“I’m sorry if I said something to embarrass you in front of your friends.”
He scowled. “I’m not embarrassed . . .”
“Good, because someone told me you might know a few secrets about the Singletons, things the police don’t know.”
“Well, that’s bullshit. Who the hell told you that?”
“A source,” Laura said. “I won’t divulge my sources. You need to know that if you decide to share some things—”
“I’m not sharing anything with you, lady,” he interrupted. “And I already told the cops everything I know.”
Laura opened her purse and reached inside for Joe’s sketches.
“Earlier, you said you were freelance, right?” he asked.
Nodding, Laura showed him Joe’s most-refined, detailed rendering. “Does this look like anyone you know? Maybe somebody you saw at the summerhouse?”
He frowned at the picture, and impatiently shook his head.
“Please, give it a good look. Does the name Zared sound familiar?”
“No, it doesn’t,” he said. “Getting back to you—freelance, that means you’re not working for any particular news agency or newspaper, right? You’re just chasing down a story you hope to sell to some news place. Am I right?”
“That’s right,” she said, still holding up the drawing. “Are you sure the man in this sketch isn’t even remotely familiar? I mean, is there a chance it’s Eric Vetter?”
“Get that fucking thing out of my face,” he whispered.
Laura took a step back.
“Freelance! Shit, you’re not even a real reporter. Why the hell should I talk to you, bitch? Fuck off.”
He turned and started back toward his friends.
She watched him sit down with them. He popped a nacho in his mouth and muttered something that made them laugh.
“Ha, Scarface. You’re awful, Doran!” one of the girls said. She went back to looking at her smartphone.
Laura felt a momentary pang of anger and hurt—and for just a second, she was forced to think about Mr. Clapp again. But it was just a brief distraction. She saw the smartphone in that stupid girl’s hand, and Laura wished she had her phone with her right now. Then she could look up Eric Vetter and find out who he was—and why the mention of his name seemed to unnerve this cocky young creep.
There was something about the caretaker job that Joe hadn’t told her. And Doran Wiley didn’t want her to know about it either.
Laura glanced at her watch: 3:50. What the hell had happened to the time? There was no way she would make it to Anacortes for the 4:30 ferry to Lopez, not even if she drove eighty miles an hour the whole way. The next ferry wasn’t until six.
She took the ferry schedule out of her purse, studied it, and did the math. If she still hoped to get home by eleven, she’d have only twenty minutes to go meet Martha and then catch the 7:10 ferry off Lopez. She hoped Martha lived close to the ferry terminal.
Once again, she missed her regular phone with its MapQuest and Google applications.
Laura headed toward the exit, but stopped to talk to a young woman near the salad bar: “Excuse me, but I don’t know the campus very well. Is there a cyber café or a place where I can get access to a computer?”
The girl told her that Wilson Library was practically right behind the commons, and they had computers there.
Laura thanked her. Before heading out of the cafeteria, she glanced back toward Doran Wiley and his entourage. They were talking and laughing and looking at their phones. None of them seemed to know she was still there.
But not far from the table-bussing station, she noticed a young blond man sitting alone at a long table. He had a slightly pretty, Aryan-looking face with full, pouty lips. And he knew she was there. He stared directly at her.
She hadn’t noticed him in the cafeteria earlier. She remembered Martha saying that Singleton’s disciples were around everywhere and she had to be careful about what she said out loud. But that had been back on the island.
He was still staring.
Laura turned away and hurried out of the cafeteria.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Tuesday—3:56 P.M.
Leavenworth
“Yeah, what’s going on?” Vic asked, sounding groggy.
The volume went mute on the TV.
The last time Joe had checked on him, Vic had been dozing in the easy chair in front of The Jerry Springer Show. Vic had already herded the kids upstairs, and used the crowbar on the door again to keep them holed up in Sophie’s bedroom. He’d also sent Joe into the living room to watch for the delivery person. Vic was especially concerned about that, maybe even a little paranoid. He seemed convinced the delivery person was part of some kind of ambush. It really didn’t make sense, because Mr. Gretchell had been the one who wanted Mrs. Gretchell to sign for a package this afternoon—and the guy was in Europe with no idea what was happening. Still, Vic was jumpy as hell about the whole thing. Sophie hadn’t been too far off when she’d advised Vic not to freak out and kill the delivery person.
Joe had been instructed to alert Vic when the UPS or FedEx truck arrived. Then he was supposed to round up the kids and send Sophie downstairs to sign for the package. Joe would remain upstairs with the boys while Vic kept watch just inside the front door.
Vic had given him Sophie’s smartphone so he could play games on it and not be bored to smithereens sitting there alone on the living room sofa by the front window. Joe knew it was wrong, but after a while, he’d gotten tired of playing games on the phone. So he’d started looking over Sophie’s photos—of her, her family, and her boyfriend. Everyone looked so happy and nice in the pictures. Joe even read some of the texts between Sophie and the boyfriend. There had been nothing too intimate or earth-shattering about their correspondence. But some of their chatter was cute—even funny at times. Joe wondered if this was what it was like for normal people with families, partners, or good friends.
He’d just switched back to the solitaire game when he’d heard Mrs. Gretchell’s phone ringing.
He listened to Vic’s grunt in response to whatever Mrs. Gretchell was telling him. Then Vic wandered through the living room. Glancing Joe’s way, he took the phone from his face for a moment. “She met with the other caretaker, the one before you, and she came up with a big fat nothing,” he said. “But she wants to speak with you after she talks to the brats. I’ll bring the phone back down. Stay put and keep your eyes peeled . . .”
Vic started up the stairs. “We’re still waiting on that special delivery from your old man,” he said into the phone. “The kiddies are having themselves a time-out in the bedroom right now, because they were being a pain in the ass . . .”
Joe heard Vic’s footsteps above—and his murmuring. He couldn’t quite make out the words.
“. . . because the little bitch tried to climb out the bathroom window!” he exclaimed. That part, Joe heard.
The bedroom door creaked as Vic dislodged the crowbar. Joe listened to more muttering. Then Sophie’s voice came through pretty clear for a moment: “We’re all fine, Mom, just tired—really, really tired . . .”
Vic must have been feeling magnanimous, because Liam and then James briefly talked to their mother. But once again, Joe couldn’t discern what they were saying.
After a couple of minutes, he heard the bedroom door creaking again—and James’s muffled crying. It was heartbreaking. Vic came down the stairs and handed him the phone. “She wants to talk with you . . .”
Vic stood there by the newel post watching as Joe spoke into the phone. “Hello, Mrs. Gretchell?”
“Hi, Joe,” she said. “Listen, I met with Doran Wiley and didn’t have much luck. But I could tell he was covering something up—something about working for the Singletons. I seemed to hit a nerve when I mentioned Eric Vetter. Are you sure you don’t know who that is?”
“No, I swear,” Joe murmured.
“Well, do you know of any reason why Doran Wiley wouldn’t want to
talk about his caretaker job for the Singletons?”
“No,” Joe answered. But in truth, there were some things about his time at the Singletons’ compound he didn’t want to discuss himself—some things that disgusted him.
“Well, your friend Martha seemed to think Doran could tell me something. But it’s his hostile reaction to my questions and what he wouldn’t say that seem important to me. I’m here in front of the university library, and I’m going to do a little research. Then I’m headed back to the island. In the meantime, once again, I’m counting on you to look after my kids.”
“I will, I swear,” he said.
“So—what happened earlier with Vic and my kids?”
Vic grabbed the phone out of his hand. “I already told you what happened,” he barked. “Call back when you’ve actually got something to report.”
He clicked off and then headed into the bathroom.
Joe took a look out the window. He didn’t see anyone in the driveway. He glanced at the bathroom door and then slowly crept up the stairs. He knocked on the doorframe of Sophie’s bedroom. He didn’t want to tap on the door and possibly dislodge the crowbar—even though it was wedged in there pretty damn tight.
He was still holding her smartphone. “Sophie?” he called quietly.
“What?” she said.
“I’m sorry about what happened with Vic earlier,” he whispered. “You shouldn’t make him mad, I’ve told you that. The way he gets, he even scares me sometimes. But—well, he’s been a good friend to me. I wish you’d just try a little harder to get along with him.”
“Yeah, well, your loyal friend has slugged my mother, slapped me, and last night he came close to shooting my brother. Plus, he has us locked in here now. So you’ll pardon me if I have a hard time accepting your apology for that creep. Listen, if you’re not going to let us out of here or help us, I wish you’d just leave us alone.”
Joe was about to say I’m sorry, but thought better of it. He retreated down the hall and then down the steps.
He glanced out the front window, and again, he didn’t see anything.
In the downstairs bathroom, the toilet flushed.
Joe sat down on the sofa just as Vic emerged from the bathroom. “If you want to make things easier for yourself,” his friend said, “you’ll stop being so chummy-chummy with those brats.” He headed into the family room, and a moment later, the TV volume went up again.
Joe didn’t want to think about what his friend meant by that statement. He wondered if Vic had heard him talking with Sophie upstairs.
Vic always seemed to know what was going on—even back when they’d been in the country club together. Vic had been the one who had come up with that name for the place. Psychiatric facility just sounded so awful. Joe remembered feeling utterly terrified his first few days there. He’d seen enough prison movies to know what to expect, even though, technically, the place wasn’t a jail. Still, there were bars on the windows, locks on the doors, and guards in the corridors—along with everything else they had in prisons: an exercise yard, a cafeteria, a library, communal showers, and an occupational-therapy room. They also had predators who targeted newbies like Joe.
It didn’t matter how much Joe tried to keep to himself and blend into the scenery. This scrawny, hairy guy with a goatee who called himself Spider seemed to home in on him. After Donald Clapp, and Larry, the coworker he’d put in the hospital, and others like them, Joe should have been used to getting picked on. Spider wasn’t really any worse than the others. He made fun of Joe, tripped and shoved him, and stole food off his tray during meals. In the showers, Spider tried to grab his butt or get him in a headlock. And then he’d accuse Joe of checking him out, which was absolutely ridiculous. But the craziest part about it was that Joe could have beaten the crap out of Spider if he wanted to. Joe was just afraid. The last time he’d lost his head and beaten up a guy, it had been Larry; and as a direct result of that, he’d ended up in this psychiatric facility. So when Spider picked on him, Joe just took it.
He wasn’t exactly sure how or when he met Vic, but the two of them started hanging out together. Having Vic around seemed to discourage Spider from bothering him. He was Spider-repellent. Unfortunately, Vic wasn’t around all the time. Spider grabbed every opportunity when Joe was alone to harass him and push him around. “Hey, are you Victor Moles’s bitch?” he taunted him in the exercise yard on a Good Friday. Spider pushed him so hard that Joe slammed into a brick wall and cut his forehead. “Are you guys a couple now? Is he giving it to you, Joe-Joe?”
This happened in the presence of several other inmate-patients—or club members, as Vic called them. Joe never told Vic what had happened or how he’d gotten the cut on his forehead. Vic already disliked Spider intensely, and Joe didn’t want to cause an incident. But apparently someone else informed Vic about the exercise-yard altercation.
On Easter Sunday, in the shower room, without warning, Vic went crazy. He attacked Spider and started beating him savagely. He ended up breaking Spider’s jaw and biting off his ear.
Vic was transferred to another floor with the ultra-crazies, and he stayed there until around Memorial Day. Spider spent almost the same stretch of time in the infirmary. And when he was released, he never bothered Joe again, never even got near him.
No one bothered Joe at all.
Vic became his best friend and protector. Despite what Spider had said, there was nothing sexual about their relationship. Still, Joe’s psychiatrist, Dr. Halstead, warned him that Vic was a lot more dangerous than Spider. He said Vic was a manipulative sociopath. When Joe told this to Vic, he almost expected his friend to go berserk. But Vic merely made a face like he’d tasted something sour, and he said, “That shrink of yours, he doesn’t have your best interests in mind.”
He encouraged Joe to lie to his psychiatrist, lies that would get him an early release. And Vic was right. Joe got out of there and became an outpatient. They had him on medication, which took care of a lot of his problems. He stayed in a halfway house and got a good job working for a landscaper. He wrote to Vic at the country club, saved his money, and was actually pretty happy.
He was just out of the halfway house and renting a room in someone’s basement when the Singletons’ caretaking job landed in his lap.
Less than a week before he started working for the Singletons, the police showed up at the house where Joe had rented the basement room. He was horrified to learn that his friend had slashed a guard’s throat with a broken Coke bottle and escaped from the country club. The guard, a weasel named Gary Warren, had survived. Joe remembered Warren had always been nasty toward him. Warren had seen Spider picking on him countless times and hadn’t done a thing to stop it. Joe knew he should feel bad about what had happened to Gary Warren, but he didn’t.
And he knew he should have notified the police when Vic called him just a day later, but he didn’t.
The police checked in with him again a few days after that. Joe lied and said he still hadn’t heard from his friend. He figured he owed Vic at least that much. The police said they were following a lead that Vic had gone to New Mexico.
If only he had.
In his next conversation with Vic, Joe made the mistake of telling him about his wonderful new job on Lopez Island and the nice—famous—people who had hired him. When he mentioned he was alone there most of the time, his friend seemed to take it as an invitation to swing on by whenever he wanted.
Vic’s visits to the Singletons’ summer home were unnerving. Joe was never sure when he’d show up. Sometimes he’d surprise him by howling like a wolf outside the compound fence. Vic always thought that was a funny way to announce himself. Mostly, he’d call saying he was on the ferry or already somewhere in town waiting to be picked up. Once on the premises, Vic made himself at home. He treated the Singleton compound like his personal kingdom. Joe was always worried sick someone in town would catch on that Vic was paying him these visits. The police were still looking for him. Both of t
hem could get arrested. But Vic didn’t care. He was so reckless, always pushing his luck, “borrowing” things from the house, eating their food, watching their TV, using their toilets, and even wearing some of Scott Singleton’s clothes. He sometimes went to town on a Vespa that belonged to one of the Singleton kids.
Joe was always cleaning up after him, covering his tracks. He was never sure when Mrs. Singleton might pull one of her surprise visits. He didn’t even want to think what would happen if she ever showed up and discovered Vic settled in her beautiful house.
The first weekend in October, Mrs. Singleton arrived unannounced with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Willow. Joe got a call from Vic just minutes after they’d driven up to the house. When he phoned Vic back, he was still out of breath from helping Mrs. and Miss Singleton with their overnight bags. Vic said he was on the island, at the Last Sunset Café, and he needed to be picked up.
Joe begged him to go away. But Vic wouldn’t hang up—even as Mrs. Singleton buzzed Joe from the house intercom. Vic kept saying he wanted to meet Mrs. Singleton. He’d seen photos, and thought she was kind of hot for an older lady. What was the teenage daughter like? Was she doable?
“Vic, she’s just a kid,” Joe said. “And I’m telling you again, you can’t come here. I like this job, and you’re going to ruin it for me. Please, go away . . .”
Vic wasn’t happy he had to head back to the mainland.
Joe spent most of the afternoon running errands for Mrs. Singleton. He was exhausted by the time he went to bed. But he couldn’t fall asleep right away—especially when he noticed a light go on in the master bedroom in the house across the way. He saw Mrs. Singleton in the elegantly appointed room—all beige and white with splashes of lavender here and there. He kept expecting her to close the drapes, but she didn’t. He figured she must have forgotten he was right there, just across the driveway turnaround. Joe sat up in bed, and watched her start undressing. He always thought Mrs. Singleton was attractive. Blond, with a creamy complexion, she had one of those taut, gym-toned bodies. Joe had first noticed the day he’d met her, when he’d seen her play tennis at her friend’s house.
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