The Trial (The Tree House)

THE
TRIAL

SHAY LYNAM

Copyright © 2014 Shay Lynam

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 0692213694

ISBN-13:
978-0692213698

For my dad. You’ll always be my hero.

pART ONE

pART TWO

Jack

Chapter ONE

Jack,

Read this carefully. For your own safety, I'm not going to tell you where the two of us went but, you can’t come looking for us. No one can know that you and Ben are connected in any way to your mother and me. The two of you need to take care of each other. You need to disappear. Do not come home for any reason. I can’t stress this enough. Your brother has gotten a letter similar to this one and is on his way home now.  Jack, your mother and I love you very much. So much so that we’re sacrificing the rest of our time with you because we know it’ll only put you in danger. I wish with everything in me, that things could be different but we’ve gone through weeks of sleepless nights and decided this is for the best. Please understand. Please forgive us. And please try to forget.

-Dad

I crumpled the paper up again in my fist feeling the betrayal rush through my veins like ice water. How could I forget when every word of this note was like a bullet to the chest? Even though it had been two days since the
letter arrived at my apartment, even though I had read over it countless times – the gaping hole in my chest ached causing me to hunch forward, if only to relieve the pain just a bit.

Was my brother really on this flight? Maybe
it was all just a sick joke and Mom and Dad would come down those stairs with him with big grins on their faces. If that were the case, I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up punching someone square in the jaw. I'd only feel bad about it for a second.

The airport
is always busy no matter what time of year it is. Though “busy” couldn't in the slightest bit describe what Sea-Tac Airport was like the last weekend of the summer. Looking around, it appeared that everyone had taken a triple dose of crazy before coming to pick up their loved ones. The floor vibrated as thousands of feet shuffled and bounced up and down in excitement and anticipation.

It seemed like I was the only one being kept down by gravity. Or maybe the reason my whole body felt like it was fighting to keep from collapsing to the ground was the letter I had clenched tightly in my fist.

The screen above my head flashed “Flight 322 from Minneapolis, Minnesota – landing.”

I immediately lost sight of the escalators as people flooded into the space in front of me. A few moments later the first few passengers came down the stairs and ran into the arms of their friends and family. The air was filled with sounds of crying and laughing causing my head to throb. Finally, the crowd started thinning out as groups of people grabbed their bags from the carousel and strolled away, their arms still tightly wrapped around each other. As the room cleared, I felt like I could finally
inhale, though the hole in my chest made it hard to breathe deeply.

I watched as a man dressed in army fatigues scanned the remaining bystanders slowly before his eyes locked on someone directly to my right. A big smile appeared on his face and the little girl next to me squealed in delight and took off at a clumsy sprint in his direction. The man sank
to his knees and opened his arms as the little girl fell into them. His wife – or girlfriend or whatever she was – made her way to them wiping her eyes. When the three came together, she kissed her husband – or boyfriend, or whatever – and then the happy little family trotted off down the hall toward the exit and had a wonderful happy day filled with love and joy and wonderfulness.

With the rancid taste of bitterness on my tongue, I squeezed the note in my hand again.

After high school, my brother and I had decided to get our own place in the city. Not long after that, Ben decided – without me – that he wanted to study abroad in Europe leaving me with the apartment to myself. I hadn't minded so much. I liked being alone as much as I liked hanging out with my brother. Though if I had known I'd only have a year before my parents disappeared, I would have moved back home in a heartbeat.

A flash of white hair had me pushing off the wall and shoving the letter back into my pocket. I used to make fun of my ado
pted brother and his light hair saying he must have been born an old man. He'd always come back with some quip insulting my intelligence and we'd tackle each other to the floor. That was when we were little though. Now, seeing his pale face stretch into a tired smile as he walked toward me alone made my heart ache. Well, at least he hadn't skipped out on me.

When Ben reached me, he wrapped one arm around my shoulder in the way he always knew to; conscious of the fact that I've always been a bit claustrophobic.

“Did you get one too?” I asked then felt his arm tense around my shoulder. “I'll take that as a yes.”

When I stepped back, Ben's jaw was set in a hard line. “Have you tried calling them?”

“I've tried everything,” I replied shrugging hopelessly.

Ben grabbed his bag off the carousel and we fell in line behind the sea of people flowing out
through the doors. “You try home?”

“Dad said in the letter not to go home.”

“Do you always listen to everything he says?” my brother asked bitterly as he shielded his eyes from the setting sun.

I turned my head to look at him as we waited to cross the road. “Don't you?”

Instead of replying, Ben just shifted his weight to his other foot. Sometimes my brother had a hard time minding our parents. Maybe it was because we were adopted. I wanted so bad to not listen to Dad's letter. To go to the house I grew up in and search for answers. I wanted to go tear apart Seattle until I found something. Just a clue as to where they could have gone. Anything to get them back.

When we were able to cross the street, Ben stepped fast
, taking long strides, trying to stay a bit ahead of me. We made our way through the parking garage in silence. As the two of us neared the car, I pushed a button on my keys and the trunk popped open. “This one of Dad's?” he finally asked, putting his bag in the trunk.

“Yeah,” I replied as I unlocked the door and climbed into the driver’s seat “They just up and left.” When Ben came around and got in on the passenger side, I put the key in the ignition and turned the engine over. “The lot is still full of cars.”

He turned his head. “Seriously?”

Our dad owned a used c
ar lot on the outskirts of town not too far from their house. When I'd gotten my letter, that was the first place I'd looked for him. Of course he wasn't there. The office had been empty, cleaned out except for a box of keys and a note.

The least we could do – Dad.

I still had the little scrap of paper in my pocket and when I took it out and gave it to Ben to read, he shook his head with a chuckle. “Gee. Thanks, Dad,” he muttered then crumpled the note back up and tossed it into the back seat. It bounced off the bags I had packed and landed on the floor along with a few days’ worth of food wrappers.

Settling back in his chair, Ben turned again to look at me. “So, where are we going?”

I let out a heavy sigh. “I don't know, Ben,” I said. “I left the apartment like three days ago and I've been living out of the car and I haven't been able to use any of our bank accounts.” Dad had told us to disappear, after all.

“Do you have any cash?” he asked interrupting me.

I looked at him. “A little. I mean basically nothing.” I'd spent it all on food and gas.

“Yeah, same here.”

“This is all just crazy,” I continued and put my forehead down against the steering wheel. “What are we supposed to do? Where are we supposed to go?”

Ben started gnawing at the inside of his cheek. Where could we go? Our parents had moved from the east coast to Seattle not long before adopting us leaving the rest of their family behind. We hadn't really
made many friends growing up. Plus, Dad had said in the letter that we needed to disappear. That didn't leave us many options. Especially with no money and no idea what was going on.

“Do you think we're in some kind of trouble?” I asked after bringing my head back up.

“I don't know,” Ben muttered. “You haven't woken up with any horse heads in your bed, have you?”

I felt a smile twitch the side of my mouth. “Not that I can recall,” I said and backed the car out of the parking spot.

“Alright then,” he said. “Where are we going?”

I stared out the windshield and spotted the army guy with his little family standing next to their car. As he put his bags in the trunk of their Jeep, I couldn't help but feel a bit of resentment. If anything ever happened to that little girl, her dad wouldn't desert her. He wouldn't leave her to fend for herself. He'd protect her like he was supposed to. How
were Ben and I supposed to protect ourselves? I mean, sure the two of us could probably handle ourselves in a fist fight well enough. But would that be enough? What were we even protecting ourselves from? Finally, the guy and his family got into the car and disappeared around the corner. A horn honked somewhere behind us.

“Jack?” Snapping out of my daze, I whipped my head around to look at my brother. “Where are we going?” he asked again.

I still felt Dad's note crumpled in my hand. He had said that Ben and I needed to take care of each other. I eyed the ring on Ben's middle finger. He’d gotten it from Mom and Dad for graduation. The blue jewel sparkling in the middle was a family heirloom. Sure, Ben was only older by a few months but he needed to make the decisions here. I knew it. Ben knew it. Dad knew it. A horn honked again.

“Jack!”

“Where do you want to go?” I asked quickly, looking my brother square in the eye.

He stared back for a second, the gears in his head turning. “Let's go home.”

My jaw almost hit the floor. “Are you crazy?”

“Maybe a bit,” he replied quietly. “I just need to get something. We'll be in and out before anything can happen.”

I shifted into gear. “Are you absolutely sure?” I asked him.

Ben nudged the ring with his thumb and bit his lip almost hesitantly.
Almost. Then he nodded. “Yeah, let's go.”

I didn't want to go home.

When we turned onto my parents' street, it took everything in me not to turn around and just drive until Seattle was far behind us. Why had Dad told us specifically not to go home? And why was Ben blatantly going against his wishes?

We pulled into the driveway and I stopped in front o
f the garage. Dad used to say “It's amazing how you always manage to pull up right to the garage, but not actually into it.” I felt a rock nestle in my stomach then Ben undid his seatbelt and opened the door.

He leaned back into the car. “You coming?” he asked looking at me.

I hesitated for a second. Maybe I could just stay out there and keep the car running. But then again maybe Ben shouldn't go in alone. I reluctantly turned the car off and got out of the driver's side seat. The two of us made our way up the porch and Ben put his hand on the doorknob, turning it. The door pushed open easily and we glanced at each other, my worried face matching his. Why was the door unlocked? Cautiously, Ben stepped into the front entryway ahead of me.

“I'm going to go get something from upstairs really quick,” he whispered. “If anything happens, you need to get out of here.”

I shook my head. “No way,” I hissed back. “Not without you.”

Ben let out a sigh before making his way up the stairs to the second floor. Leaning slowly back against the door, I latched it as quietly as possible. My eyes scanned the front room. Everything looked perfectly normal. Not a decorative pillow was out of place. It still looked like it always did, other than the bare walls that had once been covered with photos of Ben and me and our parents. A creak caused me to freeze. I stood motionless for a moment, ears straining, eyes flitting between the doorway to the kitchen and the doorway to the family room. Maybe that had just been Ben upstairs doing whatever it was he was doing. Why wasn't he back yet? Didn't he know we weren't supposed to be here?

I stepped up onto the first stair and peered up into the darkness. “Ben,” I whispered as loudly as I could. “Hurry up, we can't be here–”

“Jack Morgan?” Without moving my head, I looked
over at the kitchen doorway. A man in a black suit stood there, his outstretched arm pointing a very menacing looking gun at me. “Are you Jack Morgan?” My breath was stuck in my throat and the rest of my body was paralyzed as I stared down the barrel of that gun. Somehow I managed to tilt my head ever so slightly in a nod. “Is Ben Morgan upstairs?” he asked sternly. Again I dipped my head a millimeter, my eyes never leaving the end of his gun as I stared, waiting for it to open wide like the mouth of a cave and swallow me. “Get him down here.”

My eyes shifted back up to the empty stairwell. I couldn't hear anything going on. Was he still up there? Had he climbed out a window and was running down the street now, away from the house?
Away from me?

“Ben,” I cracked. My voice came out small and wimpy. I tried to clear my throat but I choked on my own spit and let out a cough. “Ben,” I squeaked again.
Still not a sound. The man was still standing there, his face unemotional and his gun gleaming. “He's not answering me,” I said shakily.