feeling guilty for lending breath to the thought. His arm was too hot to ignore. Milo finally surrendered, raking his fingernails over his shirt, gently, casually, so as not to draw attention.
    Oh, that feels sooo good.
    Milo resisted the urge to scratch harder, but it was nearly impossible. As they pulled into his driveway, Houser said, “I’d like to talk to this Mr. X.”
    “Oh, I don’t know if he’ll talk to you.”
    “Then you have to convince him,” Houser said. “I think you guys are definitely onto something big here, and I don’t think it’s safe for you to go it alone. You need someone on your side.”
    “There’s no way he’d trust you. You’re working for Jon Conway, and, well, I’m pretty sure he thinks the Conways are behind all of this, especially since they control Paladin.”
    “Your Mr. X may be right, and I wouldn’t be surprised a bit if he was, but Jon Conway is not like the rest of them. He’s one of the good ones,” Houser smiled wide and slapped the seat behind Milo. “You must already suspect that, kid, otherwise you wouldn’t be talking to me. You can trust Jon, as much as anyone else on the island. Your Mr. X has nothing to worry about with either of us.”
    “I don’t know,” Milo said, digging his nails harder into his arms and raking deeper while still trying to stay inconspicuous. He was far from it. Houser looked down at Milo’s scratching, though if he noticed, which he must have, the PI said nothing.
    Maybe he was looking at his gun — still sitting in Milo’s tightly wrapped right hand — and wondering how much longer he would hold it. The gun suddenly felt awkward in his hand. Milo didn’t think he could shoot Houser, even if the man did suddenly try to hurt him, but he clutched the gun just the same.
    “What if you asked him to meet you and I just showed up?” Houser said.
    Milo shook his head. “He would freak the fuck out, for sure.”
    “OK, I won’t push things. Just tell him about me, about our conversation, and that I want to help. Can you do that?” Houser slipped the card into Milo’s hand. “Keep the card. If anything happens, or if someone starts following you, or if you see or feel anything weird at all, I want you to call me. Any time, day or night.”
    “What if someone’s listening?”
    Houser reached behind his seat and withdrew a medium-sized black leather zipper bag from the back. Milo tried seeing what was inside it, but the man moved too fast, retrieving whatever he needed before quickly zipping the bag.
    He handed Milo a small, black phone. It looked ancient, mostly glass, though edged in hard plastic like the one Milo’s dad kept in a box of memorabilia, and thick, nearly the width of his pinky.
    “Keep this on you. It has my number inside it. Any calls you make, or texts and videos sent, are all encrypted. My phone’s the only one that can decrypt them, and vice versa with anything I send you. So you never have to worry. Even if Paladin intercepts your