“Why’s that?”
“She’s the one who saw something.”
“Saw something at Knight’s? When you were leaving?”
“Not something, exactly. Just someone. And she didn’t see anyone doing anything. In fact, it’s probably nothing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Okay, so we’re coming out of Knight’s, and it’s kind of dark, and we’re heading for my car—I’d picked her up at her place that night—and she goes, ‘Hey, how you doin’?’ to someone.”
“She saw someone she knew?”
“Yeah. This woman, standing by the alley that goes down the side of Knight’s. You know where I mean?”
“I do.”
“So Carol goes up to her, but I kind of hang back, because it’s not anybody I know, and I feel kind of funny when she introduces me to a friend, because she’s got a good job, and I’m still trying to find something, and I don’t want to have to do a whole bunch of explaining.”
“Sure.”
“So she talks to this girl for about thirty seconds, then says goodbye, and then me and her go to my car and that’s kind of it.”
“Who was she?”
Trevor shrugged. “I asked her, and she said just someone she knew, no big deal, and she actually seemed a bit pissed because this friend didn’t seem to want to talk to her anyway. Kind of gave her the bum’s rush.”
“That’s it? That’s the part you left out?”
“Okay, so, when you found me at Starbucks and started asking us about being at Knight’s, that really, honestly pissed me off, you know.”
“I got that,” Duckworth said.
“I mean, I was thinking of introducing her to you guys, but before I get a chance to do that, suddenly there you are interviewing us like we’re a couple of suspects or something. But then after you left, we were talking, and that’s when she mentioned that she had spoken to this friend of hers. She said that even if we didn’t see anything suspicious, maybe her friend had. She wondered if she should tell you, and then she thought maybe it would be better to get in touch with the friend, and if she did see anything, she could get in touch with you herself.”
“Okay.”
“Carol felt bad that the very first time she meets my dad, she’s not straight with him. She thought that if that other woman knew anything and could help you, that’d be a nice way to make it up to you. Not that you’d ever have known in the first place.”
Maureen said, slowly, “That’s what you were talking about.”
Trevor looked at her. “What?”
“On the phone, last night. I was going past your room and I heard you say something like you didn’t think it was a good idea.”
“You were listening to me?”
“It was just something I heard when I was walking by,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s what we were talking about. I said she didn’t have to do anything, that she didn’t have to get involved just to try to make a good impression on him.” He tipped his head toward his father.
“But she decided to do it.”
Trevor nodded. “She said she was going to give her friend a call. That’s all. Just call her up and tell her something had happened around that time at Knight’s, and that if she saw anything she should get in touch with you.”
“That was the last time you spoke with her?” Duckworth asked.
His son nodded.
“You remember anything at all about this woman?”
“It was dark. And like I said, I didn’t go over. She was probably around our age.”
“White? Black?”
“White.”
“Had she been in Knight’s earlier?”
“Not that we saw.”
“And no name? Carol must have mentioned her name if you talked about this a few times.”
“At first, when I asked who it was—you know, right after she saw her—she just said she was a friend. And it didn’t really matter then. It wasn’t an issue until you came and talked to us. And I said, after, what about your friend, and Carol said, maybe I should get in touch with her.”
“How would she know how to contact her?”
“She said she knew her from where she worked, that she had a number for her.”
Duckworth sighed. “Okay, that whole business, that’s my problem. What we want to do now is confirm that Carol is okay.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Is it possible,” Duckworth asked gently, “that maybe she thought things weren’t working out? That she didn’t want to see you any more, but couldn’t find a way to tell you to your face? So she turned off her phone, didn’t answer her door?”
Trevor looked at him with misted eyes. “I don’t know. I mean, if that’s what she did, I wasn’t picking up the signals, you know?”
Duckworth put a hand on his shoulder. “Here’s what I’m going to do. You don’t want to give her the idea you’re stalking her or something. So why don’t I go into the town hall, down to the planning department, and see if she’s there. In the meantime, you stay here, keep trying her on your phone. If you want, go back to her apartment, see if her car turns up. Does that sound like a plan?”
Trevor nodded. “I guess so.”
Duckworth smiled. “Good. That’s what we’re going to do.”
He gave his son a hug, then gave Maureen a kiss on the cheek as he headed for the door.
Duckworth phoned Trevor ninety minutes later.
“You got any news?” he asked his son.
“Nothing. I’m at her place. No sign of her car. You?”
Duckworth hesitated. “Carol Beakman didn’t show up for work today. And she didn’t call in sick.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
CAL
JEREMY was up and dressed and ready to hit the road before I even had my clothes on. I was in the bathroom, stepping out of the shower. He knocked on the door. I wrapped the towel around me and said, “Yeah?”
He poked his head in. “I’m starving. You okay with me going down for breakfast without you?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want the kid taking off on me, but if he’d wanted to disappear, it would have been easy enough to do that when I was in the shower. He hardly needed to ask. And where was he going to go? How would he make his escape? Not that I didn’t trust him—well, I didn’t trust him—but I had brought not only my gun into the bathroom but my car keys, too.
“I’m not gonna do a runner,” he said. “I’m just really hungry.”
“Fine,” I said, hitting the fan in the hopes it would clear the fogged mirror.
His head withdrew. Seconds later, I heard the door to our room open and close hard. I was a little worried that maybe someone at this hotel—as had happened at the other one before I decided to bail—might recognize him. But that was going to be a potential problem wherever we went.
I quickly shaved, tossed the towel into the tub, and came back into the room. My phone was sitting on the dresser. That might have appeared foolish, leaving it there. But I had a four-digit passcode on it, so Jeremy wasn’t going to be able to use it to make a call or message his friends.
I got into fresh socks and underwear, slipped on my pants and tied my shoes. As I put on my shirt and started doing up the buttons, I went to the window and looked outside. It was a little after eight in the morning, and traffic was busy as people headed to work.
I gazed down into the parking lot.
“For shit’s sake,” I said.
There was a red Miata convertible down there, top up. I couldn’t be certain that it was Jeremy’s girlfriend’s car. Red Miatas were not exactly rare. But it was an early one, the color was faded, and the top torn and ragged.
I hurriedly did the last of my buttons, grabbed my jacket, gun and phone, and bolted from the room. I skipped the elevator and took the stairs, going down them two at a time, then booted it down the first-floor hallway until I’d reached the hotel’s dining area. There were about thirty people there, many of them working t
he breakfast buffet table.
A quick scan of the room did not produce Jeremy.
In the time it had taken for me to get to the first floor, Jeremy could be in that car with Charlene Wilson and halfway to the interstate by now.
I went back to the lobby and out the main doors. I needed half a second to get my bearings. Our window hadn’t faced out the front of the building. The lot where I’d seen the Miata would be around the side of the hotel.
I ran.
As the other parking lot came into view, I saw the Miata, this time with the top down. Jeremy was in the passenger seat, Charlene was behind the wheel, but they were turned toward each other, and it looked like they were kissing.
The car was not running.
As I came up to Jeremy’s door, winded, he looked at me sheepishly. “I was coming right back in,” he said to me. “We’re not going anywhere.”
I wanted to blow my stack.
“Yeah, Mr. Weaver,” Charlene said. “It’s just a visit. Honest. I’m not taking him anywhere.”
“How?” I asked him.
“What?”
“How did you get in touch?” The first thing I thought of was the phone in the room, but I was pretty sure Jeremy had never used it.
He couldn’t look me in the eye. “It’s no big deal. It was only for a little while.”
“What was only for a little while?”
His head dropped as if the tendons in his neck had been severed. Then, slowly, he dug into the front pocket of his jeans and drew out a cell phone.
“Jesus,” I said.
It had a pale pink cover with tiny white polka dots. I recognized it instantly as Gloria’s phone, the one she had surrendered to Bob. Evidently, not for long.
“How’d you get this?” I asked.
“Mom stole it back from Bob and gave it to me when we were leaving the house,” he admitted. Probably, I thought, when she came running out to give him one last hug before he got in the car.
“So when your mom called last night, that was all for show?” I asked.
Jeremy nodded.
“And I guess you weren’t in the bathroom forever last night because you had a stomach ache?”
Another sheepish nod. “I gave my mom another call, and got in touch with Charlene.”
“I’m an idiot,” I said. “I should have guessed.”
“Can Charlene come in and have breakfast with us?” he asked, oblivious to the fact that I was close to a meltdown.
“You know what Bob told me,” I said. “That there are all sorts of nutcases out there on the net, hoping to track you down. Maybe even get a cash reward. Every time you go on a phone—particularly one registered to you or your mom—or go on Facebook, or any of those other goddamn sites, you’re just helping them. They’ll find a way. For all we know, even the press is doing it. What did I say to you yesterday, about whether you liked Charlene? That if you did, you better not get in touch with her, because you’re exposing her to risk. I swear, Jeremy, you just don’t get it, do you?”
“I was real careful,” Charlene said. “I made sure no one was following me.”
I opened Jeremy’s door. “Let’s go,” I said. “And give me that phone.”
He handed it over.
“If you put that one in a fryer, my mom’ll be real mad,” Jeremy said.
“I’m not going to do that,” I said. I dropped it onto the pavement and stomped it with the heel of my shoe. Then I bent down and picked it up to check that the screen was damaged to the point of unusable. It was.
“God, you really are an asshole,” Jeremy said, getting out of the car.
“Goodbye, Charlene,” I said, taking Jeremy by the elbow and steering him back to the hotel entrance.
“This is not fun,” he said.
“No shit.”
I regretted my language. I was supposed to be the adult here. I hadn’t been hired to turn Jeremy into a likeable kid, just keep him safe. The truth was, I wasn’t making much progress on either front. I’d held out the possibility of taking him into Manhattan to explore some art galleries, but now I was reconsidering. If he got away from me there, I’d never find him.
We were nearly to the main entrance when Charlene came up alongside in the Miata, the engine revving in first as she slowed the car to a crawl.
“I’m sorry,” she said. I wasn’t sure which of us she was talking to. Maybe both.
I wasn’t looking at her. Instead, I raised my hand and pointed a finger in the direction of the exit. Maybe, if I’d looked her way, I would have been better prepared for what happened next. I might have seen what was coming and been able to stop it, although, honestly, I don’t know how. At the very least, I might have yelled at Charlene to hit the gas.
Just before the crunch of metal on metal, I heard the gunning of a car engine. Then the red Miata jumped forward.
Charlene screamed and her head snapped back and whacked the headrest. Jeremy screamed, too, and took a leap in the direction of the hotel, instinctively trying to get out of the way.
I whirled around, reaching just as instinctively for my weapon.
The sound of the crash was followed almost instantaneously by the squealing of brakes. Charlene had hit hers, and the driver of the car that had rear-ended her had also made an abrupt stop.
It took only half a second to recall the woman behind the wheel, and the man sitting next to her. It was the couple from the lobby of the first hotel the night before. The ones who’d recognized Jeremy.
Not that I had a perfect view of them. Both front airbags had deployed. They’d deflated enough for me to see that the man had a phone in his hand, holding it in camera mode, and the woman had put her hand over her mouth in what looked like a gesture of shock and horror. I was guessing she hadn’t meant to ram Charlene’s car, but had gotten caught up in the moment.
The man had flung open his door and was aiming the phone at Jeremy, snapping away. But then he saw me, pointing my gun at him.
The woman behind the wheel started screaming.
“Donny!” she shouted.
Donny put his hands over his head. “Jesus! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
I yelled at Jeremy, “Check Charlene!”
He ran toward the Miata. I moved toward Donny, who still had his hands in the air. “Get down,” I said.
He lay flat on the pavement, head down, arms outstretched. “Please don’t shoot me!” he said again.
I tucked the gun away and leaned into the car from the passenger side. “Are you hurt?” I asked the woman.
“It was an accident!” she said. “I didn’t mean to hit that car! Donny said speed up, the kid was going back into the hotel!”
“Are you hurt?” I repeated.
While she’d hit the Miata hard enough to make the airbags go off, it was still a low-speed accident. Damage to the cars, I’d noticed seconds earlier, appeared minimal.
“I . . . I don’t know,” she said, patting her face and her chest. “I . . . I think I’m okay.”
Several staff from the hotel had run outside. I shouted, “Call 911.”
A couple of them nodded, as if it had already been done.
“Donny just wanted a picture,” the woman said. “For the website. There’s money!”
I moved away from the car and said to Donny, still splayed out on the asphalt, “Get up.”
Jeremy was with Charlene. He’d opened her door and she was sitting sideways, her butt in the seat, her feet on the pavement. She had her head down and was rubbing the back of her head.
“How is she?” I asked.
Before Jeremy could speak, Charlene said, “My neck hurts.”
“You’re going to have to go to the hospital,” I said. “We’ll call your parents.”
Jeremy was kneeling, trying to peer up into her face. “You’re going to be okay. Everything’s going to fine. It’s their fault. Those idiots. They caused this.”
I wanted to smack him.
“See if you can stand up,?
?? he said.
“No,” I said. “Don’t move, Charlene. Just stay right where you are.”
Already, I thought I heard a siren in the distance. I looked in the direction of the parking lot entrance. It wasn’t what I saw pulling in that caught my attention, but what was pulling out.
A black van.
TWENTY-NINE
DUCKWORTH told Trevor to stay at Carol Beakman’s building. He would come to him.
Ten minutes later, he was pulling into the lot in his black, unmarked police cruiser. Trevor was sitting on the edge of a short brick edifice that ran the length of the building, phone in hand. The moment he saw his father, he jumped to his feet. Duckworth brought the car to a stop in the no-parking zone directly out front of the building.
“Let’s find the super,” he said.
They went into the lobby together. Duckworth found the directory button marked “Building Superintendent” and leaned on the buzzer.
Several seconds later, a crackling female voice said, “Yeah?”
“Police.”
“What?”
“Police,” Duckworth repeated.
“Hang on.”
Duckworth said to Trevor, “This Toyota she drives. I don’t suppose you know the plate off the top of your head?”
“Jeez, no, how would I know that?”
“That’s okay. Just asking.” He got out his phone, entered a number. “Yeah, hi, it’s Duckworth. I need you to try to track down a plate for a silver Toyota Corolla, around 2012, registered to a Carol Beakman.” He gave the address. “Yeah, okay, give me a call when you know anything.”
The super, a pale woman in her forties wearing a dark blue bathrobe, turned the lock on the glass door and opened it. “Can I see some ID?”
Duckworth displayed it. He asked her name, which was Gretchen Hardy.
“What’s the problem?”
“We’re worried about one of your tenants,” he said. “She’s not answering her phone or knocks to her door.”
“If you’ve already been to her door, whaddya need me for?” Gretchen asked.
“We need you to let us into her apartment.”