No Safe House

by Linwood Barclay

  “Then someone else may have it,” Quayle said.

  “If Eli even had it to begin with,” Duggan said. “Like you say, he could have been running a game on you.”

  “I just . . . I just can’t imagine why anyone would do such a thing. Whether it was Eli who did it in the first place, or somebody else. What would possess someone to do that?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Quayle. My guess is someone thought the item itself, and not what was inside, was of value. But listen, I did come across some names yesterday I wanted to bounce off you. People Goemann crashed with over the last few months after his roommates booted him out. I’ve been doing some checking.”

  “Crashed?”

  “Stayed with.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “There were a couple of girls. Selina Michaels was one, in Bridgeport. And a Juanita Cole here in Milford. I don’t know if they were actual girlfriends, but he talked them into letting him sleep under their roof for a while. There was an older guy named Croft he may have done some work for, and someone I think he went to school with by the name of Waterman. But whether they had anything—”

  “Did you say Croft?”

  “Yeah.”

  Quayle was silent on the other end of the line.

  “You there?” Duggan asked.

  “A long time ago, there was a man named Croft. He . . . he’d been a friend of mine. We fought together. In Vietnam. We were both from around here. I lived in Stratford. He was in New Haven. We stayed in touch when we got back.”

  “Okay. You have any reason to believe he’d have anything to do with this?”

  Again, nothing but silence from Quayle.

  “Sir?”

  “I stole her from him.”

  “You what?”

  “We both loved the same woman. There was . . . an opportunity, and I stole her away from him.”

  “This was your wife? You’re talking about Charlotte?”

  “Yes.” A pause. “It’s him.”

  “Croft?”

  “I know it. It’s him. He’s always wanted her back, and he finally did it. That son of a bitch. Now that I think of it, I was pretty sure I saw him. Two years ago. In the church. So he would have known.”

  “You might be right,” Duggan said. “I can stick with this a little longer, see what I can find out.”

  “That bastard. I’m going to confront him.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend that, Mr. Quayle.”

  “I’ll put the fear of God into him. That’s what I’ll do.”

  “Mr. Quayle, listen to me. I think the best thing would be—”

  “What if I tell him—here’s an idea—I tell him we’ve got her back. If he laughs, calls my bluff, I’ll know he’s got her. But if he doesn’t, if he sounds worried, we’ll know she’s still out there somewhere. Maybe he’ll think we got her from Eli, that the deal was made. I know! I’ll tell him—”

  “Stop,” Duggan said. “This is not the way you want to go about this.”

  “—tell him that we’re checking for fingerprints! That if we find his prints, he’s finished. I’ll get my lawyer involved, the police, and—”

  “Mr. Quayle,” Duggan said, keeping his voice level, but firm. “Don’t do this.”

  “I’m gonna get the son of a bitch. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

  Quayle ended the call.

  Fuck it, Heywood Duggan thought. If that was what the man wanted to do, then let him. He’d be just as happy to forget this case, move on to something else.

  This file was closed.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  CYNTHIA Archer did not sleep well.

  She lay awake, wondering what it was her husband and daughter might be keeping from her. Why had it taken so long for Terry to go pick Grace up and come home? They hadn’t pulled into the driveway until after midnight, a couple of hours after he’d taken the call from Grace to come get her.

  Something was wrong. She could sense it.

  But she couldn’t call Terry and ask why they had been out so late. Not without admitting she’d been spying on them from behind a tree, like some ridiculous character in a Scooby-Doo cartoon. If Terry found out she’d been watching the house, he’d jump to the conclusion that she’d been doing this other nights. Maybe every night since she’d moved out of the house.

  And he’d be right.

  By the time Cynthia’s digital clock read 5:30, she didn’t see the point in lying in bed any longer. She got up, showered, did her makeup, put on the clothes she’d selected for herself the night before.

  She put a slice of bread into the toaster, peeled a banana, made some coffee, turned on the radio. But she couldn’t have told anyone a thing she heard. Her mind was elsewhere.

  Those buggers.

  Thought they could pull something over on her, did they? She could understand why they’d do it. They were protecting her. They were doing what they could to keep her anxiety level down.

  It was insulting. As if she couldn’t handle things. As if she was some kind of baby.

  Well, Cynthia Archer was not a baby.

  She was going to find out what was going on. She was not going to go directly to work this morning. She was going to stop by their house. After all, it was still hers, too, and she could drop by anytime she wanted. She didn’t need an invitation. She didn’t need a reason.

  She was going to go up to the door and let herself in and damned if she was going to knock.

  Hey, thought I’d join you for breakfast. Coffee on?

  So at six-fifty she stepped out of her apartment and headed for the stairs. But there was a man there, about four steps down, blocking her path. She nearly screamed.

  “Good morning, Cynthia.”

  It was Barney. He had a screwdriver in his hand, and an open red metal toolbox was perched one step down from the top. The wooden hand railing, which was normally secured to the wall with metal brackets, was half off.

  “You scared me half to death,” she said.

  “Sorry about that. I decided to come over this morning, check in on Orland. I popped my head in—he’s fast asleep, but I’m going to hang around until he wakes up. Figured I’d get some work done in the meantime. I’ve been meaning to fix this railing for a while. It’s pretty loose, not safe. Let me get out of your way here.”

  “Thank you. I hope everything’s okay with Orland.”

  “It might be he was just having a bad day. I’ve known him a long time. Went to high school together. Where you off to so early? Wait—let me guess. You’re doing a restaurant inspection. See if somebody’s serving bugs with the home fries.”

  “Just have a lot to do,” she said. She started to squeeze past him when there was the sound of a door opening in the first-floor hallway. Then, Orland shouting, “What’s all the racket?”

  His face appeared at the bottom of the stairs, looking up through smudged glasses, hair all over the place. He was dressed in nothing but a tattered blue bathrobe and socks. “Barney!” he said. “What the hell you doin’?”

  “Fixing this railing, Orland. Maybe you’d like to give me a hand?”

  “I look like I’m dressed for work?”

  “So get dressed. How you feeling today?”

  “I feel fine,” he said, then coughed. He looked quizzically at Barney and said, “Where’s Charlotte?”

  Barney sighed tiredly. “Charlotte’s passed away, Orland. Years ago. You know that.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. How long were you two married?”

  “You’re confused, Orland. Charlotte was never my wife.”

  Orland scratched his head. “Oh, that’s right.” He chuckled. “What the hell was I thinking?”

  Cynthia gave Barney a weak, sympathetic smile. “I have to go,” she whispered.

  “Sure thing,” Barney said.

  “Have a nice day, Orland,” Cynthia said as she scooted past the man and headed out the front door. Seconds later, she was in her car.

  As she turned off Pumpk
in Delight Road onto Hickory, she saw Terry’s Ford Escape backing out of the driveway. She hit the brakes and eased the car over to the curb and watched as he headed off in the other direction, toward Maplewood.

  Where the hell was he going this early? It wasn’t as if he had a job to go to in July. She was pretty sure there was only one person in the car, which meant Grace was still at home.

  Why would he head out so early? What kind of errand could he be running? A donut and coffee run? Was he fetching Grace an Egg McMuffin? That didn’t sound like Terry.

  Could he be sick? Was he off to the drugstore for some medicine? Could it be Grace? Was she sick? The CVS pharmacy out on the Boston Post Road would be open this early, she thought. It was a twenty-four-hour location.

  She might as well follow him and find out.

  Cynthia gave her husband a good head start, then took her foot off the brake.

  He wasn’t heading for the CVS. He was heading across town, ending up on Naugatuck. Parked across the street from some place that fixed busted appliances. But it wasn’t even open, and Terry had said nothing about a broken washer or dryer or—

  He wasn’t going to the repair shop. He was going up a flight of stairs on the side of the building. To what looked like an apartment.

  What the hell was he doing there?

  Terry happened to glance in her direction, just for a second, and suddenly Cynthia felt vulnerable. What if he spotted her? She was pretty sure he hadn’t just now, but what if he did the next time he looked her way? It was one thing to be caught spying on them at home, but how would she explain following him all over Milford?

  She turned the car around and started heading back. To the house. She’d play dumb. Let herself in, find Grace, ask her where her father was.

  As she rounded the corner, she noticed there was a car parked on the street, just down from their place, that had not been there when she’d gone by minutes earlier. A man was crossing the street, right out front of their house.

  Cynthia slowed, steered over to the side of the road.

  The man walked up their driveway, approached the front door.

  Rang the bell.

  “Who the hell is that, this bloody early?” Cynthia said to herself. “Don’t answer it, Grace. Do not answer that door.”

  She reached into her bag for her cell phone. She’d call Grace, tell her not to go to the door. But before she could place the call, she saw the man knocking. Hard enough that she could almost hear it through the windshield.

  “Just go away,” Cynthia said. “Go now. Get.”

  What she saw next—well, she almost couldn’t believe her eyes. The man reached into his pocket and took out . . . It was a key.

  Before he inserted it, he looked over his shoulder to check whether anyone was watching him. He failed to spot Cynthia sitting in her car, so he turned back to the door, slid the key into the lock.

  Cynthia hit the gas.

  The car leapt forward, the tires squealing. She didn’t even wait until she reached the driveway before turning hard right. The car bounced up over the curb and charged right across the yard, the spinning tires digging up sod and dirt as Cynthia aimed the car for the front door, her hand pressing so hard on the horn it felt like it would go through the steering column.

  The man whirled around, saw the car heading straight for him, and dived out of the way. Cynthia hit the brakes, the bumper coming to a stop about six feet from the door.

  The man was running flat out now, heading for that blue car. Cynthia threw open her door and shouted, “Hey! Hey you!”

  She debated running after him, but then she heard the familiar whoop of a house alarm. Cynthia spun around to see Grace, dressed in one of her oversized sleeping shirts, standing in the open doorway of the house.

  Grace screamed, “Mom! Mom!”

  Grace shot forward, arms outstretched. She fell into her mother’s arms, weeping, and Cynthia clutched her tight, holding her like she’d never ever let her go.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  TERRY

  I wasn’t expecting to see what I saw when I got to the house.

  Tire tracks across the lawn, Cynthia’s car, door wide-open, nosed up to the house, Grace and her mother locked in an embrace on the front step.

  Grace sobbing. The security alarm whooping.

  I slammed on the brakes, left the car in the street, and ran to them. Grace saw me through watery eyes. “Dad!”

  “Grace! Grace! Are you okay?” I asked her once, then at least five more times.

  Cynthia used my arrival to pry herself free of Grace—not, I suspected, because she didn’t want to comfort her, but because she wanted to see where the man who’d been trying to get into the house had gone.

  She ran halfway down the driveway, looking up the street into the distance.

  “Shit,” she said.

  “He didn’t hurt you, did he?” I said to Grace, hugging her, trying to be heard above the alarm.

  “He didn’t get in,” she said. “Mom came. Almost ran him down.”

  A woman who lived across the street, still in her housecoat, had stepped out of her house with a mug of coffee in her hand. She called over, “You okay?”

  I shouted back, “We’re okay, thanks.”

  “Should I call the police?”

  Cynthia started to shout yes, but I stopped her with a firm shake of the head. “No, it’s okay!” I yelled. “We’ve got this.”

  Cynthia shot me a look. “Are you kidding?” she said. She started walking toward me at full tilt. “Someone tries to break in and attack our daughter and you don’t want to call the police?”

  “Let’s get inside,” I said. First thing I had to do was enter the code to stop the alarm from screeching. I didn’t know whether the alarm had been activated by the man getting the door open or Grace opening it herself when she saw her mother.

  “What the hell is going on?” Cynthia asked.

  She went to her car—the engine was still running—and reached in to shut it off and grab her purse. She had her cell phone in her hand.

  “If you’re not calling the police, I will.”

  “No, Mom, wait,” Grace said.

  That got Cynthia’s attention. “What?”

  “Please,” I said. “Let’s go inside. You may be right—we may have to call the police. But first I want to make sure Grace is okay.”

  Her sobs had turned to sniffs. “I’m okay. I am. I told you.”

  Cynthia took that as permission to make the call, but again I stopped her. “Please, not yet.”

  We went into the house and closed the door, at which point the alarm, only annoying up to this point, became deafening. I went to the security panel, entered our four-digit code to cancel it. Once it was silenced, we could hear the phone was ringing. That’d be the security monitoring service. I ran to the extension in the living room and snatched the receiver off the cradle.

  “Hello!” I said. “Alarm, right?”

  “Is this Mr. Archer?” A man enunciating very carefully.

  “It is.”

  “Are you having an emergency?”

  “Everything’s okay.”

  “We need your password, Mr. Archer. Otherwise we will be dispatching the police.”

  I was so flustered it took me a second to remember it. “Telescope,” I said. “Our password is telescope.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “We—we forgot the alarm was on and opened the door,” I said. “We’re very sorry.”

  “Not to worry, Mr. Archer. The good news, your system’s working. You have a great day now.”

  I put down the receiver and saw that Cynthia was back to holding Grace. My wife was looking at me fiercely.

  “Why weren’t you here?” she asked.

  “I was out for a few minutes,” I said.

  “Doing what?”

  I shrugged. “An errand.”

  “To an appliance repair place?” she asked. “At seven in the
morning?”

  I looked at Grace. “Did you tell your mother where I was going?”

  She shook her head.

  I looked back at Cynthia. “Were you following me?”

  She broke away from Grace and took a step toward me and pointed a finger. “You said you’d look after her. But something’s going on and I want to know what it is.”

  “How about answering my question? Were you following me? Have you been spying on us?”

  When Cynthia hesitated, Grace said, “Jeez, is that true, Mom? You’ve, like, got us under surveillance?”

  Cynthia must have decided a good defense was a good offense. She bristled and said, “Good thing, too! If I hadn’t been, that man—he’d have gotten into the house!” Back to me. “And who was he? If you don’t want me calling the police, does that mean you know who he was?”

  “I don’t,” I said. “Grace, you sure you’ve never seen him before?”

  She shook her head.

  “Could he have been the man in the house?” I asked.

  “There was a man in our house?” Cynthia asked.

  “Not our house,” I said.

  “He might have been the guy,” Grace said, “but I don’t know. Even if it was him, how could he have a key, Dad?” she asked.

  “Maybe he didn’t,” I said. “Maybe he had one of those, whaddya call ’em, lock-picking sets.”

  “But it didn’t take him anytime at all. I heard a key go straight in and the lock started turning.”

  “I saw him use a key,” Cynthia said. She looked at me. “Who did you give a key to?”

  “No one,” I said. “Did you give a key to anyone?”

  “Of course not.”

  I looked at Grace. “Are you kidding?” she said. “You think I’m an idiot?” I gave her a look that suggested her last twelve hours made that a risky question.

  I said, “Okay, the only people who have a key to this house are each of us, and Teresa.”

  “Well, that sure wasn’t Teresa trying to break in,” Grace said.

  “Why would someone have a key and want to get in here?” I asked. I was looking at Grace.

  “Like you said. I’m a witness.”

  Cynthia looked dumbstruck, trying to get her head around what we were talking about.