Right Behind You

by Lisa Gardner

  A hoarse rattling sound. I think it is coming from Telly. He’s laughing. Is he proud of me? I hope he’s proud of me, because I’m still not sure exactly what to do next.

  “Where is Henry?” I ask. “What happened to him?”

  “House,” Telly rasps. “Duvalls’ . . . He’s shot.”

  “Shut up,” the man says. “That is my money. I don’t care what it’s called or what fund it sits in. It’s mine and I’m taking it back.”

  “Send my brother over.”

  “No.”

  “I’m not leaving the rain gutter. You want your thumb drive, come and get it.”

  The man doesn’t move. Can’t decide. Thinking it through?

  I’m glad the parking lot is dark and empty. My hand is shaking uncontrollably now. I’m not sure what to do next. The rain gutter is my only leverage. I leave it, I’m dead, so I’m not leaving it. But still, he comes to me, and then what?

  Telly crawls away while the man’s back is turned, man gets the thumb drive, then shoots me, then tracks down Telly and shoots him?

  Telly won’t leave me. We are in this together, just like eight years ago.

  Remember Mom, he said.

  My back, soaked through. My shoulders twitchy.

  The man approaches. Hard, steady footsteps. Emerging from the shadows. Closer, closer, till I can see the rifle held in his hands. While it’s too dark to see, I’m already willing to bet there’s a mole above his pale wrist.

  “You’re the shooter from the EZ Gas,” I blurt out. I still don’t recognize the man. He’s definitely old. Potbellied, some kind of suspenders holding up sagging jeans. Even from this distance, however, I can feel the intensity of his gaze. A former associate of Sandra Duvall’s father, I would guess. The kind of guy who was bad enough in his day and, based on the current levels of carnage, clearly remembers how to pull a trigger just fine.

  “Your father is the FBI profiler,” the man rasps. He’s fifteen feet away now, advancing steadily. My arm drops to my side. I don’t want him to see what I’m holding. Not yet. “Police know about the money, then.”

  “You killed Richie Perth,” I say, doing my best to sound certain. “After he shot the Duvalls. You wanted to keep the money for yourself.”

  “Police have been busy.”

  “But then when you went to access the account, the money wasn’t there. Because Sandra had moved it. But she didn’t tell Richie that, did she? She held out.”

  “Richie was always a bit stupid,” the man says. “Kind of idiot that shoots first and questions later. Me, I know better.” He levels the rifle at my chest.

  “Who are you?” I ask, genuinely curious. I mean, if this guy is going to kill me . . .

  “Jack George. Met the search team earlier today. Might say I knew Dave from the good old days. We rose up through the ranks together. Before retiring, I was his first lieutenant.”

  “Gangsters are allowed to retire?”

  “Trusted fellows, sure. David got a bead on Sandra’s new life years ago. Right around when I retired. Asked me to settle here, keep one eye on his daughter, the other on the Nehalem operations. Bakersville’s a nice enough place. Not to mention a guy my age doesn’t like to be too bored.”

  I don’t know what to say to that.

  “Then Dave was diagnosed with cancer,” Jack George continues now. “Decided he wanted to make amends. Sandra, as she liked to call herself, never relented though. She might’ve thought of herself as better than her father, but if you ask me, the whole problem was they were too much alike. Hardheaded, and just plain hard, both of them.”

  “You knew about the money? The stalemate she had with her father?”

  “Like I said, Dave and I went way back. You’re stalling,” he says.

  Of course I am. Jack George draws to a halt ten feet away. From this distance he can see I’m definitely standing on a rain gutter, and I have something clenched in my fist. He scowls, for the first time appearing uncertain.

  Behind him, I can watch as my brother slowly starts limping forward. He’s moving awkwardly; it appears his hands are tied behind his back. Meaning he’s both wounded and restricted. In other words, I’m on my own. In a stare-down with a man with a rifle.

  “Doug Perth called me with the plan,” Jack George continues now. He’s studying me intently, looking for a sign of weakness. “He wanted me to help out Richie in return for a cut of the money. After all these years, however, why settle for a cut? Not like my retirement years have been that golden. Richie called me after he shot Sandra. Whined she’d tricked him. Pretended to give up the information, so he shot her. Of course, then he looked up the account and realized it’d been emptied. I knew Sandra, though. She was always plenty smart. If the money was gone, she’d done something with it. Just a matter of finding the trail. So I eliminated my rival—”

  “You shot Richie and the cashier.”

  “And went to work on your brother. I already knew of Richie’s push to have Telly take the blame in order to save your life. Richie had sent him some threatening photos of you, left a baseball bat on the kid’s bed. Not a bad idea. In fact, why mess with success? I met with Telly at the EZ Gas and delivered the new and improved terms. He could now take credit for Richie’s death as well, in order to protect his little sister. Better yet, he could locate the missing money to save his own life. Turns out, though, Telly might have learned a trick or two from Sandra. He tried to play a game of his own, leaving hints for the police, stashing the thumb drive with the new account information in your pack, a girl who basically lives in police custody.

  “Family is powerful, though, don’t you think? Oh, the things we’ll do for family.”

  The old man smiles at me. Then he levels the rifle at my chest. This close, no way he’ll miss.

  “Your brother didn’t want to give up your name or your phone number. But a guy like me, I spent years being paid to be very persuasive. ’Sides, once I realized Henry didn’t have the account info and Telly didn’t have the account info, only one other person Telly would trust with such a secret. Which brings me to you, and our little rendezvous. Time’s up, girl. Give me what I want, and maybe you’ll get to see your family again.”

  Jack George stares at me across the short space. I take a deep breath. This is it. Moment of truth. Because I already don’t believe anything the retired gangster is saying. Second I hand over what he wants, both Telly and I are dead. Which is what I suspected from the very start.

  “I got bad news,” I whisper.

  “No, you don’t.”

  I bring up my left hand as I reach behind me with my right.

  “I don’t have the thumb drive.” I show what I’m really holding in my hand, metal fingernail clippers I keep stashed in my backpack.

  Remember Mom.

  “What?”

  “I gave the thumb drive to my dog. He’s a really good dog. Smart, too. He’s delivering the evidence to the sheriff, even as we speak. No money for you.”

  “You stupid little—”

  A muted roar from behind him. Telly finally close enough to make his move, just as I figured he’d try to do. No baseball bat for my brother this time. Instead, he’s staggering toward the man, arms tied behind his back, head lowered to make himself a human battering ram.

  I don’t think. I don’t hesitate.

  Remember Mom.

  I whip out the gun from the small of my back. The other item Telly stashed in my pack.

  I don’t know how to shoot. I have no idea what I’m doing.

  But then I didn’t know eight years ago, when I took the bat from my dazed brother’s hand and stood over my mother’s waking form.

  The woman who loved us. The woman who laughed and sang and danced us around the kitchen. The woman who never protected us, not even when my father was beating Telly so badly, my older brother begge
d for his life.

  If she still lived . . .

  Raising the bat then.

  Aiming the gun now.

  Telly’s stubborn roar.

  The man’s echoing cry of rage.

  A single shot ringing out into the night.

  Jack George goes down.

  As Luka charges into the parking lot, Quincy, Rainie, and the others on his heels. Quincy is holding his twenty-two. His winning shot, because my handgun did nothing but issue an empty click. Which just goes to show how little I know about firearms; Telly removed all the bullets and I was none the wiser.

  I don’t care. I don’t care about anything but Telly.

  I run to him now, as he staggers, drops to one knee.

  My brother. My proud, strong, means-everything-in-the-world-to-me big brother.

  I throw my arms around him just as he pitches forward.

  We both go down, down, down.

  Telly doesn’t get up again.

  Epilogue

  I HAD A FAMILY ONCE.

  Sandra and Frank, they tried to do right by me. But Sandra had her own ghosts, hunting her down. She told me about them, after her father’s visit. Her last night at her childhood home. How she made her great escape, taking with her information on her father’s hidden bank account.

  For thirty years, that knowledge served as her insurance policy. He didn’t want anyone to know about the money, so if she kept his secret, he’d keep hers.

  A year ago, however, the offshore account became public knowledge, with the publication of some foreign law firm’s business papers. Suddenly, her father was ratted out even to his own lieutenants. A couple of them, including Douglas Perth, knew what Sandra had done all those years ago, stealing the account information.

  Sandra’s father tried to warn her that when he died, she’d lose what protection his presence still offered her. Sandra didn’t believe him, though. She had her own idea. The day of his death, she transferred the hidden funds out of his account and set up a foundation in her mother’s memory to help support battered women’s shelters across the country. She liked the irony of it. Twenty million dollars of ill-gotten gains finally being put to good use.

  What she didn’t plan on was her father’s business associates’ determination to get their hands on the money for themselves. Quincy explained it to me later. How Martin’s successor, Doug Perth, sent his own son to track down Sandra and gain access to the funds.

  How Richie Perth killed Frank and Sandra in their own bed, then framed me, the troubled foster son, for his crime.

  What Richie didn’t know was that Jack George, Martin’s former lieutenant, had plans of his own.

  I’d never even met the old man before. Didn’t know who he was when he summoned me to the EZ Gas, handed me Richie’s murder weapon, and informed me I would once again be the fall guy. Or my sister would pay the price.

  What could I do about it? I shot out the security camera, took the blame to keep Sharlah safe. Then I tried to find Jack for myself, knowing only that he’d headed north on foot. When I walked into the neighborhood and some crazy guy took potshots at me while screaming at me to get out of his yard, I didn’t realize how close I was. I really did think he was some lawn lunatic. I fled, hid out across the street. Where the tracking team eventually found me, and I was forced to take actions I will regret for the rest of my life.

  I didn’t lie to Quincy—I really wasn’t that great a shot with a rifle. I did my best to aim away from center mass, maybe scare the team away. I hit two instead. Both lived, but I got more screams to keep me awake at night. Not to mention a longer criminal history. But we’ll get to that in a sec.

  Jack must’ve figured he was good to go at that point. Police are chasing me. Giving him plenty of time to complete Richie’s failed mission—find the twenty mil.

  So he returned to Frank and Sandra’s house that night. Except the police were already there. He tried to scare them off with rifle fire, only to end up with me shooting back. After that, he went with plan B: track down Henry, who must surely have known his mother’s secrets.

  Except Henry had been away from home for a long time. Sandra hadn’t had a chance to tell him anything yet. Henry got shot in the side as encouragement to talk. Realizing the next bullet might be in a knee, he bluffed the best he could. Sure, twenty mil, he knew everything . . . Just let him return to the house.

  Where Henry found me. And Jack gave me a matching wound in the left shoulder. Then I did my own kind of bluffing. A Hail Mary pass, really.

  In the woods that afternoon, not knowing what else to do with the handgun the old man had given me, I’d stuck it in Sharlah’s backpack. I’d removed the bullets, plus the firing pin. Didn’t want the gun to be a threat to her. But I also used its weight to cover for my bigger secret, stashing Sandra’s thumb drive with the new account information. I figured eventually Sharlah would find the drive, share it with the police. Maybe if they had the old account information, realized what Sandra had done thirty years ago, that in turn would lead them to Jack George and what was going on now. Though of course, I didn’t want them to find George too quickly. By hiding the thumb drive versus handing it over, I gave myself time to find him first. I’d meant what I’d said to Sharlah that afternoon. After what he did to my family . . .

  I really did have one more person left to kill.

  Did Sandra know someone would come for her all these years later? Did she expect that it couldn’t really be that easy? That nothing in life came for free, or, maybe simply, the more you run, the more the past has a way of catching up?

  Sandra had used the home computer to handle setting up the foundation, then transferring the money. Then she’d copied all the info onto a thumb drive before erasing it from the computer’s hard drive—she didn’t want Henry seeing anything before she had a chance to talk to him herself. Or so she said. Personally, I think she was simply so accustomed to keeping secrets, she couldn’t approach the money any other way.

  After discovering her and Frank’s bodies first thing in the morning, I’d hunted down the thumb drive, stashed in the binding of one of her cookbooks. I didn’t know what I’d do with it. But if Sandra had a habit of keeping secrets, then I had a habit of keeping her secrets safe.

  Later, encountering Sharlah in the woods, I realized this was my best moment to hand off the information. If the gun and the photo didn’t lead Sharlah’s parents in the right direction, the thumb drive should.

  Later, lying wounded on the ground in front of my parents’ house, with Jack standing over me, ready to finish the job, I realized I had only one hope left: reach out to the sister I’d been trying so hard to protect. Hope her parents really did live up to their reputation, do some protecting of their own.

  I didn’t realize Sharlah would honestly come on her own. Or that she’d bring the toothless gun.

  When I told her to remember Mom, what I meant was for her to let me take the blame.

  But Sharlah had her own memories. More than I realized. She was the one who delivered the deathblow that night. Before I took the bat from her and, in my grief and rage, turned on the sister I swear I loved as much as our mother.

  Except our mother . . .

  I don’t know. There are some relationships, some kinds of love, I still can’t explain.

  I wouldn’t have hurt our mom that night. I would’ve called an ambulance. I would’ve saved her. And as Sharlah and I have discussed since, our mother would’ve hooked up with the next pill-popping asshole, and we probably would’ve ended up right back where we started.

  But she was our mom. And as I told Sandra, I still remember those moments when she was happy.

  I miss that mom. I mourn her every day.

  And my baby sister?

  She saved me. Again. She had her own family, and she used them well. Deploying her beast of a dog with the thumb drive and
a note to her mother, telling Rainie Conner exactly where Sharlah was going and the help she needed next.

  Family is about trust, Sharlah told me.

  So her cavalry came. Rainie and Quincy and the sheriff herself to the rescue.

  Family helps family, Sharlah told me.

  Which is why she walked to an empty library in the middle of the night and why she stood up to a madman, just for me.

  Sharlah, Rainie, and Quincy all visited me in the hospital. Quincy even contacted my probation officer, Aly, who, by virtue of being my already assigned caseworker, was the one who held my legal future in her hands.

  I didn’t shoot Frank and Sandra. I didn’t kill anyone in the EZ Gas. But I did fire on a tracking team, wounding a SWAT officer and a volunteer searcher, even if I didn’t mean to. Charges included attempted murder, first-degree assault, and reckless conduct involving firearms. All felonies. In adult court, I could have been looking at up to fifteen years.

  As a seventeen-year-old juvenile, however, I could have stayed in the juvie system, served out my time in lockup, followed by years of probation, community service, and mandatory counseling.

  Interestingly enough, it was Henry who spoke up on my behalf. Wrote a letter to Aly herself, talking about how much his parents believed in me. Frank and Sandra wanted to help me get my life on track. To have it thrown away instead, because I got caught up in drama from Sandra’s past . . .

  Henry healed first, then spent some time hanging out in my hospital room. I told him what I knew about his mother, what she’d done as a girl. These days, Henry has his hands full, the sole heir to and executive director of a twenty-million-dollar foundation.

  He offered me a job, but his heart wasn’t really in it, and we both knew it. We were trying, more for Sandra’s sake, but other than his parents, we didn’t exactly have much in common. We’re not family. Just two people who happened to love Frank and Sandra Duvall.

  Their funerals. You should’ve seen the number of people who came out. Frank’s students alone . . .

  He would’ve been proud. So proud.