No Safe House

  I wiped the blood off my finger, wadded up the tissue, and stuck it into the front pocket of my jeans. Then I took the cell from my pocket.

  “Hey, sweetheart. I’m comin’ out. I think we’ve got another stop to make on the way home.”

  In fact, I was thinking, maybe two. The hospital would be our first, and if we didn’t find Stuart sitting in the ER, we’d go past his house on our way home.

  We needed to find this kid. We needed to find him, and find out what, if anything, had happened to him.

  I was waiting for Grace to respond.

  “Grace? You there? I’m thinking we check the hospital on the way home. I found what looks like just a little—and I mean just a little—blood here in the kitchen.”

  Grace still had nothing to say.

  “Grace?” I said. “Grace, are you there?”

  Nothing.

  I looked at the display on my phone. The connection had been broken. I moved quickly to the kitchen window to see whether she was still standing out back of the house.

  She was not.

  I brought up her number and was about to call her back when I stopped myself. If Grace had run into the bushes to hide—maybe that Milford cop had returned and was snooping around the house—and if she’d forgotten to mute her phone, the last thing she’d need would be me calling her. Even if I texted her, it would make that brief jingle and alert anyone around her.

  I thought about running downstairs and scrambling out the basement window, but then reconsidered. If there was a cop wandering around, this wouldn’t be the best time to make an appearance. But then again, if someone spotted that broken window and decided to come into the house, I was trapped here.

  I was not then, and never have been, adept at what you’d call grace under pressure. I couldn’t decide what to do next. I was paralyzed, terrified that whatever choice I made would be wrong.

  I took a few deep breaths and attempted to focus. I needed to know what was going on, and I wasn’t going to learn a damn thing standing here in the kitchen trying to keep myself from wetting my pants.

  I killed the flashlight and gingerly made my way through the living room to the front window so I could get a look at the street. No cop car, which was a blessing. Of course, my car was still sitting there, like a big blazing advertisement that read: “SOMEONE’S HERE! CHECK IT OUT!”

  I detected some movement out of the corner of my eye.

  Near the end of the driveway, sheltered by a tall hedge that separated this property from the next, I could make out two dark shapes.

  Two people, facing each other. Talking.

  I was pretty sure one of those people was Grace.

  While it was too dark to read facial expressions, there was nothing about her posture that indicated this was a confrontation. The other person, who was about the same height, wasn’t waving his arms or pointing a finger.

  And it didn’t look like a he, either.

  Grace was talking to another girl. Or woman.

  That cop she’d spotted was a woman, but this woman didn’t appear to be wearing a uniform or a heavy belt loaded down with assorted cop accessories. Plus, there was no cruiser on the street, at least not on the part of the street that I could see.

  Time to find out what the hell was going on.

  I returned to the basement, hoisted myself up through the open window, and got back on my feet outside the house. As I came around the corner, I could hear the hushed conversation of two people whispering.

  Grace glanced my way. “Dad!”

  She ran toward me. The other woman didn’t move.

  She put her arms around me, her head on my chest. “I thought you’d never get out of there.”

  “Your phone,” I said, not taking my eyes off the woman.

  “Oh,” she said, glancing at it, still in her hand. “I must have hit the button or something.”

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “It’s okay,” Grace said. “You know I told you I made another call before I called you, soon as I got out of the house. I mean, I kept trying Stuart, but I called someone else, too.”

  I eased myself out of Grace’s embrace and walked in the direction of this mystery woman. I kept the flashlight off and down at my side, hoping that once I’d closed the distance, I’d be able to get a look at this person.

  I stopped when I was within two feet of her.

  “Hey, Teach,” she said.

  “Jane,” I said.

  Jane Scavullo.

  NINETEEN

  CYNTHIA Archer had been in Nathaniel’s apartment only five seconds when she realized she didn’t have her cell phone. Cynthia was not necessarily expecting Terry to call her about Grace, or anything else for that matter, but she wanted the phone with her just in case. So she ran back across the hall for the phone, then reentered Nathaniel’s place.

  She’d told herself she had a good, and perfectly innocent, reason for accepting his invitation for coffee. She needed the distraction. Chatting with Nathaniel would keep her mind occupied with something other than Terry and Grace, and what might be going on that they didn’t want her knowing about.

  It had nothing to do with the fact that he was an attractive young man. Let’s face it, a damaged attractive young man. He had more baggage than the lost and found at LaGuardia. And that short episode with Orland—the poor man—had been unsettling.

  Nathaniel, reaching into the cupboard for two coffee cups, said, “It was nice to meet your husband, um—”

  “Terry,” Cynthia said.

  “Yeah, Terry. I hope I didn’t interrupt something when you guys were talking on the porch there. I didn’t realize—I mean, I never notice things like rings on fingers, so I didn’t even realize you were married. And you know, considering that you’re living here by yourself—but that’s none of my business anyway, so—Jesus, I’m rambling.”

  Cynthia smiled. “That’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

  “He seems like a nice guy.”

  “He is.”

  “Grab a seat,” Nathaniel said, pointing to the small island in the kitchen nook. There were two stools tucked under the counter overhang. Cynthia pulled one out and perched her butt on the edge, one foot resting on the rung. At the island sink Nathaniel filled a glass carafe with cold water, turned around, and poured it into the top of an electric coffeemaker on the opposite counter, then slid the empty carafe into the base.

  “I drink it, but the whole idea of decaf just seems wrong,” he said. “Like wine without alcohol. Cake without icing. Sex without orgasm.” He glanced at her. “Too far?”

  “Yeah, the cake thing was a bit much,” Cynthia said.

  “Thing is, decaf is all I can drink this late. It’s hard enough for me to sleep, and the last thing I need is to be more jittery.”

  “What’s given you the jitters, aside from Orland?”

  He forced a laugh. “Nothing really. Just—I was heading back, and I kind of let it rip on the turnpike, cruising around ninety, and I glanced in the mirror and thought I had a cop behind me. ’Bout had a heart attack. It was a Charger—the cops use them a lot for their unmarked cars. But it turned out just to be some guy.”

  “Where were you driving back from?”

  “Nowhere. A lot of nights, I just drive. Think about things. What used to be, and like that.”

  “You know, I really think I should give Barney a call,” Cynthia said. She’d already put his number into her phone. She brought up her contact list, tapped the screen, and put the phone to her ear.

  After three rings, “Hello?”

  “Barney? It’s Cynthia? Over on—”

  “I know.”

  “Sorry to call so late, but there’s something I thought I should let you in on.” She told him the story.

  “Oh no,” Barney said. “Orland’s been okay for a while, but he must be taking a turn for the worse. The other day, I went to call on him, heard him talking to somebody, but when he opened the door, there was no one else there an
d he hadn’t been on the phone, either.”

  “He was looking for his wife,” Cynthia said.

  “She’s been dead thirty years, at least. He could hurt himself if he’s starting to lose it.”

  “That’s why I called. I was thinking, he leaves something on the stove . . .”

  “Okay, I’ll check in on him. Thanks for this.”

  Cynthia set her phone down on the counter and watched Nathaniel spoon in some ground coffee from a tin into the coffee machine, spilling some of it.

  “Shit,” he said, using his hand as a broom to clear the spilled coffee into his other hand. He slapped his hands over the sink, then rinsed his hands to get all the granules off. “I always do that.” He forced another laugh. “Maybe I’ve caught something from the dogs. Distemper or something.”

  Cynthia smiled. “Might be fleas. You need one of those collars.”

  He nodded. “That might stop me from trying to scratch my neck with my foot.”

  “That’d be something to see,” she said.

  “Oh, I’m flexible,” he said, then, maybe thinking the comment had some sexual connotation, quickly added, “It’s all that stooping and scooping. It’s better than yoga. You ever tried yoga?”

  “No.”

  “I gave it a shot, didn’t like it. Took all kinds of things. Yoga, spinning—you know, the stationary bikes. A step class, but that was really a chick thing. Karate, but only until I got to the purple belt level, which is not all that impressive. I can still remember a couple of things, but those katas? You know, the movements you have to go through? I could never get those right. Tried jogging, too, and I still sort of do that, with the dogs. Instead of just walking them, we’ll run flat out for a half mile or so.”

  The coffeemaker gurgled as the pot began to fill.

  “So how many people’s dogs do you walk every day?” Cynthia asked.

  “I’ve got ten. I zip from house to house, do four in the morning, six in the afternoon, walk each one for about forty-five minutes. I can jam a couple extra in after lunch because some of my clients live on the same street and I can walk two at a time.”

  “They get along? The dogs, I mean, not your clients. Although if you have some gossip on them, I’m all ears.”

  “Yeah, the dogs get used to each other, like to play, although sometimes I don’t cover as much territory with them. They spend more time sniffing each other than walking.”

  Cynthia shook her head. “You really have to love dogs to spend your day doing what you do.”

  “We always had them when I was a kid. Never more than one at a time, but when one died of old age or got hit by a car or whatever, we always got another.”

  She winced. “Your dog got hit by a car?”

  He made a V with his fingers. “Two. We lost O’Reilly when I was three years old, and Skip when I was ten. We were on a country road, up near Torrington—I’ve still got a lot of family up there. My brother lived up that way. I got nieces and nephews there still. Anyway, my parents never kept the dogs tied up. Wanted them to run free. My dad said if that meant one of them got run over, well, so be it. Better a dog have five great years running its ass off than fifteen years chained to a tree.”

  “Gee, I don’t know,” Cynthia said.

  “Anyway, after I left home and was working all the time, I never had a dog, and my ex, may she get crabs, was allergic, so there was no dog in my life for several years. Then, when the shit hit the fan and I needed something to do, well . . .” He threw up his hands.

  “But you’re getting by okay.”

  “Oh yeah. Twenty-five bucks a dog, ten dogs, that’s two-fifty a day, twelve-fifty a week, and it’s all cash, so it’s almost like making eighteen hundred a week or so if you had to pay Uncle Sam.” He eyed her suspiciously. “This isn’t where you tell me you actually work for the IRS and not the health department.”

  “You’re so busted,” she said.

  “And you know, there’s the odd other bit of cash coming in. The one thing I wanted to hang on to after my company went south was my ATS.”

  “Your what?”

  “My car. The Cadillac.”

  “Oh.”

  “Anyway, it’s not exactly a hybrid where gas is concerned, and the insurance ain’t cheap, but damn it, I just wanted to hang on to my wheels.” He laughed. “You should see people’s faces, I show up to walk dogs in a Caddy.”

  Cynthia asked, “So these dogs don’t go crazy when you come into the house when their owners are away?”

  “You have to get to know them first, yeah, or they might go nuts on you. And I got one Doberman and a German shepherd—I don’t walk those two together—which are not the kind of mutts you want going squirrelly when you come through the front door.”

  “So people give you their keys?” Cynthia said.

  He pointed to a ring by the toaster with what looked like a dozen keys on it. “Some places I need the security code, too. But if they don’t mind giving that stuff out to their babysitter, they don’t mind giving it to me.” He sighed. “I must seem like the world’s biggest loser to you. Guy my age, and this is what I do. You know, I used to be worth hundreds of thousands? What I make in a week walking goddamn dogs I made in ten minutes. I could buy anything I wanted. I’d walk into a store, see a pair of shoes that cost three hundred bucks—I wouldn’t even think about it. I’d say, Yeah, I’ll take those. And I’d get them home, wear them once, find out they hurt my feet, and I wouldn’t even try to return them. Didn’t give a shit.”

  Cynthia shook her head. “I don’t think you’re a loser. What do they say? Life’s a journey, and when you think about it, yours is more interesting than most people’s. Like you said when I first met you, you’re taking a breather. You won’t be doing this forever. At some point you’ll think, Okay, it’s time to move on.”

  And that was when it hit her.

  It was time to move on.

  She was going to give up this apartment.

  She was going to go home.

  You didn’t solve your problems at home by moving out. You solved your problems by staying home and solving the goddamn problems.

  I’m not going to run away. I’m going to go home.

  “Cynthia?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You there?”

  “Yes, I’m listening.”

  “I said maybe you’re right. Everything just takes time, right?”

  She nodded slowly, then said, “I’m going to move out this week.”

  “And go where?”

  “Home?”

  “You’ve only been here a few weeks,” he said.

  “It’s been a few weeks too long. This was . . . this was a mistake.”

  “No,” Nathaniel said. “Maybe you had to move here to find out that moving here was a mistake. As goofy as that sounds. I figured you were here kind of clearing your head, figuring yourself out. Maybe living here has made you appreciate whatever it is you left. Your husband and—you’ve got a kid, right?”

  “Grace,” she said wistfully. “I abandoned my family because I thought I was sick, but they’re the only thing that can make me better.”

  “What do you take?”

  “I’ve tried a couple of things, like Xanax, but I don’t feel right being on them. For me, I have to solve my problems on my own, without any artificial interference.”

  “I meant in your coffee.”

  “Oh!” Cynthia laughed.

  “Cream, sugar?”

  “Just black, thanks.”

  Nathaniel removed the carafe and filled two mugs. He set one in front of Cynthia, then banged his forehead with the heel of his hand. “What the hell am I making coffee for? Tonight’s a special night for you. If you’re moving out, going home, that calls for a celebration.”

  He took the mug back before Cynthia could touch it and emptied it into the sink. He swung open the door to the refrigerator and brought out a bottle of white wine.

  “No, that’s okay,” she said.
r />   “Nonsense.”

  “Really, it’s—”

  “Hey, look, it’s a screw-top pinot gris, and it’s already been opened. This isn’t as grand a gesture as it looks. Unless—you do drink, don’t you?”

  She sighed. “I do.”

  “Well, fine, then.” He found two peanut butter glasses in the cupboard, twisted the cap off the bottle. He glanced at the label. “A very nice vintage. March, I believe.”

  Cynthia smiled uncomfortably. Having a coffee with this boy across the hall—and really, compared with her, he was a boy—was one thing, but sharing a bottle of wine, that was another, wasn’t it?

  Stop it. He’s just trying to be nice.

  He filled the two glasses, handed her one. “Cheers,” he said, raising his, clinking it lightly against Cynthia’s. “To fresh starts.”

  “To fresh starts.”

  “Mine’s just going to come a little later,” he said. “I used to belong to a wine club. Very, very snooty. My wife and I, we’d get invited to tastings, fancy cheeses and chocolate. They’d send me the latest chardonnay or merlot or whatever in these fancy wood boxes. Cost a fortune. This bottle here, this ran me seven bucks. And you know, it gets me drunk just as efficiently as the expensive stuff. Which, by the way, I do quite frequently, and often by myself.”

  He tipped the glass to his mouth, emptied it in one go, refilled it.

  “I was something,” he said. “And now I’m not.”

  “I’m sorry, Nathaniel,” she said. “You got a raw deal.”

  “Have I never told you to call me Nate?”

  “I—”

  He smiled, patted her hand. “Call me Nate.”

  “Okay, Nate.”

  “In some ways, it was a blessing. I was so stressed out all the time. Every minute was about work. I think, even if I hadn’t lost everything, I’d have found myself heading for a nervous breakdown. But I did lose everything. Ev. Ry. Thing. Worst of all, I lost Charlotte.”

  “She’s your . . .”

  “My wife, yeah. Once the flow stopped, man, she started looking for the exit. Ended up with this asshole—someone I thought was a friend of mine—who’s still got his platinum card. Runs a computer game company. Made that guy rich, and now—” He shook his head.