The Twenty-Three

by Linwood Barclay

  Up popped some stories. The initial arrest, a short story about his sentencing. David knew, from his brief experience working at the Boston Globe, that trials were not covered the way they once were, because there weren’t enough reporters to go around. It was only the more sensational cases that made the papers once they went to court. But Worthington’s case had attracted some attention because there was an interesting element to it: His father worked for the bank he’d robbed. Not the same branch, but the same financial corporation.

  Brandon was also mentioned in more recent stories about the arrest of his parents in the brief kidnapping of Carl by Ed Noble. Also, they were being investigated for their involvement in Noble’s failed bid to kill Samantha Worthington at the Laundromat. That had ended in a shoot-out with Cal Weaver, and Noble’s arrest.

  The shit Sam had been through with these people, David thought. A bunch of total lunatics. Willing to do anything to separate Sam from her son, to take him away and raise him themselves.

  But these stories contained no new information for David. This was all ancient history, if something that had happened only a few days ago could be called ancient. What he was looking for was something much more recent. Something that would explain why the owner of the Laundromat would say someone named Brandon had been by looking for Samantha.

  He narrowed the search to the last seven days.

  And up popped an item from a news station in Boston. A segment called “Hank Investigates,” which he remembered from his time there. Hank, a woman reporter, was always digging into something, and this time it was the ineptitude of local corrections officials. The story was that after Garnet and Yolanda Worthington had been arrested, they were brought back to Boston to be arraigned, and shortly after that, Yolanda had what appeared to be a heart attack.

  She was admitted to hospital, at which point Brandon, who was being held in Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater, made a request for a supervised release so that he could see his mother. Yolanda’s condition was, for a period of time, deemed critical, and there were fears this might be Brandon’s last chance to see his mother in person.

  A supervised release was approved.

  Just before going into the intensive care unit to see his mother, Brandon asked his escort for his cuffs to be removed. Was it right, he’d asked, that his mother, in what might be the last time she would ever be with her son, see him in handcuffs?

  The cuffs were removed.

  Brandon was allowed to enter the ICU unaccompanied. After all, his police escort figured, there was only one way out. The officer took a seat just outside the ICU entrance. Gave Brandon ten minutes.

  According to the police, Brandon was behind a curtain, talking to his mother, when a male, uniformed orderly came in to check on her. Brandon saw an opportunity. He put the man in a choke hold, and in ten seconds the orderly had slipped into unconsciousness.

  The orderly did an on-camera interview. “He was about my size, but man, he was strong. Hooked his arm around my neck, and brother, I was gone.”

  Brandon stole his uniform and walked out the ICU door, right past the cop.

  He hadn’t been seen since.

  His mug shot was displayed on-screen, and the public was asked to call the police if they spotted him. “Police advise that this man should not be approached,” the news reporter said. “He is believed to be dangerous.”

  David watched the segment a second time, wondering if he’d missed anything. Like, where the police thought Brandon might be headed, and why.

  Nothing.

  But he was pretty sure they knew. And he was betting someone with the Boston PD, or the prison system, had given Samantha a heads-up.

  No wonder she’d vanished.

  David wondered if the local police had been notified, if they were watching for him. He got out his phone and brought up the cell phone number he had for Barry Duckworth. He knew the detective would have his hands full this morning with the water contamination, but he didn’t care.

  Duckworth answered on the fourth ring.

  “Duckworth. David?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “If this is about your boss, I don’t care.”

  “Randy?”

  “If you’re looking for him, he’s handcuffed to a door at the water treatment plant.”

  “What?”

  David felt as though the chair beneath him were swaying. He thought about his earlier conversation with Finley, about how lucky it was that he’d been cranking up production in the days leading up to this disaster.

  Was it possible?

  Could Randy have somehow—

  “I don’t understand,” David said. “What’s he done? Because—I don’t know if this means anything, but he cranked up production before—”

  “He’s been getting in the way, that’s what he’s been doing. You’ve got some smarts. You need to talk to him, get him to back off.”

  “Getting in the way where?”

  “Everywhere I go, pretty much, but especially out here at the water plant. He thinks he’s back in the mayor’s office and I’ve got news for him. He’s not.”

  “Okay, okay, but that’s not why—”

  “Make it fast, David.”

  “Do you know about Brandon Worthington?”

  “Who the hell is—”

  “You know about Garnet and Yolanda Worthington? They hired that idiot to grab Samantha Worthington’s kid, and then at the Laundromat—”

  “Right. I know. Carlson—Angus Carlson—he worked on that, but I know what you’re talking about. Brandon’s the son? The one who’s in jail?”

  “He’s not anymore.”

  “He got released?”

  “He escaped.” David quickly gave Duckworth the details from the news video. “I think he’s in Promise Falls.”

  “I’m sure Boston PD’ve been in touch. Look, David, if you see him, call me. But I’m up to my ass in alligators.”

  “I’m worried about Sam and Carl. I think they’re on the run and—”

  “David, I have to go.” Duckworth ended the call.

  “Well, thanks a fuck of a lot,” David said.

  “I heard that,” said Ethan from the living room.

  Phone still in hand, David tried Sam’s number yet again. If only she’d pick up. She had to see who was calling. If she’d just answer, he could tell her he knew why she’d fled, that he knew Brandon was out of prison and looking for her, that he would help her in any way he could.

  No answer after ten rings.

  A text, he thought.

  He typed: Know about Brandon, why you left. Please let me help. Call me when you can.

  He hit send. Looked to see that the text had been delivered, and it had. While he stared at the phone, hoping for those three little dots to indicate she was writing back, he wondered where she might have gone.

  He didn’t know what other family she might have. He seemed to recall her mentioning that her parents were no longer alive, so she couldn’t hide out with them until this passed over.

  Until Brandon had been caught.

  It was looking as though Sam was not going to get back to him, so he put the phone down on the table.

  Maybe, he told himself, he should stop worrying. It was possible Sam had things in hand, that she was dealing with this situation the best she could. When she’d gotten word that Brandon was out, she’d packed Carl and herself up and hit the road. Given all she’d been through with Brandon’s parents and Ed Noble, the smartest thing to do was get out of town.

  “I wasn’t the priority,” David said to himself.

  And why should he be?

  Once Brandon had been apprehended, she’d come back, and they’d pick up where they left off.

  Sure.

  But did it put her in that much jeopardy to answer his phone call? To respond to a text?

  Unless . . .

  Unless she was expecting a trick. The Worthington clan had tried to pull fast ones on her in the pas
t.

  Could she be thinking Brandon had found David? That he had his phone, and was pretending to be him in a bid to find out where she and Carl were?

  Was that a reach?

  But then, suddenly, another scenario occurred to David.

  Sam wasn’t answering because Brandon had already found them.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Duckworth

  I felt like I was back in high school chemistry class.

  With Tate Whitehead’s body still out by the reservoir waiting for a forensic examiner to come God knew when, and Randy Finley cuffed to a door by the entrance to the water treatment plant, Garvey Ottman gave me a quick tour of the place at the same time as he offered up a course in Water Filtration 101. I’d been interrupted with a call from David Harwood, but once that was out of the way, Ottman was able to continue.

  “Water treatment is really only about eighty years old,” Ottman said, “and it wasn’t until Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974 that it became the law of the land that the water coming out of the tap had to be one hundred percent drinkable.”

  He was leading me through parts of the plant I’d never seen before. Huge water-filled basins divided into different compartments the size of a school gymnasium.

  “There are six basic stages water goes through before it comes out of your tap,” he said. “There’re pretreatment and screening, which is basically what happens in the reservoir. As the water moves from there into the plant, there’re coagulation and flocculation, then—”

  “Flock what?”

  “Flocculation. Coagulation and flocculation remove suspended particles in the water that survive the screening process. These particles get stuck together into clumps called floc. In the sedimentation stage, the floc settles to the bottom, where it can be collected and separated from the water and—”

  “So all the crud, all the bad stuff in the water, it sinks? Like cigarette butts and stuff like that?”

  “More than that. Larger things like butts, they should get caught in the screening process, but there are plenty of things in the water that count as solids that are too small to see. It’s that stuff that we get rid of here. Then, at filtration, which is the next stage, the remaining impurities are removed.”

  Ottman threw some other words around. Aeration. Chlorination. Fluoridation.

  “Fluoridation?”

  “Fluoride,” he said. “For teeth. It gets added in one of the last stages. Then the water gets pumped up into the tower, ready to go. So the pumps don’t have to be going all the time. They run a lot overnight, refilling the tower from town water usage during the day. So, when everyone gets up in the morning, when the demand for water is at a peak, what with everyone having showers and cooking and all that kind of thing, there’s plenty in the tower, and the delivery system is as simple as flowing downhill.”

  Now we were moving from chemistry to engineering. Neither had been among my top subjects in school. But I was trying my best to get my head around everything Ottman was telling me.

  Even though we were well into the plant, surrounded by tanks and massive pipes, I turned to face the reservoir and said, “So let’s say, even if something really bad got into the reservoir, then there’s a whole slew of steps along the way, before that water comes out of the tap, where the contamination would be caught and neutralized.”

  “Like to think so,” Ottman said. “Tate’s not able to defend himself, so I have to say, even if he fucked up somewhere, this system is so well automated, it practically runs itself. Even if he failed to make a few checks in the night, chances are the water would still be fine.”

  But it was already looking obvious to me that Tate’s only fuckup was getting himself killed. He didn’t do anything to the water. He was killed so someone else could.

  “So, given all these steps, and all the safeguards, if you were going to add something to the water that would make people sick—that would kill them—you’d have a better chance doing it at the tail end of the process.”

  Ottman nodded. “Yup. That makes sense.”

  “What about putting something into the tower?”

  “Seriously?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. What?”

  “Have you seen that thing? I can’t imagine lugging something up there. And even if you could climb all that way, there’s no way to dump something in that I can think of. No, you’d want to do it down here, let it get pumped up there.”

  “So where, then?”

  Ottman shrugged. “Is that where you’re going with this? Someone deliberately put something in the water?”

  Far from us, an angry, echoing shout: “Let me go!”

  Ottman glanced that way. “Randy sounds pretty pissed about—”

  “Don’t worry about him,” I said. “So if you wanted to add something into the system, where would you do it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe into the chlorine or fluoride tanks.”

  “Take me there.”

  We continued on farther through the plant to more tanks and pipes and other things I didn’t understand.

  “This here’s the fluoridation area,” Ottman said.

  Something I’d noticed the moment I’d walked into this place the first time was how spotless it was. All the floors, every pipe, every pane of glass, were sparkling clean.

  But where we were standing now, I noticed something on the floor. I felt it underfoot first, the tiniest bit of grit. I stopped, turned my foot around so I could see the sole.

  It looked like salt. I licked my index finger, then touched it to some of the grains on my shoe to get a better look.

  “I wouldn’t taste that if I was you,” Ottman said.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. I brought my finger up to my eye. “You have any idea what this is?”

  “Nope,” he said. He looked down at the floor. “But there’re a few granules of it around in this area. Like someone was carrying around a huge bag of table salt with a pinhole rip in the bottom.”

  “My finger feels kind of itchy,” I said.

  “Shit,” Ottman said. “You need to wash it off. No telling what it might be.”

  He steered me immediately toward a door with a male symbol on it. A men’s room.

  “It feels kind of like when you handle fiberglass insulation,” I said. “All irritated.”

  Ottman led me quickly to a sink, turned on the tap full blast. “Get it under there. Put on lots of soap. Keep washing it.”

  “What the hell is it?” I asked.

  “Just keep running water on it,” he said, tension in his voice.

  “Do you know what it is?” I was running water on the finger, soaping it up, then sticking it back under the tap. The itchiness was subsiding.

  “Not for sure. I mean, I might be completely wrong,” Ottman said.

  “What’s your best guess?”

  “What were the symptoms?” he asked.

  “A burning finger.”

  “No, I mean, what were the main symptoms of all those people going to the hospital?”

  There were so many, it was hard to remember them all. I said, “Throwing up, dizzy, low blood pressure. Vision problems. I think someone said hypertension. No, not hypertension. Hypotension. A big drop in blood pressure.”

  Ottman was shaking his head, almost in wonder. “You’d need so much of it.” He seemed to be talking more to himself than to me.

  “So much of what?”

  “And it would probably take a long time. You put it in too fast, it might explode on you,” he said.

  “For Christ’s sake, what the hell are you talking about?” I asked, still holding my finger under the tap. Then it hit me. “And if the water’s bad, what the hell am I doing holding my finger under the tap?”

  He looked at me and turned off the tap. I thought I saw fear in his eyes.

  “We need to get out of the building,” he said. “We need to get out now.”

  “Ottman, tell me what’s going on.”

  “You g
ot some way to get Randy out of those cuffs?”

  “A sharp knife, heavy-duty scissors,” I said. “They’re just plastic. There’s no key.”

  “Let’s go.”

  We left the men’s room, Ottman grabbing my arm to keep me from going anywhere near those salty-looking granules.

  “It could be in the air,” he said. “There might be more of it around than what we saw on the floor.”

  I decided to stop asking him what he was talking about. We’d get out of the building first. He’d already reached into his jacket for a pocketknife. He had the blade out as he walked briskly toward Finley.

  Finley’s eyes went wide when he saw the knife. He must have been wondering whether Ottman intended to set him free or kill him. There must have been some relief as Ottman shouldered Finley’s body out of the way, allowing him access to the man’s wrists.

  Finley said to me, “You’re in a lot of trouble, my friend.”

  I said, “Soon as he cuts you free, get out of the building as fast as you can.”

  “What?” He seemed to gulp. “Jesus, is there a bomb?”

  “No,” Ottman said. He cut through the cuffs. “Go.”

  The three of us started for the door, Ottman pausing long enough to pull a fire alarm switch on the wall. A high-pitched clanging commenced.

  “There’re still some people in there,” he said.

  We made it outside to the parking lot. I couldn’t say for the others, but my heart was pounding.

  “Ottman,” I said. “Tell me.”

  He took a couple of deep breaths. “I could be wrong about this, but I think what was on the floor there could be sodium azide.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “A fucking catastrophe.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  CAL Weaver was looking for something to drink in his sister’s refrigerator when his cell phone rang. It was someone from the Promise Falls police who had seen the note he’d posted to the door of Lucy Brighton’s house. Cal had indicated that he had a key, and the police wanted to get inside.

  “I have to go out,” Cal told Celeste.