See what went wrong.
Adam pressed the EJECT button.
The bay whirred open. But it was empty.
“What happened to the tape?” Adam asked.
“You left it at Ripley’s,” Lianna reminded him. “Now come inside. Your head is all banged up. And you’re late for dessert and movies.”
Adam slouched into the house after her.
Forget about helping Edgar.
All you can do is watch.
Watch the dead die again.
As Adam stepped into the living room, a blur of red-brown streaked toward him.
He staggered back.
He felt the weight of two small feet pressing into his thighs.
“Down, boy!” Lianna commanded. “Jazz, leave him alone!”
He did it.
Two new files have popped up ACTIVE.
Two?
One of them is the dog’s
12
I DID IT.
The dog was all over him. Licking him. Yapping excitedly.
It was shaggier than the dog Adam had just seen in the viewfinder. Older.
But definitely alive.
Lianna pulled Jazz away. “I don’t know why he always does this to you, Adam. He just loves you so-o-o much.”
“But—but—this is— how can you be so calm ?” Adam stammered.
He knelt down and hugged the cocker spaniel. He felt the warmth of Jazz’s tongue on his cheek.
“Liannaaaaa!” a voice called from the kitchen. “Is your boyfriend here yet?”
“Yes!” Lianna called back. She smiled at Adam. “Sorry. That’s what she says about any male.”
Adam nodded. But he wasn’t listening. He was staring at the white-haired woman in the kitchen entryway.
Lianna’s grandmother.
“Oh…my…god,” he murmured.
“I know.” Lianna nodded, sniffing deeply. “Those cookies smell awesome. Let’s go before Sam eats them all.”
But she died in the train wreck.
I didn’t save her— just Jazz.
Adam felt light-headed as he walked to the kitchen.
Mr. and Mrs. Frazer were bustling around, doing chores. Grandma was taking a tin of hot cookies to the table. Sam was reaching over her shoulder for an early helping.
Lianna sneered at her brother. “Pig.”
“Swallow, please,” Mrs. Frazer said.
Adam sat numbly. Grandma was approaching the table again with a tray of steaming mugs. “Here’s your hot chocolate, Adam. With mini-marshmallows, just the way you like it.”
How does she know that?
Adam tried to recall memories of Grandma, but he didn’t have many. A couple of handshakes and some small talk, that was it.
It doesn’t matter.
Everything’s different now. I saved Jazz, and everything’s different.
He suddenly thought about the car in the driveway.
“Uh, Mrs. Frazer…” he began tentatively. “Your Chevy…what ever happened to it?”
“I sold that hunk of junk, oh, three or four years ago,” Grandma said. “The gears kept slipping.”
“She almost ran over Jazz,” Sam piped up.
Grandma sighed sadly. “Poor little puppy. I went into Drive instead of Reverse, and he was in front of the car.”
“I never saw a dog jump so far,” Mr. Frazer said.
Adam nearly choked on a marshmallow.
“I like my Volvo much better,” Grandma said. “It makes me feel like a teenager.”
“You drive like one,” Sam commented.
“Sam!” Lianna said.
“The car’s all dented up,” Sam explained. “Dad says Grandma should give up driving.”
“Oh?” Grandma said.
Lianna’s dad and mom exchanged an apprehensive glance. “All I meant,” Mr. Frazer said gently, “was that you might… consider giving up driving. Your eyesight—”
Grandma gave a little derisive hoot. “My eyes are holding steady, thank you very much.”
She still drives.
She never killed Jazz, so she never gave up driving. And because she didn’t give up driving, she never took that train…
It was all becoming clear.
Saving Jazz had saved Grandma.
Adam downed his hot chocolate in one gulp and stood up. “Thanks for the dessert. Lianna? Can we see that movie now?”
“Sure.”
Taking his videocamera, he went into the den.
He let Lianna in and shut the door tightly.
“I don’t believe this,” he said. “I am
Philip J. Imbrogno, Rosemary Ellen Guiley