3:10 a.m. (Henry Bins 2)

By Nick Pirog

HENRY BINS IS ONLY AWAKE FOR ONE HOUR A DAY.

Henry Bins hasn't seen his mother in thirty years.
She walked out when he was six and never looked back.
Five years ago, Henry started looking for her.
Now she's been found.
At the bottom of the Potomac River.
Henry soon learns everything he thought he knew about his mother was a lie.
And that maybe his condition wasn't the reason his mother left all those years ago.
Because Sally Bins wasn't your average woman.
She was a spy.

Selected Praise for the 3 a.m. series

"The most interesting premise....EVER." -Ruth.D

"If I had to choose one series to take with me to that desert island in the middle of nowhere, this would be it." -MsRee

"What an amazing series. So unique and interesting!" -Linda33

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Pirog
• Release date: Sep 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311659101

Nick Pirog

Nick Pirog is the bestselling author of the Thomas Prescott series, the 3:00 a.m. series, and The Speed of Souls. He lives in South Lake Tahoe with his two pups, Potter and Penny.

Book preview

1

Rise and shine.

Lassie opens one eye. He has some gunk in the corner near his nose and I wipe it away with my thumb. He shakes his head, then rests it down on my chest.

Come on, buddy, we have stuff to do.

Meow.

Ten more minutes? We’ve been asleep for twenty-three hours. Well, I had. I couldn’t speak for Lassie; though I was nearly certain he was curled up on my chest the entire time.

I brush the cat off and stand up. The clock on the dresser screams that one minute of my day has already elapsed.

I pick up my phone off the bedside table and read Ingrid’s text. She won’t be able to stop by. She just wrapped up a homicide-suicide investigation and needs to catch up on some sleep. But she will see me tomorrow for sure. Smiley face.

Tomorrow is October 7 th, Ingrid’s and my sixth-month anniversary.

Though I saw her two days earlier, it feels like I haven’t seen her in weeks. I am toying with the idea of asking her to move in with me. I made her a key a couple months back—which is one of the few things accomplishable at three in the morning—and she uses it when she stops over once or twice a week.

But two hours a week isn’t enough. I wanted her for all seven.

I pad to the kitchen and pull out the bowl of cereal Isabel prepared for me. I peel off the Saran Wrap and pour in the measured glass of milk. Not only does Isabel cook and clean, she also finds small ways to save me time: my toothbrush laid out with toothpaste on it, the microwave preset for three minutes and thirty seconds (the exact time needed to heat her famous enchiladas), Lassie’s food bowl filled and covered in the refrigerator, headphones and running shoes laid out next to the door, the NASDAQ and DOW closing numbers written on a sticky note next to the computer. The seconds she buys me would mean nothing to the average person, but to me, each second is the Mona Lisa.

I eat the cereal, a banana, and a peanut butter protein shake and watch four minutes of Game of Thrones. My dad turned me on to the series eight months earlier, and I was up to episode four of season two.

At 3:07 a.m., I check my stocks on E-Trade. I dump a couple thousand shares of a floundering pharmaceutical company and pick up an equal amount of corn futures—which is a huge gamble but has big upside potential.

There is a soft chime and I answer my father’s call on Skype.

My father is as frumpy as ever. Big glasses sliding down his nose. Receding gray hair running as fast as possible away from a big shiny forehead. A white mock turtleneck, possibly the last in existence, holding up a sagging Adam’s apple.

Hey, Sonny boy, he mutters.

Hey, Pops. How’s your back?

Sore as shit. In fact, I think I’m gonna have to sit out of our game tonight.

My dad’s back had been acting up for the past couple weeks, and we’d been forced to play our weekly poker game online. He cleaned me out the previous Wednesday and I was looking forward to some payback.

Just pop a couple Advil, old man.

That’s just it. The over-the-counter stuff doesn’t help and if I take the pills the doctor prescribed, I’m out in five minutes.

I can tell from my father’s grimace that he is truly in pain. I can’t help but feel partly responsible. My dad’s back was fine until a few years ago when he tried to carry me from his car to my third-story condo. Long story short, he slipped two disks and my neighbor called the cops thinking my dad was lugging around a dead body.

Go pop those pills, then we’ll chat for another minute or two.

He nods and disappears from the screen.

A large brown head takes my father’s place. The head belongs to my dad’s one-hundred-and-sixty-pound English mastiff.

Hey Murdo—

Lassie is on my lap before I finish the second syllable. It’s been three weeks since the two have seen each other and big stupid Murdock doesn’t understand that Lassie isn’t actually on the table in my dad’s house. Murdock smashes the computer with his giant paw and the feed disappears. My dad calls my phone a moment later and tells me that Murdock shattered his laptop and that he’s going to bed.

It is 3:09 a.m.

I’d allocated the rest of my day to playing cards and contemplate what I want to do with my remaining fifty-one minutes. Wednesdays are the only day I don’t exercise and I ponder going for a quick run. I lift the curtain and stare out on the glistening asphalt. It’d been a wet October thus far in Alexandria and the asphalt shimmers under the streetlight. I gaze at the house across the street. It’s been over six months since I heard Jessie Kallomatix’s scream, the impetus that set in motion one man being framed for murder and another taking a bullet between the eyes.

The latter, Jessie’s father, like most people who get shot in the face, died. The former, well, he returned to his day job, aka the leader of the free world.

Nearly two months after Conner Sullivan was exonerated from Jessie’s murder, my phone rang. It was 3:33 a.m. It was President Sullivan. He couldn’t sleep and needed someone to talk to. I was the only person he knew for certain was awake. For ten minutes we made small talk about the weather, his beloved Redskins, and how long I let myself sit on the pot. A month later he called again. And two weeks after that he showed up on my doorstep with a six-pack of beer. He knew I played poker with my dad each Wednesday and wanted to know if he could crash our game.

So my dad, me, the President, and Red (the head of the President’s Secret Service detail) played poker for forty-nine minutes.

But I hadn’t heard from him in three months.

Blasted Ukraine.

I decide to watch fifteen more minutes of Game of Thrones, then go for a short walk with Lassie.

I am set to hit the play button when an alert comes in that I have a new email.

It is 3:10 a.m.

[e-mail] doesn’t get much action, mostly from Amazon or the online trading podcast I subscribe to, and I’ve only received a handful of emails while I was awake.

The email is from AST. Advanced Surveillance and Tracking.

The email is only three words.

We found her.

I take a deep breath.

They found my mother.

2

The last memory I have of my mother is on my sixth birthday. I remember being excited because she missed the previous two. The moment I woke up, I searched the room for her, but it was only my dad standing over me.

Where’s mom?

She’s . . .

This sentence always ended the same.

". . . working."

My mom had the most boring job in the world. Or at least, when I was little, I remember thinking a geologist was the most boring job in the world. But that was because I viewed her job—rocks—as competition. Why was sandstone more important than me? What did quartzite have that I didn’t? It wasn’t until I grew up, learned that my mother wasn’t spending those three-week to three-month long stretches looking for rocks, that I understood. She was looking for oil. Companies paid her a lot of money to do this, which allowed my dad to stay home, earn a modest living as a technical writer, and care after me.

. . . right there, he’d finished.

My mother came into the room holding a birthday cake. The cake was of Snoopy and it had a big blue number six candle on it.

I can still see the look on my mother’s face. Her sharp and angular features—nearly the opposite of my father’s—were a billboard of her Czech heritage. She had piercing green eyes—little pieces of jade, she’d called them—that must be what mood rings were made of.  

Today, they were somber.

I wonder if she knew then that she was leaving. Leaving us.

After I blew out the candles and ate nearly half the cake, my parents brought in my birthday present. Or should I say, wheeled

Reviews for 3:10 a.m. (Henry Bins 2)

[gabrielmpf83 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great second book in the Henry Bins saga. Keeps you engaged from the first to the last page. Can't wait to read the third book.