First Chapter

Prologue

Arrow Rock, Maryland

These were the last sixteen minutes of his life.

"Harry Smith, yes?”

"That’s me,” said the middle-aged man with the lopsided grin. It was the first lie he’d tell. His real name wasn’t Harry Smith. Back when he first disappeared, he picked it for its commonness—if you googled Harry Smith, there’d be too many to sort through. His real name was Andrew Fechmeier, though he hadn’t been called that in years. Decades, really, which showed how good he’d become at hiding.

It was no accident. As his former boss once told him, a good lie is a fine art.

Limping inside and wearing a Detroit Tigers baseball cap tipped low enough to hide his face, Fechmeier glanced around the blue-carpeted entryway of Generaux & Sons Funeral Home, which had all the charm of a law firm and somehow smelled of cookies. It was a trick used by funeral homes around the country, baking cookies in back to mask the stench.

It didn’t fool Fechmeier, who was as good at spotting lies as crafting them. Growing up, everyone used to call him Fetch, since he was always the teacher’s pet. He was a smart kid . . . brainy, even—the first to wear glasses in his grade, and the first to have them broken.

In gym class, when teams were chosen, he wasn’t picked last . . . Malcolm Latrine (his last name was actually Latrine) was always last . . . but Fetch was usually near the bottom. So in fourth grade, when one of the coaches made Fetch a team captain, Fetch knew the schoolyard rules: You pick Malcolm last.

On that day, for reasons even he couldn’t explain, he picked Malcolm first. A few of the cooler kids laughed. But a few others—the gifted ones—took it as a victory. Fetch did something no one had ever tried. In fourth grade, and especially in Fetch’s mind, that moment redefined him—made him brave, confident.

That is, until Latrine, thinking Fetch had made fun of him, shoved him down the stairwell after gym class, breaking Fetch’s wrist. Even in fourth grade, it was a valuable lesson: always check your back.

"Tough day, huh?” asked funeral director Dustin Generaux, an overweight man with wispy gold-dyed hair and a body shaped like a teardrop. He noticed the way Fetch was scanning the front door, then each of the windows, including the one that had a little bonsai tree on the ledge and that overlooked the parking lot along the side of the building. A tiny bead of sweat filled the notch in Fetch’s chin. "Mr. Smith, if you need some water—”

"I’m good,” Fetch said, noticing the tiny Notre Dame logo at the tip of the funeral director’s tie. Hoping to change the subject, he added, "Like your tie, by the way.” Those were lies number two and three.

"It’s a hard day. I get it,” the funeral director said, assuming Fetch was nervous or uncomfortable, like anyone else in a funeral home. That was true. Fetch was nervous—he didn’t want anything to go wrong.

Yet if Fetch were being honest, a part of him was also a bit excited. Decades ago, on that night at the drive-in theater, Fetch made a mistake he’d forever regret. Lives were lost, there was no taking it back. But now, all these years later, he had a chance to set things right. Assuming he didn’t get killed in the process.

"Mr. Generaux, when we spoke earlier, you said you had a private room for—?”

"Of course,” the funeral director replied, motioning to what Fetch was carrying. "I take it that’s the suit?”

Fetch nodded, lifting a wire hanger that held a ’90s-era double-breasted suit with gold buttons.

This was the suit he’d be buried in.

Most people don’t pick out their own funeral attire. Family or friends usually choose—that is, unless they’re all dead.

"Yeah, this is the suit for—y’know . . .” Fetch said, taking one final glance over his shoulder, checking the front door, then the bonsai window and the parking lot. All clear.

"C’mon, let’s get you set up,” Mr. Generaux said, reaching for the suit.

Fetch didn’t hand it over, not until he was sure it’d be safe.

If you go to a bank to open a safe-deposit box, paperwork gets filed and the government gets notified. Same if you open a P.O. Box at the local UPS Store. Hell, they make cookie jars that are Bluetooth-enabled to see if someone swipes a chocolate chip. In today’s interconnected world, everything’s tracked.

But if you hide something in an old suit and tell your local mortician to hold it for your funeral, you don’t just have good estate planning, you have a lie worthy of fine art. A truly untraceable hiding spot.

If it all goes right.

Fourteen minutes left to live.

"So this is normal for you?” Fetch asked, following the chubby mortician up the beige hallway with its dark wood chair rail that was supposed to look like mahogany but was really just brown paint. On their right was a bland oil painting of a Virginia landscape that Fetch couldn’t tell was a sunrise or sunset, though maybe that was the point of funeral art. "Lots of people give you clothes in advance?”

"Some.”

Fetch knew what he meant. If you’re picking out your own funeral outfit, it’s usually because you have no one else in your life—or even worse, you know what’s coming.

Last year, as Fetch grabbed his favorite snack, a Honeycrisp apple, his hand started trembling. He knew it was bad.

He was right: Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a genetic mess that would come down to a coin flip. Heads, everything would be fine; tails, he’d hit the ditch.

Within weeks, the tremors got worse. Then his gait changed, his posture starting to hunch. The ditch was getting closer. The doctors revised their outlook, giving him six months to a year. Tops.

"You should see what people give us to be buried in,” Generaux added, trying to keep the conversation upbeat. "Military uniforms . . . football jerseys . . . I’ve got one client—seventy-one years old, opened nearly every Jiffy Lube in the state—he gave me the cowboy hat that his ex hates more than anything and said to make sure she’s first in line at the wake.”

Fetch faked a laugh, his limp getting worse as they passed a glass conference room that looked like any other, except this one displayed different-sized urns and wood samples for caskets.

For so long now, Fetch had spent his adult life as a man of compromise. He compromised on his dreams, on his job . . . he compromised for the woman whose photo he still kept in his wallet, even on the way he ran—from the police, from the pain, from that night he made the decision that wrecked their lives. Worst of all, Fetch had gotten used to it, this life of mediocrity, of hiding, this existence in a low-tipped baseball cap where he lived on the margins rather than in the spotlight.

Until he was diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob.

For the first few months, he’d sit in the doctor’s waiting room, replaying a moment from junior high when his math teacher, Mrs. Schemer, said he had potential. Back then, his friends liked that potential. He liked that potential. But those days were gone.

Unless, somehow, he stopped being scared and did what he swore he’d never do.

Three weeks ago, Fetch made a trip to the local library, pulling up the map on a public computer rather than putting it into his burner phone. That’s how scared he was they’d find him. It took another two weeks to lay out the details—he’d travel only at night, only on back roads, using motels that took cash. The night before he left, he was so nervous, he popped a blood vessel in his eye.

But he still made the trip.

As terminal patients know, when death gets close, you tend to be less afraid of life . . . especially if you have the right insurance policy.

"I appreciate you holding on to this,” Fetch said, handing over the suit with his left hand while using his right to pat what he’d stitched into the lining of the jacket’s back vent. Even if you checked the pockets, you wouldn’t find what was hidden inside. Not unless you knew what you were looking for.

Eleven minutes to go.

Late last night, Fetch noticed a pale-blue Nissan hatchback pass his motel room two different times, like it was circling the block.

Probably nothing, just being paranoid. But when he saw the same Nissan again this morning, well, time for a detour.

"Whatever you need, we’re here,” Mr. Generaux said, carrying the suit into his office, toward a storage closet filled with sequined dresses and pinstripe jackets that hadn’t been in style since Clinton was president. Grandparent outfits. On the top ledge was a black cowboy hat and three glittered tiaras. "God willing, it’ll be years before you need to wear this.”

Fetch nodded a genuine thank-you, suddenly thinking that Generaux was a better man than Fetch first judged him to be, and isn’t that the real secret to life—dig a little deeper, and you’ll find more good in everyone?

As Fetch turned to leave, there was a thunk and a click, the mortician shutting the closet door, flipping a metal latch, and sealing it with a padlock.

Safe and sound.

Nine minutes to go.

Outside, the midday sun was so bright, Fetch couldn’t help but squint, even with his baseball cap, as he scanned the parking lot, the paint store next door that used to be an arcade, and the secondhand clothing shop across the street that used to be a Friendly’s. It was the hardest part of coming home. Some things can never be erased.

Starting his car and hitting the gas, he pulled out onto Briarwood Lane, the small two-lane thoroughfare that ran through this and all the nearby towns. Every car, gas station, and storefront he passed, he checked his rearview, checked his surroundings, checked for anyone who might’ve followed.

All clear.

At a red light, he flipped on the radio, finding Hall & Oates singing "You Make My Dreams Come True” and wondering if he should take it as a sign. Not a chance, he thought, knowing how it works with Charlie Brown and his football. The moment you think you’re home free, life puts you on your back.

Seven minutes to go.

With a sharp left at Arby’s, he spotted the Carousel Motel halfway up the block. The only person in sight was an elderly woman on a bus bench across the street. The back of the bench held a sun-faded ad for a local personal-injury lawyer named Heartman, though the way the woman was leaning, her body and grocery bag covering the H and the bottom of the e, it looked like Fartman.

It was the exact type of dumb joke Fetch needed as he pulled into a spot around the back of the motel, so his car couldn’t be seen from the street. Hall & Oates were still singing about their dreams coming true, and Fetch couldn’t help but add a set of Ooh-ooh, ooh-oohs.

The song’s too good, he thought to himself, still humming it as he shut off the car and walked through the lot. Though it’s no "Sara Smile.”

Fetch scanned the roof, the alley on the far right, and each motel-room window to see if anyone was watching. He even checked his own room on the second floor, where he’d left the curtain open just a hair—so if someone snuck in and pulled it shut, he’d know they were waiting for him.

Everything looked good.

Pressing his keycard to the front door lock, he waited for the magnetic thunk and shoved the door open. Two steps through the threshold, he was still humming Hall & Oates when—

Kllk.

"You’re really not as smart as you think you are.”

Fetch tried to turn, but the barrel of the gun was already pressed into the back of his head. Raising his hands, he got his first good look at the room. The mattress was pulled from the bed, the drawers were out of the dresser, and every square ceiling panel was popped open and askew—like someone was looking for something . . . and hadn’t found it.

"Tell me why you came back, son,” his attacker growled. He had a calm in his voice, with a flat accent, like someone from the Midwest, maybe Minnesota. But from the angle of the gun . . . the way it was being pushed upward, Fetch could tell he was short, maybe five-four. Was he a kid or—?

"Mr. Fechmeier, there’s a blood moon that I’m really looking forward to tonight, so I’m not asking again. Tell me why you’re here.”

"I-I’m sick!” Fetch insisted. "Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. There’s a file—”

"I saw.”

On Fetch’s left, his medical file was open on the dresser. Everything else in the room was tossed, torn open. But the pages of the file were in a neat stack, like they’d been read.

Two minutes to go.

"I’m asking this once, Mr. Fechmeier. Your answer will decide how much you enjoy the rest of your afternoon. Did you bring it with you?”

"I don’t know what you’re—”

Without a word, his attacker kept the gun on Fetch’s neck and used his other hand to press something into the lower-left corner of Fetch’s back. At first, Fetch didn’t feel it—it was just wet. But within seconds, a tiny electric shock hit and . . . it was blood. His blood. He’d been cut with a knife—with subtlety—and precision . . . like a butcher working a fillet.

"Did you just stab me?!” Fetch screamed.

"Last chance, son. We know what you took. Did you bring it with you?”

"I told you—!”

Another soft shove. Another electric shock. His attacker was smart about it—calculated—like he was purposefully avoiding major organs.

"Mr. Fechmeier, people say that patience is about hatching the egg, not smashing it. But there’s something to be said about cracking things open, don’t you think?”

Fetch was crying now, the gun still at the back of his head. He made a sound like a dying dog.

One minute to go.

"I’d like to know where you were just now, Mr. Fechmeier.”

"Nowhere! I swear to God—”

"Mr. Fechmeier . . .”

Fifteen seconds to go.

"I-I swear . . . on my mother’s grave. . . . I was just grabbing lunch and then—!”

Blam.

A burst of blood hit the ceiling. Fetch’s body slumped to the carpet.

It was the last lie Fetch ever told.

For the next few minutes, the man with the blade—it was a fillet knife actually—picked through Fetch’s pockets, combing through his wallet, his flip phone, his socks, and the waistband of his underwear to see if it was somehow tucked in there. He didn’t find what he was looking for.

Indeed, when it came to Fetch’s most prized possession—hidden in the lining of an old suit and now locked in the storage closet of a local funeral home—even Fetch could’ve never anticipated who would eventually find it.

Like Chapter 1? Read the rest of The Viper and order it here.