Linwood Barclay - The Twenty-Three

“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 got 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.”

CALWeaver 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.

“You taking Crystal with you?” she asked.

Cal shook his head. He definitely did not want Crystal to see her mother’s body being taken out of that house.

He went into the living room to talk to her.

“Does your sister have any paper I can draw on?” she asked, looking up from her clipboard.

“I think so. Why don’t you ask her?”

Crystal started to slide off the couch, but Cal put a hand on her knee to stop her. “In a second. I have to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“I have to let the police into your house. They just phoned me. They saw the note I left on the door.”

“Oh.”

“You can stay here, okay?”

“How long will you be gone?”

His shoulders went up and down. “I don’t know. I’m also going to go to my hotel and get my stuff so I can stay here. With you.”

She looked at him, her face devoid of emotion. He was trying to read her, trying to figure out what she might be thinking.

“Okay,” she said, then continued her slide off the couch and walked into the kitchen to ask for paper.

It took him ten minutes to get to Lucy Brighton’s house. There was a Promise Falls police car in the driveway, two cops in the front seat. Cal edged his car over to the curb, got out, and approached them.

“You Weaver?” the one behind the wheel asked.

Cal told them what he knew. The call from Crystal, where he found the body. He gave them Gerald Brighton’s number, but could not guarantee when, or if, the man would show up.

“The kid still with you?” the same cop asked.

He nodded.

There wasn’t anything else they needed from him at this time, so he got back in his car with the intention of heading to the highway that would take him south, out of town, to his temporary home. He figured he could be packed and checked out in less than twenty minutes, be back to his sister’s place by late afternoon.

His phone rang just as he was about to turn the key in the ignition.

“Weaver,” he said.

“Mr. Weaver, my name’s David Harwood?”

Making it sound like a question, as though Cal was supposed to ask, “Okay, is it really?” Instead, he said, “How can I help you?”

But then he realized he recognized the name. Harwood was the guy who’d rescued Carl Worthington when Ed Noble snatched him from his school at the end of the day. Sam had called Cal for help first, but when he couldn’t get there in time, she had called David Harwood.

“I’m a friend of Sam Worthington’s. I-”

“I know who you are. Thanks for getting to the school when I couldn’t.”

“Have you heard from her?”

“No. I mean, we spoke after what happened at her place of work a couple of times, but I haven’t heard from her lately.” The hairs on the back of Cal’s neck started to rise.

Sam and her boy drank the water.

“Shit,” Cal said. “Have you been by the house?”

“Yes,” David said. “It’s not about what’s going on. Not about the water. The house is empty-her car is gone.”

“Okay,” Cal said, his hairs settling down. “Then what’s this about?”

“Do you know about her ex-husband?”

“Just lay it out for me, David.”

David brought him up to speed. Brandon Worthington escaping custody. Sam not answering her phone. It was all news to Cal.

“Call the police,” he advised.

“I did that,” David said. “They’ve got their hands full at the moment.”

“So have I,” Cal said, then thought that sounded too dismissive. “Look, Sam probably got word that he was out, took off with her kid for a few days. Not telling anyone, not taking your call, that might be the smartest thing she could do.”

“Maybe,” David said. “But what if the reason she’s not answering is because he’s already found her? This guy, he was in for robbing a bank. And you already know his parents are lunatics, that they sent Ed Noble to kill her.”