Never Look Away

by Linwood Barclay

  I pointed back to the house. “Check with the cops. They might know where to find him.”

  On the way, Dad said, “I don’t know if you’ve thought of this, son, but maybe you need to talk to a lawyer or something.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I might have to do that.”

  “You could try Buck Thomas. You remember him? When we were having that trouble with the Glendons’ driveway encroaching onto our lot? He’s a good man.”

  “I might need someone with a different area of expertise,” I said.

  Dad nodded, conceding the point. “Lawyers charge a pretty penny, you know. If money’s a problem, your mom and I, well, we have a bit tucked away. If you need it.”

  “Thank you, Dad,” I said. “The thing is, the police haven’t actually charged me with anything. I think if Detective Duckworth really had something on me, he never would have let me walk out of that station.”

  Dad nodded again, not taking his eyes off the road. “You’re probably right. And since you haven’t done anything wrong, it’s not like they’re going to find any evidence against you after tearing apart your house and your cars.”

  If that comment was meant to put me at ease, it didn’t work.

  “Jesus,” Dad said, looking ahead. “Son of a bitch didn’t even signal.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  They were cruising along the Mass Pike in Dwayne’s tan pickup, which his brother lent to him when he was released from prison. It was a fifteen-year-old Chevy, and despite all the rust around the wheel wells, it ran okay. But it sucked gas, even with the air conditioner off, which was all the time, because it didn’t work.

  “Are you sure it’s not working?” Kate asked.

  “Just put the fan on.”

  “I did and it’s nothing but hot air.”

  “You’re nothing but hot air,” Dwayne said. “Just open the window.”

  Kate said, “Your brother really hate you? That why he gave you this clunker?”

  “You want to walk?”

  At least, if his brother gave it to him, chances were the truck was legit. If they did happen to get pulled over—God knows Dwayne had a history of getting arrested at the most inopportune times—the plates were in order. Dwayne even had a renewed driver’s license, praise the Lord.

  “You know,” Dwayne said, “I used to know a Kate in high school, used to wear this low-cut thing, and when she’d bend over, she’d know you were looking and didn’t give a shit. Wonder what she’s doing now.”

  “I’ll bet she’s not sitting in some antique pickup truck driving on the Mass Pike with no A/C when it’s a hundred degrees out. Maybe we should have hung on to the Explorer. It was old but the air worked.”

  Dwayne shot her a look. “What’s with you? You still pissed about what happened back there?”

  At Denny’s. She’d given him shit for that as soon as they’d gotten back into the truck and were on the highway.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” she’d said. “Probably somebody’s already called the cops.”

  “It was no big deal,” Dwayne had said. “I did that guy a favor.”

  “What?”

  “From now on, he’ll get those kids to behave, they won’t grow up to be monsters.”

  For thirty miles she kept looking back, expecting to see flashing red lights. Maybe no one saw them leaving in the truck from Denny’s.

  This habit Dwayne had of losing it just when they needed to keep a low profile, it definitely was a problem. She just hoped he could keep a lid on things until they got their business done in Boston.

  “Look, I’m sorry about that,” Dwayne said as they continued along the highway. “So put the bitch back in the box and cut me some slack.”

  She held her hand out the window, felt the wind blow between her fingers. They didn’t speak for several miles. She was the one to break the silence.

  “What was it like?” she asked.

  “What was what like?”

  “Prison.”

  “What are you asking, exactly?”

  “Not that,” she said. “I mean, just like, everyday life, what was it like?”

  “Wasn’t so bad. You always knew what to expect. You had a routine. You knew when to get up and when to go to bed and when it was lunchtime and when you got to go out in the yard. You had stuff to look forward to.”

  This was not the answer she was expecting. “But you couldn’t go anywhere,” she said. “You were, you know, a prisoner.”

  Dwayne hung his left arm over the sill. “Yeah, but you didn’t have to make a lot of decisions. What should I wear? What should I eat? What should I do? That kind of stuff wears you down, you know? I don’t know sometimes how regular people do it, having to make so many decisions. Every day you got up, you knew what to expect. It was kind of comforting.”

  “So, it was paradise.”

  “Not always,” he said, missing the sarcasm. “The food was shitty, and there wasn’t enough of it. If you got in line last, there might not be anything for you. They cut back on how many times they did laundry. Ever since the place went private, the fuckers were looking to pinch pennies every place they could.”

  “Private?”

  “The place was run by a company, not the state. Some of the guards, you’d listen to them, they got paid so lousy, they’d be talking about whether they were going to make it to payday, what with kids and the mortgage and car payments and all that shit. Almost made you count your blessings. Not that that’s going to be a problem for us very soon.”

  Dwayne moved into the passing lane, went around a bus.

  “You get what I’m saying?” he said. “About all those decisions? Only decision I want to make is how big a boat I’m gonna get.”

  She was thinking about what he’d said. She actually got it. Wasn’t that what her life had been like the last few years? Decisions? Endless decisions? Having to make them not just for yourself but other people?

  It did get tiring.

  “Let me ask you this,” she said. “You feel free?”

  Dwayne squinted. “Yeah, sure, of course. Yeah, I’m free. I wouldn’t trade this for being inside, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  The thing was, she felt like she’d just gotten out of prison, too. She’d escaped, gone over the wall. Here she was, heading down the highway, feet up on the dashboard, the wind blowing her hair all over the place.

  What a feeling. What a rush.

  She wondered why she didn’t feel better about it.

  The plan was pretty simple.

  First, they had to go to the two banks. Then, once they had the merchandise from the safe-deposit boxes, they’d find this guy Dwayne heard about who’d assess the value of their goods, then make them an offer. If it wasn’t good enough, Kate figured there’d be room for negotiation. Or they could go see another guy. Where was it written that you had to take the first offer?

  She just hoped it would be worth the wait. Hard to figure how it wouldn’t be. She—they—were going to be rich. The only question was how rich. It was the only thing that kept her going all these years. No doubt about it, money was a great motivator. Knowing that at the end, there was going to be—in all likelihood—millions of dollars.

  Maybe, if she and Dwayne hadn’t swapped keys, and the moron hadn’t gotten himself thrown in jail on an assault charge, she’d have found a way to move the process along, even if it meant only getting a chance at her half. But when Dwayne got himself arrested, and the key to her safe-deposit box got tossed in with his personal effects where she couldn’t get at it, what choice did she have, really, but to hang in?

  Hang in, and hide out. That last part was particularly important. Because she knew someone was going to be looking for her. She’d read the news. She knew the courier had lived, against all odds. Once he recovered, it seemed a safe bet he’d go looking for the person who’d not only relieved him of a fortune in diamonds, but his left hand as well.

  She’d always figured she was more at ris
k than Dwayne. The courier had seen her face. He’d looked right into her eyes before he passed out. She hadn’t expected him to wake up.

  The blood.

  It wouldn’t take long, she figured, before the courier figured out how she’d gotten onto him.

  It had been through his girlfriend, or rather, his ex-girlfriend. Alanna was her name. She’d worked late nights with Alanna at a bar outside Boston. Grabbing a smoke out back during breaks, Alanna would rag on about this guy, what an asshole he turned out to be. How he was always away, going over to Africa and shit, and he’d never let her come to his place, how he was all fucking mysterious about what he did for a living. One time she’s with him, they’re in his Audi, he has to pop into a building to meet somebody, tells her he’ll be back in ten minutes, and she decides to check out this gym bag he’s got tucked down on the floor behind the driver’s seat. She didn’t even know he worked out. First thing she notices is, it sure smells good for a gym bag. Or rather, it sure doesn’t smell bad. What kind of guy has a gym bag that doesn’t smell bad? She starts rooting around in there, doesn’t find any shorts or track shoes or sweatbands, but damned if she doesn’t find these little velvet-lined boxes. One of them’s got half a dozen diamonds in it, and she’s thinking, holy shit, is this stuff real? He comes back out sooner than expected, catches her, has a shit fit, hasn’t called her since.

  And the woman who now called herself Kate thought: Diamonds?

  She’d been hanging out with this guy Dwayne for a few weeks at that point, told him what she’d heard. They tracked down Alanna’s ex, started watching him, figuring out his routine. Planned a bait-and-switch. They’d meet him with a limo when he came up from New York on Amtrak.

  It wouldn’t take the courier long, once the painkillers started wearing off, to figure out Alanna was the leak.

  A couple of months after it all went down, there was a story on the Globe website about a woman named Alanna Dysart found floating off Rowes Wharf. There was every reason to think that before she died, she gave her killer the names of everyone she might ever have blabbed to about his line of work.

  She might very well have given him the name Connie Tattinger.

  And so she vanished.

  “So you think you’re on the news yet?” Dwayne asked.

  She’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts she didn’t hear him the first time he asked.

  “Get off at the next major intersection where there’s some hotels,” she said.

  Dwayne aimed the truck down an off-ramp west of where 91 crossed 90, found a hotel with a business office where you could go in and check your email if you were the one business traveler in a thousand who didn’t travel with a laptop.

  Kate strolled into the office, told the girl her husband was at the front desk seeing about a room. But first, she needed to check on her sick aunt Belinda. Every time she phoned, the line was busy or she got voicemail. Maybe someone had sent an update to her email address. If Belinda had taken a turn for the worse, she said, laying it on thick, they’d just have to turn right around and go back to Maine, no sense finding that out after they’d registered and—

  Go ahead, the girl said. Use this computer, no charge.

  She went first to the Standard website, as well as the sites of a couple of the local TV stations.

  There were two things she wanted to know.

  Was Jan Harwood’s disappearance getting a lot of play?

  Had they found the body?

  She scanned all the stories she could find, then said to the woman at the desk, “Thanks. She’s taken a turn for the worse. We’re going to have to turn back.”

  “I’m so sorry,” the woman said.

  Back in the truck, she said to Dwayne, “They haven’t found her yet.”

  “That’s not good, is it?” he said.

  “It’s only a matter of time,” she said.

  Dwayne thought about that for three seconds, then said, “I could definitely go for something to eat.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Ethan ran into my arms as I walked through the front door of my parents’ house. I hoisted him into the air and kissed both his cheeks.

  “I want to go home,” he said.

  “Not yet, sport,” I said. “Not yet.”

  Ethan shook his head. “I want to go home and I want Mom.”

  “Like I said, not right yet.”

  He squirmed angrily in my arms to the point that I had to put him down. He strode forcefully down the hall and out the front door.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I’m going home,” he said.

  “The hell you are,” I said and went out after him, grabbing him around the chest and swinging him up into the air. I brought him back inside, plunked him on the floor, gave him a light swat on the butt, and said, “Go find something to do.”

  He vanished into the kitchen, where I heard him open the fridge. Ethan usually enjoyed his time here, but he hadn’t been in his own house since early yesterday morning. And as much as my parents loved Ethan, he was probably wearing out his welcome.

  “Sorry,” I said to Mom.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “He just misses her. David, what’s going on? Why did they take your car away?”

  Dad, who’d just come in, said, “You should see what they’re doing at his house. Tearing the goddamn place apart, that’s what they’re doing.”

  I steered Mom outside onto the porch where Ethan couldn’t hear. “The police think I did something to Jan,” I said.

  “Oh, David.” She was more sorrowful than surprised.

  “I think they think I killed her,” I said.

  “Why?” she said. “Why would they think such a thing?”

  “Things are … things seem to be pointing in my direction,” I said. “Some of it’s just coincidence, like the fact that no one’s actually seen Jan since I took her to Lake George Friday. This mix-up with the online tickets—”

  “What mix-up?”

  “But then there’s other things, things that don’t make sense, where people have been telling lies. Like up in Lake George, whoever runs that store up there.”

  “David, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would people tell lies about you? Why would someone want to get you in trouble?”

  “The boy needs a lawyer, that’s what he needs,” Dad said through the screen door.

  “I need to go up there,” I said. “I need to find out why that person’s lying.”

  “Is anyone listening to me?” Dad said.

  “Dad, please,” I said.

  “Your father’s right,” Mom said. “If the police think you had something to do with whatever happened to Jan—”

  “I don’t have time now,” I said. “I have to find Jan, and I have to find out why things are being twisted to look like …”

  “What?” Mom asked.

  “Reeves,” I said.

  “The councilor?” Mom said. “Stan Reeves?”

  “I was thinking he only just found out about this when I ran into him at the police station. But what if he’s known about it for a while?”

  “What are you talking about?” Dad asked.

  “And Elmont Sebastian,” I said. “I can’t believe—I know they’ve got it in for me, but they wouldn’t …”

  My mind raced. It didn’t take long to connect the dots, but what sort of picture did they form, really?

  If something happened to Jan, and if I could be framed for it, I wouldn’t be able to write any more stories challenging Star Spangled Corrections’ bid for a prison in Promise Falls.

  There wouldn’t be any more attempts by me to get stories into the paper about how Sebastian was bribing councilors—at least Reeves—to see things his way.

  Was that possible? Or was I nuts?

  Was it worth going to that much trouble to silence one reporter? I did work for the only paper in town, and despite its decline, the Standard still wielded some influence in Promise Falls. And I was the only on
e at the paper who seemed to give a shit about this issue. Not just whether for-profit prisons were a good idea, but what Star Spangled Corrections was willing to do to get its way.

  And while taking me out of the picture wouldn’t solve all of Elmont Sebastian’s problems, it sure wouldn’t hurt.

  But even if it was true, and Elmont Sebastian was manipulating things behind the scenes to have me neutralized, how was I to explain what I’d learned in Rochester? About Jan’s past, or lack of it?

  “I need a glass of water,” I said suddenly.

  Mom led me into the kitchen, where Ethan was lying on the floor, his head pressed sideways to the linoleum, running a car back and forth in his field of vision, making soft, contented engine noises. Mom ran the tap until the water was cold, filled a glass and handed it to me.

  I took a long drink and then said, “There’s something else.”

  My parents waited.

  “Something about Jan.”

  I led them out of the kitchen so Ethan wouldn’t hear what I had to say.

  I hit the road half an hour later in my father’s car. Now, having done it, I wasn’t sure telling my parents about what I’d learned in Rochester had been such a good idea. Dad had gone into a rant about incompetent civil servants who’d probably issued Jan the wrong birth certificate.

  “I’ll just bet,” he said, “she sent in her particulars to get a birth certificate, and they gave her one for some other Jan Richler, and when she got it in the mail she never even looked at what it said. They pay these people a fortune and they have jobs for life so they don’t care how good they do them.”

  But Mom was deeply troubled by the news, and spent much of her time looking out the window into the backyard where Ethan was now whacking croquet balls all over the place. At one point, she said, “What will we tell him? Who are we supposed to tell him his mother really is?”

  I floated my theory about the witness protection program, which Dad found plausible enough that it distracted him from his tirade about government slackers. (It never seemed to occur to him that he had been a municipal employee himself.) His willingness to embrace the theory made me doubt its validity.