If You Were Here: A Novel of Suspense

by Alafair Burke

  “See, you just don’t get it, do you, McKenna? If you really knew my sister, you’d realize that if she were alive—if she were here—she’d know exactly where I was and how I was doing. She would know about her nephew. Hell, she’d probably have Porter’s schedule down to the minute. She’d know that you were here right now. And yet I haven’t heard one thing from her in ten years. Either she’s dead, or she’s got a damn good reason to keep her distance. Do you seriously think that, after all these years, you can take care of something that Susan Hauptmann couldn’t? Please. Don’t.”

  As they walked toward the cab, they heard the bolt lock behind the closed door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Scanlin should have anticipated the knock, but it annoyed him all the same. “Come in,” he called out, trying to hide the frustration in his voice.

  Jenna had lived in this house for twenty years. When Melissa was home, their daughter had walked in and out as if it were still her home, too. Now she insisted on knocking, no matter how many times he told her not to.

  “Sorry I’m late, but we better get moving.” She looked at her watch. “They won’t let us in after eight.”

  The nursing center had told them four months ago that it “would be for the best” if Scanlin timed his visits to see Melissa with their daughter. He had read somewhere that architects considered triangles the strongest base of support: something about symmetry aiding in the distribution of weight. He saw that in his own family. His visits to Melissa depended on all three points of their family triangle. Melissa no longer remembered him as her husband. But she remembered Jenna and understood in their daughter’s presence that Scanlin was Jenna’s friend. Without Jenna, he was a stranger to Melissa. And without Melissa, Jenna wanted nothing to do with him.

  He realized that the scenario was a triangle only from his perspective. From theirs, did he matter at all?

  “Dad, are you coming?” While he was pulling on his jacket, she had stepped into the dining room. “Big surprise. Work. Well, at least the table’s being used for something. God knows you never had dinner at it.”

  She laughed, but he knew that the joke was based in the ugly truth. He had been a shitty father. He’d been always working or trying to live the hotshot life he enjoyed more in his imagination than in reality. Nice suits. Cologne. Beautiful wife. Dinners at favorite restaurants, talking up the waiters who’d worked there since he first trotted in with Melissa on his arm.

  He hadn’t left any time for Jenna. He’d seen the parenting duties as Melissa’s domain, something to be done while he was at work.

  Now his daughter’s comment made him self-conscious about the files sprawled across the table. He did a quick tidying of the documents, putting the coworker’s DD5 on top as a reminder. He was a good cop. He’d always been a good cop. Even then.

  But he hadn’t pulled at every thread. Given where he was in his own life ten years ago, he had seen Susan Hauptmann primarily as her father’s daughter. One daughter was a drug addict, and the other daughter was a runaway. But she was an adult woman with no boyfriends and yet an open box of condoms in her nightstand. Maybe Jared Klein—the co-worker who’d said Susan had put the moves on him—really had seen another side of her. Maybe that was the side that had put her in danger. Maybe Scanlin had missed it.

  He had been so convinced that Susan left town to get a fresh start away from her father. Even if he’d been right, what if it had been Jenna? What if Jenna—instead of pretending he did not exist when she first learned of her mother’s diagnosis—had walked away in disgust, leaving without a trace? He would want someone to find out what happened to her.

  Susan Hauptmann’s parents were both gone. Her sister was a screwup. If someone were going to search for the girl, it would have to be Scanlin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Marla Tompkins had a broad caramel-colored face. Deep lines were beginning to set in, but the retired nurse’s most noticeable features were the dark freckles across her nose and the warm smile that greeted McKenna at the front door.

  When McKenna had called the woman from the train back into the city and asked to meet with her, she had jotted down the address without realizing it should have been familiar.

  She noticed the wedding ring on the woman’s finger. “Thanks for seeing me, Mrs. Tompkins. I came here once with General Hauptmann’s daughter Susan. I was very sorry to hear about his passing.”

  Susan’s father had lived in the family’s home near West Point, but kept a one-bedroom Upper East Side pied-à-terre in the city.

  “Your friend’s father was a very generous man. He knew things weren’t easy for me after Harold—my husband—passed away. He always told me I had nothing to worry about, but it never dawned on me he would leave me an apartment of my own. Well, it’s not mine yet. But it’s going to be, and the executor of the estate saw no point in evicting me in the meantime.”

  “I’m wondering where I can find any of Susan’s belongings that General Hauptmann may have had. Susan’s older sister, Gretchen, suggested that you might know.”

  “By the time I started to care for the general, he had already packed up most of his things, preparing for the end. That’s the way he was. Very unsentimental about death. Stoic. He kept the basic necessities—a television, pots and pans and dishes. A couple of pictures of his wife on the nightstand. His personal belongings were already in storage.”

  “And after his death?”

  McKenna remembered Susan’s breakdown over the news that her father had cancer. They had spent nearly four hours downing every variety of vodka on ice at Pravda. McKenna could tell that Susan was unwavering in her commitment to get obliterated, but she had no idea why until Susan held up yet another shot glass: To the General. He’s human after all.

  McKenna had tried consoling Susan with the usual clichés about advancements in medical care, but she soon realized that Susan was crying more from anger than fear or sadness. She was angry because her father had managed to use his cancer as one more way to pressure her to join his firm. News of his illness would kill the effort before it was off the ground. The firm had secured respectable work for a new player, but it would never land the more lucrative government contracts without assurances that the man himself—or his daughter—would be around for the long haul.

  And she was angry because she cared. Despite it all, she cared about her father and did not want him to die.

  Mrs. Tompkins offered McKenna a seat in a leather recliner. “I was very surprised when he left it all to me. Not the entire estate, of course. He had his charities and whatnot. But I’ll get this apartment and a bit of cash to help cover the maintenance.”

  “What about the things he put in storage? Are they available? I’d be happy to go through it to see if anything of Susan’s—”

  “I don’t know precisely, but Adam would. Adam Bayne. Do you know him?”

  “Of course.” Adam was one of Susan and Patrick’s classmates from West Point; he had been the closest thing Susan found to a boyfriend among the army crowd. Despite attempts to make their relationship work over the long haul, the two were strictly platonic by the time McKenna came on the scene. Susan used to joke that her relationship with Adam had been doomed the minute her father decided to call Adam “son.” “If he’s the General’s son, that makes him my brother. Which means no more playing with his pickle.” That was Susan.

  Adam had stayed friends with Susan but had found a true mentor in her father. Unlike Susan, he had signed on to work at his firm. Adam may have been the one to extinguish any chance that she might join him there when he told her about pulling “tub monkey” duty in Afghanistan—peering out with an M-60 from behind hillbilly armor, playing rear guard for a private convoy in the exposed bed of a pickup. Susan had heard too many stories about the deteriorating picture on the ground. She had no interest in heading back to the Middle East, even to help her father.


  Now McKenna was wondering whether George Hauptmann’s special relationship with Susan’s ex-boyfriend had been one more step in the man’s search for a legacy—from Gretchen to Susan to Adam.

  “Adam’s the executor. He was so close to the general; plus, they worked together and such. He took responsibility for going through the storage unit. I believe he kept a few mementos and some records from their business but got rid of most of it. He could tell you more.”

  McKenna thanked Mrs. Tompkins for her time and said she’d follow up with Adam Bayne. The woman stopped her before she left the apartment. “You saw Gretchen? How was she?”

  “Very well,” McKenna said. “Healthy. Happy. She has a beautiful son.” She saw no reason to mention that Gretchen’s husband was in the process of moving out.

  “She visited him. Just once, shortly before he died. He was in terrible pain by then, but he was so happy to see her. I gave her his diary. He wasn’t writing in it anymore, and it seemed like she should have it. I was hoping she’d come back. That maybe they’d made peace. But she never returned. Not even an appearance at the funeral.” Mrs. Tompkins shook her head. What a shame.

  It was just like Gretchen to not want anyone to know that she had found a single moment of softness for her dying father. Despite the estrangement, at least she had made one exception to say goodbye.

  No one ever had that chance with Susan.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Carter watched the house from the curb in his rented Chevy Malibu. He had watched the house before. He knew the woman shared it with three other people—two female, one male. He knew that one of the women was currently at work as a desk clerk at the local U-Haul branch. He had seen a second woman leave fifteen minutes earlier on her miniscooter. That left two at most inside—the woman and the man who had recruited her. Or at least, according to Carter’s client, the man had been led to believe he was recruiting her.

  Because Carter had done independent research, he also knew about the house. He knew from property records that it was a three-bedroom, two-bathroom split-level ranch built in 1954. It belonged to the grandmother of Hanna Middleton, the girl on the scooter. Hanna had spent a year at the University of Oregon but now lived in this house in Brentwood with three of her friends. The grandmother had gone into a nursing home last July, perfect timing for Hanna to drop out of college and pursue other passions on Long Island.

  Because Carter had already been inside, he knew the place was just how the grandmother must have left it, except for the attic’s acquisition of agricultural fertilizer, diesel fuel, and a mess of chemicals that shouldn’t be under one roof together.

  He got lucky. The last remaining occupants of the house—the woman and the man—walked out the front door, got into an early-model Honda minivan, and drove away.

  When he’d seen the woman yesterday on the PATH train, she’d been on alert. She had pretended to read her gossip magazine, but he was certain she knew precisely the number of people on that train with her, where they were sitting, and what they were wearing. Today she walked straight from the house to the car, her eyes only on her companion. Yesterday she hadn’t wanted to be seen with the heavy-metal guy on the train. Today she was on home turf. She wasn’t worried.

  Once the minivan turned the corner, he moved quickly. He walked to the front door, duffel bag in his right hand. The bottom lock slipped easily with a pick. It was probably the same one Grandma had, back when no one bothered. Though the top lock was a more sophisticated bolt, they’d left without securing it. Easier entry for him, but their carelessness could be a sign that they’d be returning soon.

  Thanks to their own handiwork, rigging the place for explosion was relatively simple. They’d lacked a couple of key ingredients, but he had what he needed in the duffel. The technical name for the fuse was an anti-handling device, but it was essentially a booby trap.

  He took one last look at his masterpiece as he started down the attic steps. He knew he was crossing a line. He was no longer a mere observer. He was using tactics learned in another world.

  They had crossed a line, too. He’d seen the evidence with his own eyes. If they didn’t go into the attic—if they didn’t handle the anti-handling device—they’d have nothing to worry about. And if they did? That was their decision, not his.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Patrick was waiting for her with two seats at the bar at Union Square Cafe. Their favorite bartender asked if she wanted the usual. She gave him an enthusiastic yes. A minute later, Bombay Sapphire with a twist appeared in front of her.

  While McKenna had been visiting General Hauptmann’s nurse, Patrick had gone back to the apartment to change out of his suit into his usual weeknight fare of button-down shirt and blue jeans. She noticed he was already eating a salad.

  “Sorry, I was starving. Your errand go okay?”

  She updated him on her visit to Marla Tompkins. “I feel like I missed something. Like there was a question I should have thought to ask but didn’t. I guess all I can hope for is that Susan’s father held on to some of her things and that Adam might have them. Would you mind calling him in the morning to check?”

  “No problem. Is that it?” he asked. “You seem upset.”

  “Sorry. It’s just that you know you’ve had a bad day when Gretchen Hauptmann, of all people, looks at you like you’re the selfish one.”

  “She didn’t say you were selfish.”

  McKenna hadn’t wanted to talk about their visit to Gretchen’s house while they were in the cramped quarters of the train. She had hoped that the view of Nassau County whizzing past them to the steady rhythm of the car against the rails would calm her. Instead, the hour-long trip had given her time to fume over every aspect of the conversation.

  “She accused me of looking for Susan to advance my own career. She can try to convince herself she’s moved on and has her whole Volvo-driving-mommy life now, but I remember what she was like. She’d call Susan at all hours of the day and night, and Susan would never know what she was going to get when she picked up: Gretchen bitching about their father, Gretchen strung out and barely able to talk, Gretchen so manic that Susan could set the phone down to go to the bathroom and her sister wouldn’t even notice. And now she’s judging me?”

  McKenna initially had felt bad for not telling Gretchen what she’d seen on the subway video. But her instincts had been right: Gretchen wouldn’t have believed it. What she hadn’t expected was Gretchen to make her doubt her own loyalty to Susan. The accusations weren’t entirely misplaced. The truth was, McKenna and Susan had been roommates for only a year, and McKenna had been the one to initiate the split. She had told Susan that it was because she was about to turn thirty and thought she should live by herself for the first time in her life. But the reason McKenna had splurged on her own place was to avoid admitting to Susan that she just couldn’t live with her anymore. She was too frenetic. Constantly buzzing around. Always planning the next outing. Staying out until three in the morning or not coming home at all. She couldn’t sit and watch television or read a book. She couldn’t be alone. She couldn’t just . . . be.

  “Fine, she came off a little self-righteous, but is it really a surprise that she doesn’t want to dig all this up again?” Patrick asked.

  “A little self-righteous? And what was that comment about you?” Patrick said nothing, but McKenna could remember the acidic tone of Gretchen’s voice. “ ‘Don’t even get me started on you’? What was she talking about?”

  “Who knows, and who cares? Gretchen’s the kind of person who isn’t happy unless everyone is as miserable as she is. I could tell the first time I met her. On campus visits, families would bring care packages and games and stuff, and Gretchen would just sit there and run Susan down in front of her classmates. She’s a button pusher. She may be clean, but she’s probably still totally fucked up. Maybe that’s why her husband’s bailing on her.”
>
  Such a cutting comment was out of character. Patrick was annoyed about the wild goose chase.

  They were cut off by their bartender friend asking if they were ready to order. McKenna didn’t need to look at the menu. Patrick might be starving, but she was too stressed out to eat. A half serving of pasta would be more than enough for her tonight.

  Unfortunately, her dinner order said more than she’d meant to reveal. “You need to eat,” Patrick warned. “And don’t even try to convince me you ate lunch, because I know you never do when you’re obsessing.”

  “I’m not obsessing.”

  “Um, hello? Train ride? Long Island? A sudden drop-in on Susan’s sister? And then Susan’s father’s nurse? How far are you going to take this, McKenna?”

  “It’s only been two days,” she said.

  “Three. Three days when you’ve done nothing but read old newspaper articles about Susan and look at pictures of her from a decade ago. You don’t think I noticed that you got up in the middle of the night to pull out yearbooks from my storage trunks? You haven’t slept, and you’re not eating, but you seem to have no problem drinking.”

  She didn’t like the sound of the pissy sigh that escaped her throat, but she also didn’t enjoy getting lectured.

  Patrick placed a hand gently on her knee. “The woman on the subway was fast, and she was strong, and with your mind on the past lately because of the Marcus Jones anniversary, it’s not surprising that you thought about Susan. She was a big part of your life when you were at the DA’s office. But I saw the video, McKenna. And I knew Susan a lot longer than you did. It wasn’t her.”

  “What about Dana suddenly losing all her files?”

  “Computers crash all the time.”

  “The same day the girl who took the video had her phone tampered with?”

  “She thinks it was tampered with. How many times have you accidentally deleted something from your phone? And you said yourself the girl sounded like a ditz. Try and take a break from this, okay? Eat a little. Get some sleep. Stop tearing the closets apart in the middle of the night.” She returned his smile. “Things will look different in a couple of days.”