Never Ask Me

by Jeff Abbott

  Anya: Good. I want to tell her myself, perhaps. Let her know her son has no future.

  Marland: I’ll let you know what I find.

  Iris forgets to breathe until there’s a tightness in her chest. Anya. Here. Watching Danielle. Watching Julia. Which meant she was watching…

  Anya: The younger child. Grant. Is he involved with Julia and Ned’s dealings?

  Marland: No indication of it.

  Anya: Good. Other than Julia, stay away from that family as much as you can. Other plans for them. I’ll send you instructions.

  Other plans for them. Instructions. It feels like a punch to the throat, the heart, the gut.

  She can’t be here. She’s dead. But she clearly wasn’t. Could she have survived? Maybe she had a pulse and Iris, in her panic, thought she didn’t. And did Marland sound like a drug entrepreneur? No. He sounded like a hired muscle, not some drug kingpin taking over a territory.

  And Anya…she killed Danielle. Or had her killed, perhaps by Marland. And she set in motion a terrible vengeance, a hand from the grave, cold, closing its grip on their happy lives.

  “Mrs. Pollitt?” Peter sounds nervous.

  Iris finds her voice. “Did you…? Did you copy any of this to your computer when you broke into it?”

  “No,” Peter says after a moment.

  “I have to go,” she says. “Don’t call the police. Please. Please don’t. I…” What could she say? How could she explain? This was something else. She could not tell the police the why of this. This woman whose death we covered up has come after us. Because it was more than that. It was mother versus mother.

  What does she want?

  Well, vengeance, but what would that mean when the Pollitts were destroyed?

  That woman wants Grant. He’ll never go with her. Never with some stranger.

  She imagines the words, spoken in the soft broken English: Grant, I am your real mother. Your true blood. Look what has happened to your family. Let me help you. But I need to tell you the truth about what your parents did to me. You deserve to know the truth. They stole you from me.

  Iris runs out the door.

  67

  Grant

  Grant’s phone is dead. Something’s wrong with it. He just charged it recently. He goes into the den. The TV is still on. The national news media has picked up that an Austin-area man and his daughter have both been detained for questioning in a pair of murders. Wait, he thinks, until they hear that his mother is a well-known songwriter. Then it will be on the entertainment channels.

  Within minutes the local press have set up again outside his house. He keeps the curtains drawn, stays away from the windows. They’ve rung the doorbell and he ignores it.

  Grant sits down on the floor. His sister is arrested. His father is arrested. His mother has lost her mind, trying to do something to find a way to clear them both when she should be hiring more lawyers. He doesn’t know what to do. He can’t talk to his friends about this, or their parents. With his friends he talks sports and video games and homework, and this is so far beyond that.

  He turns off the TV as soon as they show a picture of his father. His face feels hot, like he needs to cry. He goes to his computer.

  There’s an email there. From the Sender. He’d last asked if she was Anya. The only answer is:

  Are you ready?

  Grant feels a strange surge, a mix of fear and excitement. Like the Sender has been some stranger he’s repeatedly played against in an online video game, giving him hints, clues, all to solve the ultimate puzzle. For a moment he feels like he’s won…something valuable—what he needs to win the whole game. The Sender knows what’s happening. So he writes: Ready for what?

  To help your family. To help the people who love you.

  YES, he writes.

  Your mother says she'll tell the truth. I’m going to send someone you know to bring you to me. You can trust them.

  He doesn’t trust anyone right now. But he writes: OK who is coming?

  There’s no immediate answer. Then: go to our tree.

  At least he’ll get his answer as to who this is. He’s scared. He goes to the kitchen, and after a moment’s thought he takes a steak knife, the kind his parents use only when they actually serve steak, and he carefully tapes it just above his sock, hidden by his jeans. This feels foolish and silly, but it feels stupid to go defenseless.

  He slips out the back door, down to the greenbelt. The quiet among the trees is nearly deafening. He heads toward the tree, which still has ribbons of yellow police tape around it.

  Then a strong hand closes on his arm. He looks up to see Steve Butler, a smile trying to creep onto his craggy face. “It’s all right, Grant. I’m Mr. Butler. I live down the street at 3308. It’s OK.”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “My wife and I know Iris. And we knew Ms. Roberts. It’s OK.” He eases his grip on Grant’s arm, which doesn’t reassure Grant. “We’re supposed to take you to your mother. She really wants to see you.”

  “My phone’s not working,” he says, and then Steve Butler says, “I know,” which in the moment strikes Grant as so odd. “We have to get you past the press, past the police out there in front of your house.”

  Grant nods. This makes sense.

  “This is my wife,” Mr. Butler says as an introduction. Now Grant sees the woman, bundled in a coat, stepping out from behind a tree, flicking on a smile for him. “We’re going to take you to your mother.”

  “Are you the ones leaving stuff for me in the tree?”

  “We were asked to do that,” Mrs. Butler says. Now they’ve both got ahold of him and they’re hurrying him along, deeper into the greenbelt. Past his house. “Your mother is at our house and we’ll figure out how to get you out of here without the press and police seeing.”

  “Why…?”

  “Grant, Iris is taking you out of the country,” Mr. Butler says.

  “Why?”

  “Because she can’t stay here. She can’t. She’ll be arrested soon.”

  Grant’s mind whirls. His mother. Running from the police and not wanting to leave him behind. She did it, then. She did it. She killed Danielle. Not Dad. Or Julia. His mom, his wonderful, fiery mom would take on the entire world for him. Running from the police. For only one reason.

  Grant pulls free of both the Butlers. He’s stronger than he looks, and Steve Butler releases his hold on him. Grant runs forward, because the Butlers are moving too slowly.

  They hurry after him.

  He stays on the greenbelt, panting, nerves screaming, mind racing. If he and Mom run, what happens to Julia and Dad? They cannot just leave them. What if both his parents were involved in the murder? What happens if they both go to jail? What will he do? He cannot imagine his world. He has to talk Mom out of this. He has to get her to see reason. But if Mom killed Danielle, what can he say? What can he do except go with her? He can’t let her go alone. He can’t.

  Mr. Butler catches him, grabs his arm. “You’ll run past our house if you’re not careful.”

  Now Grant stops, panting. He allows Mr. Butler to lead him into a backyard that needs mowing, into the brick two-story that is a few down from his house and Danielle’s house.

  They go inside. He calls, “Mom! Mom!”

  “Grant,” a low voice rumbles. He sees Mike Horvath step from the shadows. “Are you all right?”

  “Where’s my mom?”

  “Change of plans. She couldn’t get here, not with the press around and the police coming. She’d be arrested immediately. I’m going to take you to her.” He looks at the Butlers. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “OK,” the Butlers both say, in unison.

  Mike’s car is in the Butlers’ garage and the door powers up. Peter is in the back seat, looking pale. Mike pushes Grant down in the back seat so the press throng won’t see him, then backs out of the driveway. Mr. Butler obligingly closes the garage door.

  “Stay down,” Mike says.

  “W
here is my mom?”

  “I’m taking you to her right now.”

  Peter puts his hand on Grant’s back, and Grant feels a little reassured. “Are the police looking for her?”

  “Yes. I talked to your dad’s lawyer.” Mike’s voice is hard.

  The feeling in his chest is so tight, Grant can’t breathe. He clenches his eyes closed. “Are you helping Mom get out? Where would we go?”

  “Canada first. Then elsewhere.”

  “You’ll like Canada,” Peter says. “We still have a house there. I have a great game system.”

  Grant lies there, quiet. He can tell from the increased speed that the car is on Old Travis now, and he can see from the signs that they’re getting close to one of the highways on the western side that loop around Austin. It’s the loop that would take you to 71 and then the airport.

  The shock wears off and logic crowds into his brain. “If you think my mom or my dad killed Danielle, why are you helping her?”

  “I think it’s this drug dealer Marland guy who killed Danielle and he knew enough about your family from Ned to try to frame your dad. We know now he threatened Danielle. Your sister has it on a cell phone that he gave Ned to use. I can’t let your parents go to jail for something they didn’t do. That’s not justice. We will get this worked out.”

  “But, Mike…”

  “Right now we just need to get you to a safe place and we can talk with your mother, all right?”

  “All right,” Grant says, because he can tell that the car is driving at sixty miles an hour and when he tests the door handle, it’s locked with the childproof mode. But then he thinks about all this: the tree, the messages, all coming on the heels of Danielle’s murder, and it’s all too soon. It all happened too soon.

  Maybe someone else is lying to him. Not just his parents. And sometimes parents tell lies for good reasons, not bad ones, and Mike has always been good to him. But he sits up, and sees Mike’s gaze on him for a moment in the back seat, and now he’s afraid.

  “I want to call my mom. Give me your phone. Something’s wrong with mine.”

  “She’s driving to meet us right now, Grant,” Peter says quietly.

  “She’ll pull over and take my call.”

  Mike says, “I have access to a friend’s private plane—you know that. I got Ned’s dad here from London faster. It’s going to take you and your mom to Canada. We have friends there who will help you.”

  “Won’t you get in trouble?”

  “Maybe. But we’ll see about getting you somewhere else where she can’t be extradited until this is over. You don’t want your whole family in jail, Grant.”

  Extradited. Grant doesn’t know what that means. But no, he doesn’t want his whole family in jail.

  “You trust me, don’t you, Grant?”

  “Yes,” he says finally. He does. Mike has always been there for him.

  68

  Iris

  Iris pulls into her driveway, inching past the press vans that are there, honking at them. Iris ignores their questions as she hurries into the house.

  “Grant! Grant!”

  She runs through the house. Anya, Anya, has Anya already been here? Where is my son? Then she sees his open laptop on the kitchen table. On the screen is the email, telling him to go down to the tree; she’ll send someone he knows.

  The tree. She runs out of the house, down the yard, to the greenbelt. No press here yet; it is private property, unlike the public street in front of her house. She runs down to the tree. No one is there.

  Who is helping Anya destroy Danielle’s and Iris’s families?

  Marland. The Butlers? Their house is owned by the same company as Danielle’s. Firebird. Did Anya find discredited clients of Danielle’s, give them information to blackmail Danielle with, and buy the house for them? How deep does her revenge run?

  She runs back up the greenbelt. To the Butler house.

  The back door is unlocked; the Butlers stand in the kitchen, drinking champagne. They are toasting each other, clinking flutes. Carrie stares at her; Steve turns, and the joy on his face vanishes and turns to stone.

  “Where is my son?” Iris says. The tone of her voice is one she’s never heard before. Not even in the cold of an abandoned Russian village.

  “Get the hell out of our house.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s not here,” Carrie says. “We haven’t seen him.” Her voice is sharp and harsh. “You seem to have a real issue with keeping track of your children. Why they gave you one is beyond me.”

  “I will go outside and start screaming at the press that are outside my home that my son is missing,” Iris says, “if you don’t tell me where he is.”

  “He’s not here,” Steve says, and so Iris pulls Marland’s gun from her purse. She aims it squarely at Steve.

  “I will use this,” she says slowly, carefully. “Where is my son?”

  They don’t answer, staring at the gun. “Now, put that down,” Steve says in a calm voice. “Grant is fine. No one’s going to hurt him. But he’s not here. Did he tell you he was coming here?”

  “You met him at the tree,” she bluffs.

  “Well, he didn’t meet us. He surely didn’t. So let’s just calm down and—”

  She fires, and the bullet shatters the cabinet behind him. She hears the breaking of glass, the splintering of wood. Carrie screams. Steve drops his champagne flute, and it shatters on the floor.

  “What are you celebrating, a job well done?”

  They’re silent. Breathless with shock.

  “You moved here just to scare Danielle. She wasn’t going to give you a child. She told you no. You couldn’t possibly choose to see the woman who denied your dreams on a regular basis as a neighbor. So, why are you here? Who is Firebird? Why did someone buy you this house?”

  Their faces go pale.

  “I mean, Steve, here you are. Right on the scene after Danielle’s body is found. Was that on purpose, so you could make sure all went to plan? And then your so-called patrol, so you could be out in the neighborhood, conveniently, to call the police on my daughter.”

  They are silent, Steve reddening.

  “Someone bought you this house under a front company to be close to her.” Then the realization. “Or, equally, to be close to us. To spy on us? To scare us? Was it Anya?”

  The name is like a grenade landing in the room. She sees their startled reaction. “Where is Anya?”

  “No one is harming your son. I promise you, as a mother,” Carrie says.

  “Your nursery that you got ready,” Iris says. “Is that why you did this? There is no generous pregnant distant cousin. This is how you’re somehow getting a baby? By helping to steal mine?”

  “You’re not going to kill us,” Steve says with confidence. He takes a step toward her, hands up, voice cooled to reason. “But the police are going to be very interested that you shot at us in our house after your family’s other crimes. Your whole family’s going to be in jail. Is that what you want for Grant?”

  “That’s what Anya wants. A clear path to my son. Where. Is. He?” She aims the gun straight at Steve’s head. “Carrie. I will make you a widow, I swear to God, if you don’t tell me where my child is.”

  “The airport,” Carrie says immediately. Steve gives her a look of absolute loathing.

  “Airport,” Iris repeats, nearly dizzy with shock. No. Can’t be. Couldn’t be. Anya can’t be taking him. He wouldn’t go with a stranger.

  “We don’t know any more, all right? We don’t know any more!” Carrie says.

  “Give me your phones and car keys,” Iris orders. She has to think this through. For her son’s sake. She can’t make a mistake now.

  The Butlers comply. She sees the house phone and demands the cordless as well. She orders them into their walk-in pantry, slams the door, and jams a chair from the breakfast nook hard up under the handle.

  Weirdly, the garage is empty, but she sees an Audi parked in the street, and
one of the keys is for an Audi. She takes it; the press down the street don’t seem to notice her. She roars away.

  She doesn’t see one woman break away from the crowd, get in a car, and start to follow her.

  Stoplights and red lights are for other people, and screaming apologies and trying to be careful, she races through them when there are gaps in the traffic, warning all by laying on her horn.

  She thinks as she drives. She talks aloud to herself as she drives, sorting it out.

  Anya can’t just whisk Grant onto a plane. And she thinks of Gordon, flown here faster on a private jet that Mike said he arranged through a friend.

  Could Anya force Mike to help her that way? Using Grant as leverage? She can’t race up to the terminal and just tear through it looking for her son. The private jets, though…

  She floors the car, weaving like a madwoman in and out of the Highway 71 traffic, roaring toward Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

  Iris makes a noise deep in her throat. She can feel her family, the reality of her loved ones, slipping away from her. Forever.

  69

  Grant

  The car stops near one of the private jets. “Your mom’s on my plane.”

  “Have her come out to the car and talk to me,” Grant says.

  Mike turns around in the seat. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for the people around here to see her. Remember her. The police are looking for her right now.” He fixes his gaze on Grant. “I need you to be a brave kiddo, the one I know you are, and come with me. I need you to trust me. Just stick close to Peter, all right?”

  “I don’t have my passport.”

  “Your mom kept it just in case she needed it.”

  “I don’t have clothes.”

  “We can get all that in Canada,” Peter says.

  Grant gets out of the car. Mike wouldn’t lie to him. Mike will never lie to him. Mike has been there for him all those times. Grant, Peter, and Mike walk to the stepladder going up into the private jet. Normally he’d be all excited about boarding a private plane, snapping selfies and texting his friends about how awesome it would be, but now he just wants to see his mother.