Free The Truth of the Matter by Andrew Klavan Page B

the look in their eyes—what that look would be when they saw me accused of murder, when they saw me convicted, taken off to prison. I mean, my mom—she worried frantically about me even at the best of times. I couldn’t take a walk without her thinking I was going to trip and fall down and break my leg or something. How would she ever get through something like this? How would she ever be able to stand it?
    But on the other hand . . . on the other hand, if what this Waterman guy was saying was true, if there really were people who wanted to attack this country, to terrorize people, to bring down all the things that had made us, really, the freest nation that had ever existed in all the long history of the world . . . then how could I just stand by and let it happen? How could I say no?
    I turned back to Waterman . . .
    And in a snapping flash of light, the scene was gone. I was gone. There was nothing but a sort of woozy, searing darkness and then . . .
    I opened my eyes. I was on the floor of the Panic Room, my cheek against the cold tiles. For a moment I couldn’t think of anything, couldn’t remember where I was or what was happening.
    And then I did remember. I remembered the limousine. The forest passing outside the window. Waterman.
    We want to frame you for murder .
    I sat up quickly. I winced as a dagger of pain went through my head, and a wave of nausea washed through my stomach. But I gritted my teeth and fought the pain and sickness down. What did it matter? A little pain was nothing. A little nausea—nothing. I remembered! I remembered what had happened. I remembered how I had become part of the Homelanders.
    I was working for Waterman, for America. I was infiltrating the terrorist organization in an effort to bring them down.
    My hands curled into tight fists. My vision blurred with emotion. I remembered! What I’d done, who I was. All the people who believed in me—my parents, Beth, my friends, Sensei Mike—all the people who hadn’t thought I was a murderer after all, who had trusted I wasn’t one of the bad guys even when I’d doubted it myself. They’d all been right. I’d never hurt Alex, I’d never been a terrorist, I’d only broken out of prison as part of the plan . . .
    For a second, all I could do was sit there, staring through the blur of emotions, joyful and grateful to God that my life was finally coming back to me.
    And then—then my mind cleared. My vision cleared. I looked around and saw where I was. I remembered what was happening.
    I was in the Panic Room. Stuck here behind a door I didn’t know how to open. Stuck here while the seconds ticked away and the Homelanders prepared to blow the place to smithereens.

CHAPTER TEN

The Sign
    Fighting off my headache and my stomachache and the weakness in my muscles, I grabbed hold of the side of the chest and pulled myself to my feet. How long had I been out? I looked at my watch. I’d only been unconscious about twenty minutes this time. It wasn’t much, but it was long enough for the Homelanders to have set a bomb and run for it. The explosion could go off any minute, any second, for all I knew. How much time did I have left?
    I stared at the wall in front of me—the wall that held the invisible door—that blank, blank wall. The Panic Room struck me as a good name for this place just then because I could feel myself starting to panic.
    But then, as my mind continued clearing, something came back to me. What was it? Just before that last seizure— the last “memory attack,” you might call it—I’d had an idea, hadn’t I? An idea had started to take shape in my mind about how I might be able to get out of here—maybe even get out before the killer—Waylon— and the rest of the Homelanders blew the place up.
    What was it? What had I been thinking?
    I looked around, trying to recapture the half-formed thought. My gaze fell on the chest, the empty chest. Something . . . Something had been there . . .
    And then I saw the