Finders Keepers

Jerome follows Pete to the drug store, but Pete convinces the clerk to let him slip out the back door. As Pete makes his way to Andy’s bookstore, his sister texts him to tell him that their mom knows about the money. Pete resolves to make sure no one finds out about the notebooks. He no longer cares about the money; he wants to send the notebooks to NYU or The New Yorker and “stick it to Andrew Halliday” (333). Pete thinks of the notebooks as not just his, but belonging to the world. He sees it as his calling to make sure everyone else gets to read them. Meanwhile, Hodges and Holly discuss their options. Hodges is adamant that they talk to Pete’s parents, Holly insists on talking to Mr. Ricker. She calls it a “Holly-hunch,” and Hodges begrudgingly agrees.

When Pete arrives at the bookstore, Morris tells him that Andy is waiting in the back. Pete, relieved, goes to the back as Morris flips the “open” sign and follows him. Pete discovers Andy’s body just as Morris comes up behind him. Morris confronts him about the notebooks, as Pete tells himself that he needs to think. Meanwhile, Hodges, Holly, and Jerome arrive at Mr. Ricker’s classroom. Initially, Mr. Ricker tells them that Pete never came to him with any problems, but did idolize Rothstein. Eventually, however, Mr. Ricker remembers the conversation about the book Pete wanted to sell. He gives them the name of the “shady” dealer that he told Pete to stay away from, Andy Halliday.

At Halliday’s bookstore, Pete realizes that he needs to keep the notebooks a secret if he is going to survive. Claiming that Pete is the thief, Morris presses him, threatening to shoot but not kill him. Pete realizes that Morris killed Rothstein and took the notebooks. He becomes angry, yelling at Morris, “The best writer of the twentieth century and you broke into his house and killed him! For money!” (350). Morris defends himself, saying that it was not for money but so that he could read the notebooks. Pete becomes enraged and, without thinking, throws a whiskey decanter at Morris. The decanter knocks him off balance, and Pete throws another that strikes Morris in the face. Morris recovers and shoots at Pete, but Pete throws the hatchet, whose blunt end strikes Morris in the face. Pete manages to escape the office and flee the bookstore.

As Holly, Jerome, and Hodges drive to the bookstore, Holly makes the connection between Rothstein and the notebooks. She realizes that someone stole and hid the money and notebooks, and that Pete found them and tried to sell the notebooks. Unable to follow Pete because of the bleeding from his face, Morris calls him from the bookstore phone. He tells Pete that Andy refused to buy the notebooks, so Pete killed him. Morris has Pete’s fingerprints on the hatchet, the voicemail, and the DVD of Pete in the store as evidence. Pete realizes that Morris’s story might be plausible, but he also realizes that he cannot trust Morris; giving him the notebooks could be the end of Pete’s life. Instead, Pete decides to contact Hodges for help. After Pete hangs up, Morris cleans up as best he can and leaves for Pete’s house.

Pete finds Hodges’s number online and calls him just as Hodges, Holly, and Jerome discover Andy’s body at the bookstore. Pete tells them everything in a panicked rush, apologizing for the money and notebooks but adamant that he did not kill Andy. Hodges agrees not to call the police until after they talk to his parents. He instructs Pete to wait where he is so they can all talk about it together. Pete calls his mother in a panic as he boards a bus for home, deciding not to wait for Hodges. She tries to scold him about the money, but he interrupts, telling her to lock the doors. Meanwhile, Morris arrives at Pete’s house. He tells himself that if he can just get the notebooks and to the rec center, he can read them before he gets caught. He “understands this is a crazy goal, so he must be a crazy person, but it’s all he has, and it’s enough” (373). Hodges, Holly, and Jerome arrive at the place where Pete agreed to wait for them but don’t find him there. Pete calls and tells them that he is headed home. They tell him to wait there and call the police if anything is wrong. They head toward Pete’s house, 20 minutes away.

Linda Saubers waits for her son to return, convinced that he is having a nervous breakdown and no “sinister villain” is coming to get them. As she turns lock the door, she finds Morris standing in the doorway. When she asks what he wants, he responds, “What’s mine,” and shoots her in the head. Tina hears the noise and runs inside, but Morris grabs her and forces her to call Pete. Morris tells Pete that if he calls again when he has the notebooks, Morris won’t hurt Tina. Pete can tell he’s lying. He needs to return home to get the rec center key and retrieve the notebooks. When Pete hangs up, Morris ties Tina’s hands behind her back and forces her from the home. Linda, still alive, wakes up covered in blood and with a terrible pain in her head. Out the window, she sees Morris leaving with Tina, realizes she needs to call the police, and blacks out.

Hodges, Jerome, and Holly are stuck in traffic. Holly uncovered Morris’s identity by looking up the former owners of Pete’s house. Pete calls and tells Hodges not to contact the police. Pete is going to give Morris the notebooks to get Tina back. He hangs up before Hodges can talk him out of it. Morris takes Tina to the rec center basement window. He instructs her to jump in and, when she refuses, threatens to shoot her, deciding he would do it because “little girls also don’t mean shit” (386). She jumps in, hurting her ankle, and he follows.

Pete arrives home and finds his mother, alive but with a bullet wound in her head. He calls an ambulance for her, then continues after Tina alone. On his way out, he grabs his father’s lighter and a can of lighter fluid, “just in case” (389). He leaves the house and finds a piece of Tina’s clothes torn on a tree. He realizes that Morris took her to the rec center but does not know that that’s where Pete his=d the notebooks.

Hodges, Jerome, and Holly arrive at Pete’s house. They find Linda, in shock and concussed with a lot of blood loss. She tells them that both Morris and Pete took the path to the rec center. Holly stays with Linda while Hodges and Jerome follow Pete. At the rec center, Pete sees the open basement window and hears Morris. He goes upstairs and calls Morris, lying that the notebooks are upstairs and Morris needs to come get them. Morris realizes that Pete may be telling the truth and ties up Tina, promising to kill Pete, then come back and kill her. As he heads upstairs to find Pete, Pete takes a back route into the basement. He finds Tina but is unable to untie her, so he calls to Morris downstairs. As Morris makes his way back down, Pete soaks the notebooks in lighter fluid. He holds the lighter over them as Morris walks in. Outside, Hodges and Jerome arrive. Hodges instructs Jerome to wait outside and slash Morris’s tires. As he enters the rec center, he thinks of Janey and promises himself that he won’t let Pete or Tina die.

Pete tells Morris that if he gets rid of the gun and lets Tina go, Pete will not light the notebooks on fire. Morris argues, and Pete realizes that he and Tina are not “real people” to Morris; instead, the characters in Rothstein’s novels are “real to this man in a way Pete’s sister is not” (402). Pete taunts Morris with spoilers from the unreleased Rothstein’s novels to convince him to let them go.

Hodges arrives as they talk, and Morris shoots at him. Pete drops the lighter onto the notebooks in surprise. Morris shoots at him and misses. Hodges grapples with Morris, while Pete frees the gun and sends it away from the fighting men. Hodges goes down, and Morris goes for the notebooks. As the fire spreads to the ceiling, Morris attempts to free the notebooks. Pete stops to think how “that could have been [him] on fire” (407), but decides that he knows what matters—the real people around him—while Morris does not.

Jerome pulls Hodges, Tina, and Pete from the basement just as the roof collapses. They look back and see Morris on fire, still attempting to pull notebooks from the pile. As they make their way away from the rec center, Holly informs Pete that his mother is okay. Pete feels overwhelming guilt for what happened, as Jerome tries to assure him that he did nothing wrong. Pete insists on carrying Tina home.

Jerome and Holly meet for a picnic at the end of summer to say goodbye before Jerome heads back to college. They discuss Hodges. Holly is concerned over how frequently he visits Hartsfield in the hospital. She insists that there is no point, but Hodges believes Hartsfield is faking his coma. Jerome gets Holly a shirt that says “Shit Don’t Mean Shit.” They tell each other they love each other very much—and that “that shit means a lot” (417).

At the site where the trunk was buried, Pete takes photos with men from the New Yorker for a story he wrote about the notebooks. He apologizes to Hodges for everything that happened. He explains that his main motivation for turning Hodges’s help away at first was because he thought he had a chance to keep the notebooks. He tells Hodges that he is really no different from Morris. Hodges insists, however, that his willingness to burn the notebooks proves otherwise.

Hodges visits Hartsfield. The night prior, a nurse on Hartsfield’s floor killed herself, and Hodges feels Hartsfield had something to do with it. In Hartsfield’s room, Hodges tries to goad him into a reaction to prove he is faking his condition. Hodges talks about the dead nurse and Hartsfield’s mother and questions whether Hartsfield ever had sex with her. Hartsfield gives no verbal response, but his eyes roll to look at Hodges, startling him. Hodges leaves, closing the door behind him, and Hartsfield turns his head. The water in the bathroom turns off and back on, and the eReader by his desk comes to life, flipping through different games. The picture of his mother on his table falls over with a “clack.”