The Three Beths

by Jeff Abbott

  Her phone rang. CHAD, said the screen. She answered it.

  “It’s Reveal. Someone followed me from the restaurant.”

  “What?”

  “A dark car followed me. I noticed it, started taking a couple of turns I never take to get home. Car stuck with me. Hard to hide on a quiet Lakehaven street.” Chad, she knew, lived at his parents’ house still, to save money.

  “The guy,” she said, “with the broken finger?”

  “Maybe he wants his revenge on me, not you. A guy who won’t punch a girl will beat the crap out of her male friend.”

  She thought he was overreacting. “Is the car still following you?”

  “No.”

  “What was it?”

  “Dark-colored SUV. I think a Toyota.”

  She had seen the man with the broken finger head toward the parking lot…but what kind of car had he gotten into? She had been in shock at what she’d done and couldn’t remember. It was a dark car, yes? Her eyes had been on him, embarrassed and angry, and clutching his hand to his chest. What if he’d pretended to leave, then followed Reveal?

  No, she thought. Wouldn’t he have gone straight to an emergency room? But maybe not. An angry, bitter, hyper-entitled man might think more of revenge than medical attention. And a guy like that would never want to admit: a woman broke my finger.

  But why follow Reveal rather than her?

  “Are you OK?” she asked Reveal.

  “Yes, but it was unnerving.”

  “I’m sure it was.” She kept her voice steady. “Do you want to call the police?”

  “No,” he said after a moment, perhaps embarrassed at how scared he’d sounded. “I’m fine. As long as he doesn’t know where I live. He wasn’t still following me when I got home.”

  If she turned herself into the police, told them what had happened, they could check the emergency rooms and find the guy, and learn his name…and ask him if he had followed Reveal. But if she confessed to assault, or whatever the charge would be, Broussard might lock her up now. On top of the car issue. She decided to say nothing.

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, then,” she said.

  She drove to the bar near Jake Curtis’s house: an Irish-themed pub, with Guinness and Harp on tap and a menu of select Irish whiskeys. It was surprisingly crowded on a weeknight; she wouldn’t have thought trivia to be such a draw. At one of the side bars, she noticed tables with four teams of four playing a trivia game among much laughing, yelling, and drinking. She spotted Jake Curtis at one of the tables, sitting quietly, volunteering an answer when it was his turn but not being loud or obnoxious. She settled on an empty stool at the bar, ordered a pint of lager, and watched, trying not to be obvious. But she quickly realized the rest of the bar was watching, so it was fine.

  On the final round, Jake Curtis won it for his team by knowing that the eighth president of the United States was Martin Van Buren. The team cheered and toasted each other. Mariah sipped her pint and watched, pretending to be bemused along with the others at the bar. The competitors broke up into smaller groups, some leaving, some staying to celebrate their minor victory. Jake and a man and a woman, the latter two clearly a couple, took positions along the bar, ordering ales, stretching their legs. The woman was standing next to Mariah and was a little drunk.

  “Martin Van Buren,” the woman said. “Greatest of presidents that I never heard of.”

  “You never heard of him?” Jake Curtis said. He was a handsome guy in an everyday way, nice features, around six feet, reddish-blond hair, a slight scattering of freckles. His voice was low and quiet.

  “I hated history,” the woman said.

  “Then you’re doomed to repeat it,” her partner said with a laugh.

  “Ugh, I hate focusing on people who are dead and gone,” the woman said, then seemed to feel that her words were ill-chosen. She took refuge in a quick sip of her ale. Jake Curtis’s face betrayed nothing.

  But the silence stretched into ten awkward seconds and Mariah broke it by saying, loud enough where they couldn’t ignore her, “Martin Van Buren was the first and only president who spoke English as a second language.”

  Jake gave her a small, cautious smile, and the woman blinked at her and said, “Really? What was his first?”

  “Dutch,” Mariah said.

  “Immigrants can’t become president,” the woman said. “At least not now. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

  “He was born here. But he spoke Dutch first and at home with his family,” Mariah said.

  “Oh, you need to be on our trivia team,” the woman said. Then she seemed to ponder. “I just wonder what are the odds that we’ll get another Martin Van Buren question. It seems low.”

  “Time to go home, presidential scholar,” the partner said. He nodded at Mariah, thanked Jake for the win, and helped his partner head for the exit. There was that awkward moment between Jake and Mariah—did he stay and talk to her, did he escape the bar with his friends, did he go socialize with his remaining teammate? She thought, You have no idea how much you and I have in common. This might be her one chance to talk to him.

  He didn’t walk away. “It’s always nice to meet the one other member of the Martin Van Buren fan club.”

  She smiled. “I remembered that factoid from Disney World. The Hall of Presidents. That he grew up speaking Dutch. It stuck in my mind.”

  “Good to know amusement parks are educational,” he laughed. “I’m Jake.” He offered his hand and she shook it.

  “I’m Mariah,” she said. She guessed he was in his early thirties.

  She expected him to ask her what she did for a living—guys were always overly interested in that—but instead he said, “I don’t actually like trivia that much.”

  “Really? You seemed very good at it. So were your friends.”

  “I like hanging out with them a lot more than answering trivia,” he said. “We’ve been through a lot together. They’ve…been there for me.”

  I understand, she wanted to say. Her friends hadn’t, not as much as she hoped. But most of her close friends had gone off to college in other states, and she’d been a bit of a loner at UT. “Well, then, you found a nice way to repay the friendship, crowning them champions here at the pub.”

  “They’ll owe me forever. I guess you’re here because ESPN forgot to broadcast the competition?”

  She nodded and he laughed.

  I broke a guy’s finger tonight. I read about your missing wife. You don’t seem in mourning. But then neither do I. You have to stumble on while life happens around you. You have to find your way.

  He didn’t look like a guy who’d killed his wife. She told herself that was a stupid, dangerous thought. She could be sitting next to a killer. Then she thought, That’s what people said about Dad. It was unfair to him and it could be unfair to this man.

  “Well, we never had a cheerleader before,” he said.

  “Wrong. I didn’t cheer. I was more of an ombudsman, waiting to correct someone.”

  “You mean if I’d answered wrong, you would have thrown me under the bus?”

  “Yes, and then backed up,” she said.

  He smiled at her teasing. “I know Steve—he owns the pub—wants to expand trivia to another night. You should form a team.”

  “I’m not much of a team player,” she said. She was so unused to making small talk. How did she get him to talk about his wife? Surely other strangers had tried. Curious people. True crime nuts. People who’d read about him in the news websites or newspapers and were thoughtless in broaching the subject. She didn’t want to treat him the way she’d been treated. Like an object of curiosity, or pity, or disdain. How can you defend your father? a total stranger had once asked her in front of the dairy section. She had put back her yogurt, like she didn’t have a right to it, and stumbled out of the store. Later she wished she’d opened the yogurt, poured it on the man’s head, and then slammed a gallon container of milk into his face. Sometimes her rage left her shaken. She cou
ldn’t let her grief control her life. She had to get back to the Mariah she was before Mom vanished.

  She glanced down at his hand and saw…he still wore his wedding ring. She couldn’t ask the obvious: oh, a wife?

  “Have you been in Austin long?” he asked. In a city full of new arrivals, it wasn’t an unusual question.

  “My whole life.”

  “Wow, the rare native,” he said. “I’m from Albany.”

  “I grew up in Lakehaven.”

  “Ah, rich kid.”

  For some reason that bothered her. “Not everyone there is rich. My parents wanted me to go to school there. I think they bought the cheapest house they could find.”

  “I bet it’s not cheap now,” he said. “Smart investment on their part. Both the home and your education.”

  “Yes, what with my wide-ranging Martin Van Buren expertise to pay the bills.”

  He smiled at her. He had a nice smile. She had hardly dated since Mom died—her disappearance had commandeered so much of Mariah’s life. There had been a boyfriend for a while, a nice guy she’d met at UT, but after Mom disappeared and he didn’t seem to know how to do much other than pat her on the shoulder and tell her everything would be all right, she grew to loathe the sight of him. And his bland reassurances. No, it would not be all right. Her mother was gone. And for some reason new guys didn’t come around after your mom disappears—not any worthwhile guys. A few that thought they could take advantage of her emotional vulnerability. There were always those types, and she shoved them away from her life with the force of her fury.

  She kept the smile in place. “I design websites and phone apps. You’ve made me realize there’s an app market for half-forgotten presidents.”

  “I work in tech, too,” he said, without elaborating that he had been a founder of a publicly offered company who then sold it to an even bigger company.

  “It takes over your life,” she said. “I mean, when things are going well.”

  “Jake?” a woman’s voice, lilting, cutting through the hubbub of the pub. Behind them stood a very attractive woman, dark-haired, well dressed in expensive jeans and a designer top of gray and red. “You done with your trivia game?” She gave Mariah a neutral look.

  “Yes,” he said. “Mariah, it was nice to meet you. Think about what I said about the new trivia teams.”

  “I will. Nice to meet you, too,” she said, feeling her opportunity slipping away, watching him get up and go to a corner table with the woman and sit and start to talk.

  She was confused. He still wore his wedding ring, even though his wife had run to Houston. Maybe he wanted Bethany back. Maybe he wore it because it made him look less guilty if he’d found her and killed her for leaving him. Maybe he didn’t love her still, but he wore it out of respect. But what she hadn’t expected was a woman who said his name with a proprietary air and whisked him away. He hadn’t introduced Mariah, which she thought he would have if this woman was a girlfriend, just to signal to her that their idle chatter had been harmless.

  She sipped at her pint. Another guy tried to chat her up and buy her a second pint, and she brushed him off, and twice she saw Jake Curtis look at her from across the room. She quit glancing at him; she was being too obvious.

  Who was he, under the smile and the success?

  I understand you better than she does, Mariah thought. Better than anyone else in the bar does.

  She left and realized she’d had too much to drink on top of too little food. She could not risk a drunk driving incident and another encounter with the Lakehaven police tonight. She stood alone in the parking lot, under the bright light of the bar entrance, and summoned a rideshare car, which would arrive in three minutes. While she waited, she glanced around, uneasy, thinking of the guy with the broken finger. No one else in the lot.

  The rideshare car arrived, and she got in. He pulled onto Old Travis, the main thoroughfare through Lakehaven. She was thankful the driver wasn’t talkative; she thought about how to make another approach toward Jake. Trivia night would give her another reason. She heard the driver make a noise of irritation, and when she glanced up she saw bright headlights in the rearview mirror.

  “This dude is right on my tail,” the driver said.

  She whirled, blinking in the bright bath of the headlights. A car, close up behind her. She stared into the lights and the driver had to have seen her, and then the car veered away. She saw a blur of dark-painted SUV and then it was gone.

  “Jeez,” the driver said. “What was his problem?”

  Me, Mariah thought, thinking of Reveal. But how could anyone have known where I was going after the bar? She didn’t know. She hadn’t told anyone. So if someone had followed Reveal and given up, had someone then followed her? Could that person have returned to La Luna and spotted her leaving after her internet searches and chat with Broussard? Reveal didn’t live that far from the restaurant. She trembled.

  She had stirred a secret. She had poked the truth, just barely, and this had happened.

  You also thought you saw Mom today. You’re overreacting. Don’t lose your grip on reality.

  The driver drove along the dark of Bobtail Drive and pulled up to her house. It was dark, the one light on in the porch, Dad leaving it on for her.

  It had once been the happiest of homes, now it was a prison. She wanted out. The house was always dark, even with the lights on. Haunted, but not by a ghost who trod on the stairs or watched the living. The truth would be a light. She had this one connection, and maybe it was enough. She would only know if she tried.

  6

  C​RAIG DUNNING WOKE up, the taste of wine sour in his mouth, feeling groggy and undone. He kicked free of the tangled blanket, got up from the recliner, and called out for Mariah. No answer. He stumbled to the garage, his heart sinking. His Lexus was gone.

  She was gone.

  He went back into the den and found her note, saying she was going to meet a friend at La Luna. A friend. She didn’t really have friends anymore. He was her only friend. Beth had loved that restaurant. He felt a pang every time he drove past it, the ache of a familiar place where they had known happiness.

  So, what was she really doing?

  He checked her computer. He knew her password, and she hadn’t changed it. He opened the browser. She hadn’t erased her history.

  He read her search results on her mother’s name.

  He read the podcast post from Reveal.

  He opened her Messages app and saw her texts asking Reveal for a meeting and him agreeing immediately.

  His chest tightened. She was looking for an explanation. No.

  He shut her laptop. He glanced up at the pictures on her wall. Her playing basketball for Lakehaven, at parties with friends, standing next to him, leaning against his shoulder. A life, once rich and promising, now a pale shadow of what was and what could have been.

  He had to fix this.

  The phone rang. The house phone, which hardly anyone other than telemarketers called. He answered the extension in her room, hoping it was Mariah, hoping she hadn’t been in another accident, hoping she wasn’t in trouble.

  “Hello?”

  Silence. Five seconds. Ten seconds.

  “Hello?” he said again, bracing himself.

  More silence. He could hear the soft hiss of breath, muffled.

  He hung up. Nearly instantly the phone rang again. He answered it. “Hello?”

  Silence with its cruel emptiness. His daughter, chasing shadows, leaving him at night, and now this. They started with the phone calls, and they would quickly progress to spray paint and stones thrown against doors and walls and dog feces flung on the porch, and something bent in him. “Stop it,” he said. “What’s wrong with you? Why would you torture a grieving family? Have you nothing better to do?”

  He didn’t hang up; he listened to the quiet. “How do you live with yourself?” the voice asked. Soft, quiet, male, a baritone, hushed just above a whisper.

  “Who is this?�
�

  “I know what happened.”

  Four words that detonated like a bomb in his brain. “What…what do you think you know?”

  “So many secrets. Should I tell the last secret you know?” The voice low, mocking, chilling him to the bone. “I know what happened. Leave town for good. Do it quickly.”

  Craig sputtered. This was different from the usual prankster. “Who is this? What do you think you know?”

  Then the quiet not of breathing, but of a disconnected line.

  He looked at the caller ID on the cordless phone’s base. The number was unfamiliar. He wrote it down, did an internet search. No result. A burner phone, bought for one use and then tossed? He wrote down the number on a paper pad, to have a record of it. He tried to dial the caller back. Six rings and then he was disconnected.

  Craig didn’t know what to do. He went back downstairs and poured himself another large glass of merlot and his hand trembled as he drank it. I know what happened. No harasser had ever quite chosen those words before. Normally it was just incoherent rage and threats and anger. This was different. Frightening in a way the other calls had not been. Eerie. Calm.

  Two problems now. Mariah digging into the past and this harasser.

  How did he get Mariah to finally stop looking and just…accept that Beth was gone?

  He sat back down in the recliner. It was the only new piece of furniture in the house. When she was here, Beth wouldn’t have let him buy a recliner; she said they were for old people. He bought one in the weeks after she vanished, because he spent so many sleepless nights trying to numb himself with late night television. A policeman had followed him to the furniture store, as the blame had begun to build up against him. He’d made his purchase and then gone home, and the next day the Lakehaven paper had a piece about him, about him “returning to normal life,” which made him sound heartless and eager to move past his wife’s vanishing, when all he’d done was buy a recliner so he could sleep well in his own home. Because he shouldn’t want to sleep. He should spend every spare second looking for his wife. Or grieving for her. That was the public’s view, and the phone calls had taken a sharp rise following the recliner purchase.