It was nearly midnight when we got back to the beach house. I wished I’d left some lights on. I kept the headlights shining on the back door long enough for me to get the key in. As soon as I had it open, I flicked on the inside and outside lights and gave the high sign to Jeremy, still in the car, to kill the headlights.
There was a smell in the air I didn’t like. I thought it might be gas, or something chemical. I wondered if it was blowing in off the water, or coming from one of the nearby cottages. While the houses close to us didn’t appear occupied, they all had boats of varying sizes sitting on trailers in their yards. I wondered if someone had spilled some fuel getting a boat ready for an outing. Or, worse, someone had tried to steal some gas by siphoning it out of a tank.
Once in the house, Jeremy went straight to the fridge, looking for a snack. I’d had so much popcorn that not only did I not want anything else to eat, I was in need of some Pepto-Bismol. I’d brought none, so I settled for a few antacid chewables instead.
I hit the lights upstairs and found my phone on the bed. I fired it up. I’d missed a call, plus there was a voicemail. And an email. I checked the voicemail first. It was from Barry Duckworth, my friend on the Promise Falls Police. I listened closely, saved the message when it was finished.
Then I opened the email Duckworth had said he would send me. It was a photo of this Cory Calder he’d warned me about.
“Shit,” I said, looking at the shot of the guy who’d talked to us on the beach.
I looked out through the sliding glass doors to the blackness of the night and felt, suddenly, very vulnerable. I went over to the wall switch and flicked it down, killing the lights.
“Jeremy,” I said, just loud enough that he would hear me downstairs.
“Hmph?” He had a mouthful of something.
I went to the top of the circular metal staircase. Evenly and calmly, I said, “We’re leaving.”
“Hmm?”
“Pack. And turn off any lights downstairs. Now. Work the best you can in the dark. Get your stuff. Quick as you can.”
“What’s going on?” he asked, his mouth now clear of food.
“Do it.”
Three seconds later, the lights downstairs died. The staircase was only wide enough for one, so Jeremy waited at the bottom while I came down. His bedroom was up, mine below. We went into our respective rooms to throw our things together. I had my suitcase on the bed and my stuff dumped into it in under a minute. One thing I held onto was my gun.
I became aware that a light had come back on. Softly, I called upstairs to Jeremy. “I told you, lights out.”
“I didn’t do it,” he said. “I thought that was you.”
It was then I realized that the light wasn’t inside the house. It was coming in through the windows. I turned my head quickly to look through the pane of glass in the back door, thinking maybe someone was shining their headlights up against the house.
It wasn’t headlights. It was fire. And it wasn’t coming from just that side of the house, either. Within seconds I could see flames leaping up past the windows on all four sides.
Someone was torching the beach house.
FIFTY-ONE
MAUREEN Duckworth, dressed in a robe that she had cinched at the waist, found her husband sitting at the kitchen table, still in his suit, tie askew, a few minutes before midnight. A half-full bottle of beer sat in front of him, as well as his phone and a bottle of Tylenol.
“Aren’t you coming to bed?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I need a minute, that’s all.”
She sat down across from him. “Trevor and I were in touch all day.”
Duckworth nodded solemnly. “Me too. I didn’t see his car out front.”
“He’s still sitting in the parking lot at Carol’s apartment.”
“My God, it’s been like seventeen hours.”
“He’s still hoping she’ll come home.”
Duckworth’s head went slowly up and down. “Yeah,” he said.
“Is she coming home?” his wife asked.
“I don’t honestly know. Maybe I should go see him. Wait with him.”
She placed a hand over his. “You can’t go out again. You look like you can barely keep your eyes open.”
He put the bottle to his lips, tipped it back. “He showed me his tattoo.”
“He told me.”
Duckworth’s eyes started to mist. He had to look away from Maureen. He stared at the window and the darkness that lay beyond. “I had no idea.”
“He loves you. He respects you.”
Duckworth shrugged.
“Stop it,” Maureen said. “You two may butt heads now and then, but you’re his hero.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know.” He paused. “There are a lot of things I don’t know. Like where Carol is. She’s out there somewhere. She may be with this Calder character. But is she alive?” He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. I’d say the odds aren’t good.”
“You haven’t told Trevor that.”
“No, I haven’t.”
They were both quiet for several moments. Finally Maureen said, “What’s with the Tylenol?”
“I hurt.”
He told her about what had happened at Eleanor Beecham’s house. Getting shoved about by Norma and Harvey. Punched in the chest.
“They were both arrested and charged with assaulting an officer,” he said. “Social services swooped in to deal with Mrs. Beecham. That guy whose back got tattooed? His father showed up just in time. Saved my ass.”
”Well. Lucky he was there.”
“Yeah.”
“Where does it hurt?”
“Kind of all over.”
“Point.”
Duckworth thought a moment, then raised his hand into the air, pointed down toward his head, and twirled his finger around. “That general area.”
She smiled. “You look exhausted.”
“It’s been a long day.”
“I mean, all the time. Ever since what happened a year ago.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I think about it a lot. Randy phoned me, begged me to come to the memorial. Wants to give me a stupid plaque.”
Maureen nodded. “I think you should go.”
“I don’t want to.”
“But you should. People are grateful for what you did. Let them show you.” She hesitated. “He called me, too.”
“Finley called you?”
“He asked me to talk you into it.”
Duckworth grinned. “The bastard. He told me a memorial without me present would be like a massage without a happy ending.”
“He phrased it a little differently with me,” Maureen said.
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him it was up to you. It’s all up to you.”
He studied her face. “What if I wanted to quit? Take early retirement. Do something else.”
“That’d be up to you too.”
“You’d like me to, wouldn’t you?”
“I’ve never said that. You’re doing what you love. I couldn’t ask you to give that up.”
He flipped his hand over and squeezed hers. “I think about it once in a while.”
“About quitting?”
He nodded very slowly. “It’s a young man’s game.” He gave a wry smile. “It’s a thinner man’s game, too.”
She got out of her chair, came around the table, sat on the one next to him. She leaned her body into his, rested her head on his shoulder. “I’ll go along with whatever you decide, but it has to be what you want. I don’t want you doing it for me.”
“Why would that be so bad?”
Maureen shifted in her chair, her knees touching his thigh. She leaned in and planted a soft kiss on his cheek.
“Someone needs to shave,” she said.
“I’m going for the Miami Vice look.”
“My God, how long ago was that?”
She gave him another kiss, then cupped his chin with her hand and t
urned his head to her. She touched her lips to his and held them there for several seconds. Duckworth raised a hand and rested it on her cheek.
“I love you, you know,” she said.
“For the life of me I don’t know why,” he said.
“Oh shut up.”
“You’d been out with some hot guys but settled on me.”
“I never settle.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. But you could have done better.”
“And you could have done a lot worse,” she said, and gave him another quick kiss. “I picked you.” She grinned. “No one else came close.”
He held his wife in his arms as he said, “I had to call Cal Weaver today. You remember him?”
“Of course.”
“Left him a message.” He reached for his phone, flipped it over, brought it to life for a second. “I wish he’d call me back. Anyway, I was thinking about what he does.”
“Working privately, you mean?” She linked her fingers at the back of his neck.
“Yeah. Getting to pick and choose what you do, instead of having to deal with everything that drops into your lap.”
“You want to be peeping into people’s bedrooms, gathering evidence for divorce cases? That’s beneath you. I can’t see you being happy doing that.”
“I don’t think Cal does a lot of that kind of work.”
“If he gets hungry enough, I bet he does.”
Duckworth shrugged. “Maybe. But you know, if I quit, I’d qualify for a pension already. Not a huge one. But I could supplement it with private work. I’d still get to do what I’m good at, but with less risk.”
“Cal doesn’t face risks?”
“Maybe sometimes. But nothing all that serious.”
FIFTY-TWO
ALBERT Gaffney was slumped on the couch watching NCIS on the TV when his wife came in and sat down on the recliner.
“It’s late,” Constance said.
“How is he?” Gaffney said, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“He ate most of the soup. And a tuna sandwich.”
“Well, that’s something,” he said.
“Isn’t this a repeat?” she asked, glancing at the set.
“I think so, but I’m not really concentrating on it. Where’s Monica?”
“She’s in her room, listening to music.”
“Hmm.”
“Albert,” she said.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the screen, as though mesmerized by it.
“Albert, turn that off,” she said gently.
Slowly, he turned his head to look at her. He seemed to be weighing her request. Finally, he picked up the remote and clicked it off.
“What?”
“We . . . we need to talk about things.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Everything’s done. The car’s clean. The garage has been hosed down. It’s all been taken care off. All you have to do, Maureen, is keep your mouth shut. If you keep your mouth shut, we’ll be fine.”
“It wasn’t . . . He wasn’t the one.”
Albert stared at her.
“They’re looking for that Calder man.”
“I know. I talked to Duckworth.”
“So . . . that means it probably wasn’t the man who . . . That man. He’s not the one.”
“He’s the one,” Albert said. His jaw tightened. “And even if he wasn’t the one who put those words on Brian’s back, he still hurt him. So . . . there’s that.”
He hit the button to turn the TV back on.
“Albert.”
He sighed, killed the TV again. “What now?”
“The police will be asking questions. They’ll be coming back.”
“No one saw me. No one saw me at the dump, either. No one saw anything.”
“There’s Brian,” she said.
“What do you mean? He’s home now. He’s going to be okay.” He gave her half a sneer. “You got what you wanted. He’s back with us.”
Constance looked at him, wondered what Albert had become. She’d never feared him before, but she did now.
“The police will be coming to talk to Brian,” she said. “When Frommer’s wife reports him missing, if she hasn’t already, she’ll probably tell them about the fight he had with Brian. They’ll want to question him.”
Albert shook his head slowly. “It’ll be okay. Brian was in the hospital all through the time that Frommer was missing. He has witnesses. It will be okay.” He paused. Worry crept across his face. “Unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
Albert rose and left the room without saying anything else. He went upstairs and lightly rapped on the door to his son’s room.
“Yes?”
He pushed the door open. Brian was in bed, his head on the pillow. He had his bedside lamp on and was reading a Sin City graphic novel.
“Got a sec?” Albert asked.
Brian put his book face down on the covers. “Sure.”
Albert came in and sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s good to have you home.”
“It’s good to be here. I think I might give up my apartment.”
“Well, get yourself well and then you can think about that. It might be the right thing to do.”
“The hospital gave me some pills. They’re kind of helping with the pain.”
“Good. That’s good. Look, there’s something we need to discuss.”
“Okay.”
“When I was driving around and found you, you told me about Ron Frommer, what he did to you.”
Brian nodded.
“Who else did you tell?”
“I didn’t tell anyone. Remember, I was afraid of getting him in trouble, in case he took it out on Jessica.”
“That’s right. So you didn’t tell them at the hospital?”
“No.”
“You didn’t tell the police?”
“No.”
Albert nodded. “Okay. It’s possible, there’s a chance, that the police might want to talk to you about him.”
“Did you tell them? Dad, I told you not to.”
“No, no, I didn’t do that. But if Jessica were to tell them about the two of you, then the police might come talk to you.”
“Oh, yeah, I guess. But only if she told them. Why would she do that? She’s not going to want to get him into trouble.”
“Well, she might,” Albert said. “You see, if anything were to happen to Ron, they’d want to talk to anyone who’d gotten into an argument with him in the last few days.”
Brian looked puzzled. “I don’t understand. Am I in trouble?”
“No. How could you be? You were in the hospital. If something happened to Ron, well, you couldn’t have had anything to do with it.” He paused. “But there’s one thing I need you to remember, in case anyone ever asks you any questions about him.”
“What’s that?”
“You never, ever told me his name. You never, ever told me where he lived.”
Brian’s look of puzzlement grew. “But I did.”
“No,” his father said firmly. “You did not.”
Brian let this sink in for a few moments. “Okay,” he said, finally. “I never did.”
Albert smiled. “That’s good. And no matter how many times someone might ask you the question, it’s always no. You never told me.”
Brian’s head slowly went up and down. “Right.”
Albert patted his son’s blanket-covered thigh. “That’s good, son. That’s good. Now, you get better, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And when you’re better, we’re going to see what we can do about your back. Right?”
Brian nodded.
Albert stood and walked to the door. As he was slipping into the hall, about to close the door, Brian said, “Dad?”
“Yes, son?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, Brian.”
FIFTY-THREE
CAROL Beakman was awake.
Barely.
&
nbsp; She could hear the man moving about, wherever it was they were. She’d been drifting in and out of consciousness. Whatever he’d done to keep her groggy was wearing off, and while she wanted to work at freeing herself—she was secured to some kind of bed—she didn’t want to draw any attention to herself.
The first thing she had to do was let her head clear some, and figure out just what kind of fix she was in.
Things were coming back to her.
Going to Dolly Guntner’s place. Telling her that the police were looking into what had happened outside of Knight’s bar. Dolly freaking out, and her boyfriend Cory—yeah, that’s his name, that’s who grabbed me when I tried to get into my car—freaking out because she was freaking out. Which made Carol think that not only did Dolly and this Cory know about what had happened at Knight’s, they’d had something to do with it.
And then she’d dropped her damn purse. God, just like some dumb broad in a horror movie. Everything scattered, keys obscured in the mess. She’d lost the seconds she’d needed to get into the car, lock the door, get the hell out of there and call Trevor. Tell him to call his father.
Things went dark for a long time after that.
She’d had the sensation of moving. She was lying on her side, arms tied behind her back, ankles lashed together. She was in a truck or a van.
She’d blank out for a while, wake up again. Groggy most of the time.
Cory liked to talk, but she was pretty sure it was more like he was talking to himself and not to her. She didn’t believe he thought she could hear him. He’d be sitting behind the wheel, saying things like “Did you bring your bathing suit? Because we’re going to the beach! You ever been to Cape Cod? Yeah, well, me neither, but I bet it’s nice.”
Other times, it was as though he were trying to persuade her he wasn’t a bad person.
“What happened with Dolly,” he said, “was not the way I wanted things to go. But she was freaking out. I think she was going to go to the police, tell them everything. What was I supposed to do? Right? She’d lost sight of how important it was, what we’ve been doing.”
He’d glance back sometimes into the cargo area, say, “I’m going to be famous. People are going to talk about me. I’m making a difference. You know what I am? I’m an instrument. An instrument of justice. Of revenge.”