Linwood Barclay - The Twenty-Three

“Where would I find some tape?” Cal asked Crystal.

She told him which kitchen drawer to look in. Also, he was going to get in touch with her father. Where would he find that information?

“All that stuff is in my mom’s phone,” she said.

Cal nodded. He’d find the phone and bring it along. “You trust me to pack a bag for you?” he asked Crystal.

“Okay.”

“You have a suitcase or anything somewhere?”

“There’s a backpack in my room.”

“You have any prescriptions or anything like that you take that I need to pack?”

The girl shook her head. Cal had already decided he’d buy the girl a new toothbrush. He wasn’t going back into, or taking anything out of, that bathroom unless it was absolutely necessary.

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” he said.

“I need clothes to put on now.” She was still in her pajamas.

“Okay.”

He went into the house and found Lucy’s phone right away, on the kitchen table. In a drawer he found a roll of duct tape. He located her purse up in her bedroom and took a set of keys so he could lock up the house when they left. Finally, Cal went into Crystal’s room and threw some tops and pants and socks and underwear into a red backpack. He kept one change of clothes separate. On her dresser was the collection of markers he’d recently bought her. He grabbed those, too.

He came out the front door, set the backpack next to Crystal, taped his sign securely to the front door, tossed the roll of tape back into the house, locked the door, and pocketed the keys.

“Have you had any breakfast?” Cal asked Lucy’s daughter.

“No,” she said.

“Are you hungry?”

“Kinda.”

“Let’s go get something to eat,” he said, resting a light hand on her shoulder.

“Okay.”

She stood and they walked to Cal’s car. Once inside, he handed her a top and some pants and suggested she put them on over her pajamas. They drove to Kelly’s, the downtown diner, where they got a seat by the window. Crystal ordered French toast with extra syrup and powdered sugar.

Cal, out of habit, ordered coffee.

“We can’t do coffee,” the waitress said. “You see anybody in here drinking coffee? You haven’t heard what’s going on?”

“What was I thinking?” he said.

“People dying all over the place,” she said.

Cal, catching the woman’s eye, gave her a cautious nod toward Crystal, who had her head down. But the waitress missed the signal, and said, “Can’t do tea, neither. Want a milk?”

“No, thanks,” he said. “Have you got bottled water?”

“Yeah, that local stuff.”

Cal thought. “Could you pour some into a mug and nuke it and toss in a tea bag?”

The waitress sighed, as if this were the biggest imposition she’d encountered in her career. “You’ll get charged for the water, and for the tea.”

“I’m good for it,” Cal said.

“And I hope you aren’t expecting our fine china. We don’t know if it’s safe to wash the dishes. We’re doin’ paper plates and plastic cutlery.”

“No problem.”

“What about you, kid? Anything to drink?”

Crystal raised her head. “Milk, please.” A pause, and then, “I know all about what happened. My mom is dead.”

The waitress was stunned into silence.

“She drank the water and she threw up and then she died in the bathroom,” Crystal said, as though describing what she’d studied in school the day before.

“I-I’m sorry.” She looked back at Cal. “I’m so sorry. Your wife?”

“No.”

The waitress took another look at Crystal, as though puzzling over why she didn’t appear more upset.

“Can I have that tea?” Cal asked.

The waitress disappeared. Crystal resumed working on her drawing while Cal opened the list of contacts on Lucy Brighton’s phone.

“What’s your dad’s name again?” he asked her.

Without looking up, she said, “Gerald.”

“Not Jerry?”

Her head went back and forth. Cal found Gerald Brighton quickly under the B s. “You okay here for a couple of minutes? I’m going to give your dad a call.”

“Okay.”

He slid out of the booth, went out onto the sidewalk, and stood where he could keep an eye on Crystal through the glass. He e-mailed Gerald Brighton’s contact info off Lucy’s phone to his own, brought it up on the screen, and hit the number.

It rang five times before going to voice mail. “Yeah, hey, you’ve reached Gerald Brighton. Leave your name and number and maybe, just maybe, if you’re really lucky, I’ll get back to you!”

A pause. Cal said, “Mr. Brighton, this is Cal Weaver, in Promise Falls, New York. I need to speak to you about your wife, Lucy, and daughter, Crystal. It’s urgent.” He gave his number, ended the call, and went back inside.

Crystal said, “No answer, right?”

“Yeah,” Cal said, slipping into the booth.

“He doesn’t usually answer his phone.”

“What did your mother do when she had an emergency and needed to get in touch with him?”

“She always leaves-she always left a message and he calls back later sometimes if he feels like it.”

The waitress returned with a paper cup of boiled bottled water and a tea bag. “French toast is almost ready, sweetheart,” she said.

Cal bobbed the tea bag up and down in the water. “Talk to me,” he said to Crystal.

She looked up. “About what?”

“I just wondered how you are. Which I guess is a pretty dumb question.”

“I feel things,” she said. “But I don’t know how to show them.”

“I get that.”

She turned the clipboard around so he could see what she had been working on. The clouds, even darker now, as though heavy with rain.

“They’re about to burst,” Crystal said.

Cal’s heart felt connected to a fifty-pound anchor. “So they are.”

The waitress set Crystal’s French toast in front of her. “You need anything, let me know,” she said.

Cal and Crystal didn’t say another word to each other during breakfast.

“Whose house is this?” Crystal asked when Cal stopped the car.

“My sister and her husband live here,” he told her. “Her name is Celeste and his name is Dwayne. She’s very, very nice.”

“What about Dwayne?”

“He’s okay.”

Crystal seemed to perceive some meaning there. “Is he a douche?”

Cal, for the first time in days, laughed. “A bit. But he’s had a rough time lately. He’s got a paving company and he does a lot of work for the town, but they’ve been cutting back, so he hasn’t had much work.”

“Oh.”

“But that’s just between us.”

“Do you live here, too, since the fire?”

“No.” She looked at the house, then back at him, then at the house again. “Come on,” he said. “Grab your backpack and I’ll introduce you.”

They went to the door together. Celeste showed up seconds later.

“Hey, who’s this?” she asked, bending at the waist to get face-to-face with the unexpected visitor.

“This is Crystal,” Cal said.

“How are you, Crystal?” Celeste asked, extending a hand.

Crystal said, “My mom’s dead.”

“Can we come in?” Cal asked while his sister struggled for something to say.

“Um, yes, yes, come in,” Celeste said. “Crystal, would you like something to eat or drink?”

“I just had French toast with syrup.” She paused. “And milk.”

“Why don’t you watch TV or draw while I talk to Celeste?” Cal said. Crystal walked into the living room, grabbed a remote, and plopped down on the couch as Cal and Celeste excused themselves to the kitchen.

Cal filled her in.

“Oh God, that’s horrible,” Celeste said.