Never Be Safe: A Suspense Thriller

by Ray Backley

“Oh, that’s okay. Good to get it off my chest. No. Definitely no kids. But she supported the guy for a long time.”

  “You mean, financially?”

  “Well . . .” Jones drew a long breath. “He wanted to be a writer, see. He promised her they’d start a family once the writing money started coming their way. He had totally unrealistic dreams that any day soon he’d be the next Stephen King or John Steinbeck. She was in love with him and said she’d support him while he tried to make it as an author, and he took full advantage of her kindness.”

  “And she pulled the plug on his finances when she found out his books were garbage?”

  Jones shook her head. “She believed in him. She believed in him right up until she found out he had a gambling problem on the side. They argued. They argued a lot. He made all sorts of excuses. She let him off twice. Third time she filed.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “Guess what? Me too.”

  “At least she had a good friend in you.”

  “You could say that.”

  Both women sat nodding thoughtfully for a few moments.

  “Anyway, I shouldn’t be telling you all this,” Jones said. “You have your own problems and they’re more immediate and much more serious ones. I just wanted you to know that . . . well, you know, I have a vague idea what you’re going through and you’re not just my next case.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “I’ll leave you now. My number is on a card next to your phone. Call if you need me, day or night.”

  Cath showed her out, and as she shut the door her mind turned. Yes, Jones – or Susan – had been very kind, even down to leaving some food items including a month’s supply of cake. But that didn’t matter. She was done with resting and thinking and eating cake and being pleasant; now it was time to put some sort of plan into action.

  And plans didn’t just happen; they had to be devised.

  Thankfully Susan had delivered Cath’s laptop. She opened it, started up a new text document, and rested her fingers on the keyboard. Five minutes later she was still staring at a blank document. It was pointless. She had no idea how to create a plan like this from nothing. Perhaps something more free-form would be better – some way she could scribble ideas down graphically as well as in words. She’d noticed a general store opposite the apartment block. She grabbed her coat and purse. Yes, she would buy pens and a pad of paper and write down everything she thought might help her find Dan and the kids.

  There was enough money in their bank account to support her for months. There was no excuse. She was going to do this. She was going to search and find Dan and the kids, rescue them, and then go track down Vinnie.

  And when she found the son of a bitch, she might or might not slice his balls off. She would leave that to her mood at the time.

  She left the apartment.

  Chapter 26

  Cath sat at the kitchen table, staring at the blank paper and pens she’d just bought, trying not to even glance at the bottle of vodka she’d also bought.

  The vodka was there if she needed it, but for now a clear head was more important.

  She scribbled the name “Vinnie” in black marker pen at the top of the page, circling it. She wrote “Dan – Phoebe – Benjie” along the bottom and circled each one.

  How to get from one to the other. That was the hard bit. Was it possible? Were there connections? There was a car – Vinnie must have had his own car – but she had no idea of make or model, let alone location. Even though he’d been at their house, he’d left no fingerprints, no clues whatsoever – at least, none that had been disclosed to Cath.

  Ten minutes later she had to accept it: the paper and pen route was yielding no more ideas than the computer method had. She told herself to concentrate, to try again, to let it all out; stream of consciousness stuff.

  She started a new sheet and wrote down five lines for five possible next steps:

  1 - Call Dan’s cell phone.

  2 - Search for Vinnie on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

  3 - Talk to cops, ask for an update, try to glean something from them.

  4 - Track down Vinnie’s parents and get to him that way.

  5 - Search for Vinnie’s friends on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – if she could remember any of their names.

  She drew a 6, and the pen hovered next to it. It didn’t help; a sixth route to Vinnie just wouldn’t come. And now it was getting dark outside. She went through the five in order:

  1 - Call Dan’s cell phone? Vinnie might have put the battery back in. Yeah, sure – when the moon turned into a big round peanut and raisin cookie. He was too clever for that.

  2 - Search for Vinnie on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram? That was so unlikely. Even if he had the time, why would he advertise what he was doing?

  That vodka looked appetizing.

  3 - Talk to cops, ask for an update? They hadn’t been much help so far, and it would be almost like talking to the enemy.

  4 – Vinnie’s parents? Could she remember where Vinnie was from? If so, could she contact his parents? Were they still alive? And even if they knew where he was, would they tell her? They would remember her as the bitch who stole their son’s best years, and would be more likely to attack her. No. Just no.

  She got out a glass, opened the bottle and poured herself a large one.

  5 - Search for Vinnie’s friends on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? Could she even remember any of their names? Unlikely. Would they be on social media? Hardly worth considering.

  Yes, it was late. Words like helpless, hopeless, lonely, and dejected hung in the air, teasing her, staying put no matter how much she tried to catch them and extinguish them. Also, she would have to spend the night alone. This time with no form of tranquillizer.

  Except one form.

  But no.

  She knew if she had one, she would drink the entire bottle. And if she could still walk after that, and if that shop was still open, she would go buy another. No. She’d been a victim once too often. Losing her parents to delinquency when she’d been a young girl, losing her self-respect to scum like Vinnie in her early teens, and now losing the three people that meant everything to her.

  No.

  No more.

  She poured the glass of vodka down the sink and screwed the cap back on the bottle. Then she took a few long breaths, unscrewed the cap, and poured away the rest of the bottle.

  She would go to bed, get up like the early bird, and start the search. She would systematically move through her list of possibilities until each had been eliminated. Then she would think up more possibilities and work through those. She would not give up. Dan, Phoebe, Benjie – they were her world. Without them, life had no point.

  She made toast, felt sick at the prospect of eating it, so left it and went to bed – to the lonely double bed.

  And cried.

  An hour later Cath had to accept she wouldn’t be able to sleep; she was far too upset, so climbed out of bed, washed her face, had a drink of warm milk, and returned to bed. That didn’t help. Between further attempts to break her insomnia, she watched TV and even resorted to pacing the apartment. She finally nodded off in the early hours, getting some solid sleep between six and eleven, after which she got up.

  So much for being the early bird.

  She sat down to a silent breakfast. There was no TV or radio; that way she could concentrate on the job in hand: adding to the list she’d written the night before. She devoured breakfast and soon was giving the search for her family every ounce of her attention, desperately trying to come up with more ideas.

  But the list stayed stubbornly at just those five items. Eventually, after dismissing the thought that a walk outside might help, she told herself that having five ideas was better than having none, and they would just have to do. Yes, she would work through them one at a time, however pointless each seemed.

  Item 1. She called Dan’s number. It was unobtainable. Permanently off, she had
to assume.

  Item 2. She called the number that Susan Jones had left. It went to answer machine.

  Item 3. She searched Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for Vincent Lemont and Vinnie Lemont and Vin Lemont. Twitter and Instagram were quite useless, awash with celebrity garbage as she expected. Facebook was better. She got hits, and each had a photo or a bio or both, but none were the Vinnie she wanted. Which was no less than what her realistic side expected.

  So now it was all down to items 4 and 5: her own memory of Vinnie’s friends and family.

  She opened an online map of the area where she and Vinnie used to hang out back in the day, searching around, expecting some place name to jump out at her and tell her this is where Vinnie comes from, so this is where his parents might still live.

  It didn’t happen. She couldn’t remember him ever talking about his background; he was always more interested in his friends, his clients, and, lastly, Karen, as she was back then.

  So. Item 5. His friends.

  She could only remember the four: Jose – who’d been killed at the time, Bullface – who’d taken his life in preference to serving time, leaving Franco and Johnny D.

  Those two had been found guilty at around the same time as Vinnie, but for lesser offenses, so presumably were at large by now.

  Franco had been the quietest member of the group, but that wasn’t going to help her find him. She needed a surname. Was he Italian? He didn’t particularly look Italian, although the fourteen-year-old Karen wouldn’t have known much about that.

  She tried a search for Italian surnames, matching them with Franco just to see if anything jumped out at her, but nothing did.

  That left Johnny D, the big guy with the physique and face of a heavyweight boxer, who had hurt her many years before. But she never knew what the D stood for.

  Again, she looked up surnames, this time any that began with “D.” But it was hopeless. There must have been thousands of them.

  Even at the time, she’d never known the family history of any of them, so she was hardly going to remember anything useful or relevant now.

  She persevered, searching Facebook using those few details, but got nowhere. Well, she got somewhere – there were lots of people with those approximate details, but she didn’t recognize any of them. And she knew she would recognize Franco or Johnny D if she saw a picture. Yes, their faces would be a little on the saggy side, their hair thinner and perhaps greying, but she would recognize them.

  She got nothing.

  It was lunchtime, and she was getting annoyed. She’d promised herself she would have made some progress by now – might have sent a few Friend Requests, for example. Nausea crept up her insides, but she had to eat. And perhaps the break from the laptop might help her concentrate later. She’d earlier dismissed the notion that some fresh air might help, but was now forced to reconsider, desperate for anything that might flick that switch in her mind.

  She took a walk to the coffee shop, where she had some cake and a strong espresso in an attempt to wake up her creative side. Thoughts about the last time she’d been in a coffee shop – to meet with Vinnie – raced through her mind. It all helped motivate her. She returned home and opened her laptop again.

  “Okay,” she said to herself.

  She opened a text document and wrote as much as she knew about their names, and then variations on the names. Franco could be Frank or Francis. Johnny could be John or Jon or Johnathan. She even tried a few more Italian surnames and then some Spanish ones for Franco but still got no memory jogs. And she didn’t even know whether Franco was his real name; it might not have been. She took a break, a cube of chocolate, and sat back down.

  Johnny D. The big guy with the face of a boxer.

  That didn’t help. For a very brief moment she felt the urge to search for “big guy with face of boxer.” It made her laugh. It also brought a tear to her eye.

  No, Cath. Concentrate. Johnny D.

  And then she thought, why did they call him Johnny D? Why not just Johnny? It wasn’t as if there was another Johnny to confuse him with. Why would they call him “D” unless . . . could his surname actually be Dee spelled D-e-e?

  But if it was, that still wouldn’t explain why they didn’t just call him “Johnny” or simply “John.” Unless there had once been another Johnny in the gang and the name had just stuck.

  Whatever, anything was worth a try. She searched for Johnny Dee. Then John Dee. Then Johnathan Dee. Then Jonathan Dee – without the first “h.”

  There were a few, but only one that jumped out at her. In fact, it made her gasp and slap a hand over her mouth.

  He was pug faced, almost bald now, and still looked like a criminally inclined unsuccessful boxer. And yes, although he’d never been what you might call slender, he’d put on a few more pounds.

  She was about to hit the Message button when something stopped her. She even got off her chair and backed away.

  Did she really want to talk to this man again after . . .?

  A fleeting thought of what he’d done to her all those years ago fell into her mind and was kicked out just as quickly. She couldn’t even think about what this evil man had done. She’d blanked it out many years before.

  She tried to tell herself it was her only chance. But her head wasn’t listening, and just made her feel faint at the thought of talking to him. She stood up, unsteady, and slowly made her way to the sink. A few seconds later cold water hit the back of her throat and it helped, so she drank a little more and trudged back to her laptop.

  No. Try to think logically.

  First, she could check out his Timeline, Friends, Photos, and suchlike, depending on how he’d set up his account. No commitment there. And he wouldn’t know she was lurking.

  She did that and was surprised to find repeated religious connections. There were posts about Jesus, Likes of church events and bible quotes, and talk about favorite prayers and recommended gospel choirs.

  It seemed odd. Was this really the same guy? She checked the photo again. Blew it up. It was totally him, and it seemed safe to message him. Even if the religion thing turned out to be a cover, there was no way he could harm her over an internet connection.

  She sat, staring at the screen.

  Her phone rang and she jumped, shrieking at the shock, needing a moment to settle herself before picking up.

  “Hello Cath. It’s Susan here, Susan Jones. You called me earlier. Is everything okay?”

  At first Cath panicked, completely forgetting why she’d rung Susan, unable to speak.

  “Are you there, Cath?”

  “I’m here, sure. I, uh, called you to find out if there’s been any progress on the case.”

  “Nothing important. We’re still checking out that one lead we have.”

  “Could you tell me who it is?”

  “Mmm . . .”

  “You did say you’d help me if you could.”

  “Oh, Cath. This is really hard for me. But I have to play things by the book.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m sorry. But if you’re lonely or having . . . bad thoughts . . .”

  “I’m not.”

  “Okay, good. But call me if you need me. I’m doing my best for you. Never believe anything else.”

  Cath hung up and took a minute to think about Susan’s behavior. Was the woman getting just a little creepy, or was Cath getting paranoid?

  Anyhow. That didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that Susan’s call had made up her mind. If she’d been in any doubt about the police, she wasn’t any longer; they clearly weren’t going to help her. She would have to be strong and take her own action.

  She messaged Johnny, short and sweet:

  hi johnny. my name used to be karen fisher. do you remember me?

  She let out a long, exhaustive breath and leaned back in her chair. What she’d just done was making her tremble with fear. She stared at her laptop screen, told herself not to be stupid enough to expect an instant reply,
then got up and took a walk around the apartment. She congratulated herself; she’d taken the first step toward finding Dan and her children.

  For a moment she regretted getting rid of that vodka. But that was forgotten when she heard a ping notification from her laptop and rushed over to it, sitting down to read:

  yes I do remember you. i would like to talk to you. video chat?

  And then, soon after she’d been congratulating herself, she was pacing the apartment again, cursing to herself, asking herself what the hell she’d started. Memories were coming back to her – memories she wanted to push away but simply couldn’t.

  Thoughts of what this man had been like and what he’d done to her simply would not go away.

  She slammed her laptop shut and left the apartment.

  Chapter 27

  Dan was going to kill Vinnie. He’d already decided that. Anytime, anyplace, anyhow. Murder, manslaughter, homicide. Whatever.

  The respect for law and order he’d taken for granted throughout his life had now deserted him. Any vestige of morality that remained could go screw itself. Vinnie was a dead man, and the only modifier of that fact was down to what happened next: as things stood, he would kill Vinnie quickly and efficiently. If he were to harm Phoebe or Benjie, the killing would be slow and painful and as drawn out as Dan could make it – a bullet in each joint, agonizing pain from poison, neck sliced open and hung upside down to bleed to death – all these possibilities and more had gone through Dan’s mind in the time he’d been at Vinnie’s mercy.

  By now, a little vision had returned to his left eye, although his head still throbbed as if he’d finished off a bottle and a half of Jack Daniels last night. But the single most annoying thing was that his hands were still tied behind his back. A hardly discernible old scar above his left eye – from the time he’d run into a closet door as an eight-year-old – had been opened up by Vinnie’s second kick. The blood was trickling through his eye and down his cheek, gaining speed when mingled with tears, tickling and itching the left side of his face. He would have given a thousand bucks just to be able to wipe his face with his T-shirt.