Linwood Barclay - The Twenty-Three

“Sure, yeah. Listen, were you running here the other night? Around midnight?”

The man asked her which night, exactly, and she told him.

“Yeah,” he said. “That was my first or second night, I think. How would you know that?”

Joyce pointed to one of the buildings. “Security camera up there.”

“Oh,” he said.

“Anyway, that night, around that time, do you remember seeing a car parked right where mine is now?”

The jogger shrugged. “Not that I… I don’t really recall.”

“It was there for about an hour. A man got out, went in that direction, then returned to the vehicle, and then backed up that way. Turned around, I guess, and drove off.”

“So you’re looking for that car?”

Joyce nodded.

“And that guy?”

She nodded again.

“What are you looking for him for?”

Joyce said, “It’s just important that I find him.”

The man appeared to be thinking. “Actually, yeah, I do kind of remember seeing somebody around then.”

“Really?”

“Maybe.”

“Okay,” Joyce said, starting to feel excited. “Listen, I didn’t even ask. What’s your name?”

“Rooney,” the jogger said. “Victor Rooney.”

DAVIDHarwood had felt a little stupid when Cal Weaver had asked him whether he’d spoken to Samantha Worthington’s neighbors about where she and Carl might have gone. David was no licensed private detective, but he had been a reporter, and he’d done some investigative journalism over the years-particularly back before the Promise FallsStandard started slashing staff and could still afford to do that sort of thing-so not to have considered something as basic as asking the folks who lived on either side of Sam if they’d seen her packing up was pretty embarrassing.

David decided to chalk it up to having too much on his mind.

Now he was going to do what he should have done the first time.

He was back at Sam’s place. He’d hoped that maybe when he got here, she’d be back. That he would find her car in the driveway, that she and Carl would be fine.

But the car was still gone when he parked on the street in front of her house.

He rang the bell on the house to the right first. It took a second ring to draw out a woman in her eighties, who, it turned out, lived alone, and had not seen Sam or Carl, and did not, in fact, even know who lived on either side of her.

Then he tried the house on the left.

It didn’t take long before a woman came to the door, opened it wide, and said to him, “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

“Excuse me?” David said.

“You’re here looking for Samantha and her boy?”

“Uh, yes, I am.”

A man appeared, standing behind the woman. “What’s going on?” he asked.

The woman looked over her shoulder and said, “This is the real one.”

“Oh,” the man said. “You figured he’d get here sooner or later.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” David said.

“I’m Theresa and that’s my husband, Ron,” she said. “Jones.”

“Okay.”

“And you’re David Harwood, right?”

David nodded. “How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen you dropping by to see Sam and I recognized you. From the TV, and the paper, back when you were having all that trouble with your wife.”

“That was years ago,” David said.

“Well, I remember,” she said.

“What did you mean,” David asked Theresa, “when you said ‘the real one’?”

“You’re not the first one named David Harwood to come to our door today,” she said.

David felt his stomach drop. “Who was here?”

Theresa told him about the man who’d come around earlier in the day looking for Sam and Carl. How he’d identified himself as David.

“That had to be her ex-husband,” David said. “He just got out of jail. I mean, he fled. They didn’t let him out on purpose.”

“Good Lord,” Theresa said. “We had no idea.”

Brandon Worthington probably knew all about him, David thought. His parents would have filled him in. That David had been seeing Sam, that he was the one in the picture having sex with her in her kitchen, that he was the one who’d fucked up Ed’s attempt to grab Carl at the school that day. Sam might have spoken about David, in a favorable light, to her neighbors. Or maybe Sam had told the Joneses that if someone named David came around, it would be safe to tell him where she’d gone.

Except, because Theresa Jones knew Brandon wasn’t who he claimed to be, it didn’t work. And besides, Sam hadn’t told her where she was going, anyway.

But it had looked, Theresa Jones told David now, like they were off on a camping trip.

“Good thing you didn’t tell him that,” David said.

“Well,” Ron Jones said slowly, “that’s where I might have let the cat out of the bag. Just a bit.”

So it was possible Brandon had figured out his ex-wife and son had packed their sleeping bags and planned to live in a tent until his recapture. But even if Brandon had put that much together, he wouldn’t have any idea which campsite they might go to.

But David did.

What was it Sam had said to him? She’d been talking about how, once their relationship had progressed to the point where they didn’t care if the boys knew they were sleeping together (which, let’s face it, they had probably already figured out), it would be fun to take them on a camping trip.

Sam had said that she and Carl had gone camping a couple of times since moving to Promise Falls. It was something she’d done back when she was married to Brandon, and she’d enjoyed it more than he had. Carl loved everything about it. Exploring the woods, cooking over a fire, burning the marshmallows until they were black ash.

“There’s a nice place up around Lake Luzerne,” she’d told him.

David said to Theresa and Ron Jones, “Thanks very much for your help. I appreciate it more than you can know.”

When he got back into his car, he got out his phone and opened a Web browser. He couldn’t remember the name of the campsite Sam had mentioned. But he thought if he could find a list of places in the Lake Luzerne area, he’d recognize it when he saw it.

It didn’t take long.

Camp Sunrise.

He was sure that was the place.

David considered driving up there now. But it would be dark by the time he got to Lake Luzerne, and he didn’t know where, exactly, Camp Sunrise was. Traipsing around the campsite late at night, surprising Sam and Carl in their tent when they were probably worried about Brandon finding them-assuming they were actually at Camp Sunrise-might not end well.

David could very well end up with a shotgun in his face once again. This time, it might go off.

First thing in the morning. That was what he’d do. He’d head up first thing in the morning.

Duckworth

Istayed for a while with Randall Finley.

First, I went back into the house and took a more formal statement from Lindsay. She related the events of the day a second time, and her story held together. I don’t know why I felt the need to apologize on Randy’s behalf, but I told her he’d been upset, and he understood she had not set out to murder Jane. I suppose I did it for her more than him. Still, Lindsay remained distraught, and I wasn’t convinced she could drive herself home safely. She called her twenty-year-old son, who took a taxi over, then drove his mother back to her place in her car.

I asked Randy, who had dropped himself into a wrought-iron chair outside near the front door, if he wanted me to do anything with Bipsie. He shook his head sorrowfully and asked if I could put her into a garbage bag until he decided what to do with her. He muttered something about burying her in the backyard next to Jane, given how much she loved that dog.