Linwood Barclay - The Twenty-Three

“But he likes me,” Crystal said. “Why would he come out here to be by himself?”

“What makes you think he likes you?”

“He’s nice to me.”

Dwayne nodded. “I guess.”

“He’s nicer than you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dwayne asked. “Who brought home pizza and wings tonight? Huh? Who was that?”

“That was you.”

“You don’t think that was pretty nice of me? I was thinking about you when I got that mess of food.”

That gave Crystal pause. “Oh.”

They’d reached the street and were standing next to Cal’s Honda. “You’re right-his car’s here, so he can’t have gone far,” Dwayne said.

Without warning, Crystal shouted at the top of her lungs, “Cal!”

“Jesus,” Dwayne said, making a show of putting his fingers to his ears. “You nearly busted my eardrum when-”

“Cal!”

“Dial it down, kid.”

“Cal!”

She’d started off down the sidewalk. Dwayne ran to catch up to her, grabbed her by the shoulder. “You can’t be screaming like that.”

“I want him to hear me.”

“You don’t even know where he is. You can’t go around the neighborhood screaming for someone like they’re a lost dog.”

“Why?”

“You’re not normal-you know that?”

She looked up at him with wide eyes. “That’s what everyone says.”

“Okay, look, why don’t you go back in the house and I’ll look around for him? When I’ve found him, I’ll let you know.”

“If we both look, we’ll find him twice as fast,” she said.

“Not necessarily. If we-”

“Cal!”

Dwayne glanced around the street nervously, as though expecting people to start coming to their doors.

And someone did.

Celeste.

“What’s going on?” she said, coming down the porch steps and across the yard.

“Nothing,” Dwayne said. “We’re just talking.”

“No, we’re not,” Crystal said. “We’re trying to find Cal.”

Celeste put her fists on her hips. “You still haven’t found him?”

“No,” Crystal said.

“His car’s still here,” Celeste said.

“You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes,” Dwayne said. “Look, like I told Crystal here, I’m sure he’s just gone for a walk or something. If he’s not back in an hour, I’ll go looking for him.”

“I need him,” Crystal said.

Worry washed over Celeste’s face. “I think we need to find him now. It’s not like him to just walk off.” Something occurred to her. “You know what? I’ll just call him.”

“What?” Dwayne said, now looking pretty worried himself. “Is that a good idea?”

“It’s a very good idea,” Crystal said.

Celeste took her phone from her back pocket, made a couple of taps on the screen, then put it to her ear.

“It’s ringing,” she said.

Crystal stood stock-still, and Dwayne appeared to be holding his breath.

“He’s not picking up,” Celeste said. “I’m going to let it go a few more… okay, it’s going to message. Cal, hey, it’s Celeste, and we’re wondering where the hell you are.”

She ended the call but held on to the phone rather than put it away.

“Call him again,” Crystal said.

“Sweetheart,” Celeste said, “let’s give him a minute to hear the message.”

“No, I think I heard the phone.”

“What?” Dwayne said. “I didn’t hear anything.”

“Call him again,” Crystal repeated.

Celeste made the call. While she held the phone to her ear, Dwayne said, “I didn’t hear a damn thing. You must be hearing-”

“Shh!” Crystal said.

No one made a sound.

Crystal pointed toward the garage. “It’s coming from over there.”

“I already looked there,” Dwayne said.

But his wife and Crystal were already moving up the driveway and past the house. The phone was still pressed to Celeste’s ear. “It’s still ringing.”

As they reached the garage, Crystal said, “Don’t you hear it? It’s in there.” She pointed to the door. “Cal!”

“Okay, I heard it, too,” Celeste said, and put her phone back into her pocket. She went to the smaller door at the side, attempted to open it but found it locked.

“Cal!” Crystal had her mouth right up to the door.

“Have you got the key?” Celeste said to Dwayne.

“I don’t know why the hell he’d be in there. I always keep the door locked.”

“Do you have the key?” his wife asked again.

“Um,” he said, “it might be in the house.”

“Check your pockets,” she snapped at him. “You never go out of the house without your keys.”

“Cal!”

He took a long time hunting for them in his jeans. “I’ve got my truck keys, but I don’t know if the garage key is on-”

“Of course it is. Give them to me.”

Dwayne, looking like a man who’d lost all hope, handed the keys over to his wife. There were half a dozen of them on the ring, and he didn’t bother to single out the right one for her.

The third key did the trick.

She opened the door, flicked on the light. Crystal managed to duck under her arm and got into the room first.

Cal was on the floor, on his side. Duct tape was wrapped around his ankles and knees, and had been used to secure his wrists together at his back. There was another strip slapped across his mouth.

“Oh my God!” Celeste said, and dropped to her knees.

Cal was conscious, and rolled onto his stomach to allow Celeste to release his hands more easily. But after picking at the tape for several seconds, she turned to Dwayne, who was still standing in the doorway, and asked for a knife.

“Uh, sure,” he said, and reached into his other pocket for a small jackknife. He extracted a blade, then carefully put it into his wife’s hand. “He’s probably going to say some crazy shit, but you need to keep in mind that he might have been hit on the head or something.”

“What are you talking about?” Celeste said, focused now on cutting through the tape on Cal’s wrists without nicking him and drawing blood. Crystal was working at the tape on his ankles. She managed to cut through it with her nails, and was now working on the tape that bound his knees together.

Once Cal’s wrists were free, he rolled back over into a sitting position and worked the tape off his mouth himself, his eyes on Dwayne the entire time. He wadded the tape into a ball and flicked it his way.

“Pretty smart move, leaving me with my phone,” Cal said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dwayne said.

Celeste’s eyes darted back and forth between them. “What the hell happened here? What’s going on?”

Cal helped Crystal free his knees, at which point she threw her arms around his neck and held him tight.

“I couldn’t find you,” she said.

“I’m okay,” Cal said, pulling her arms from around him. “Thank you for tracking me down.” He struggled to his feet, picking up a two-foot-long scrap of two-by-four at the same time.

“You should put that down,” Dwayne said. “We need to talk about this.”

“We can talk in a minute,” Cal said, and then, his face flushed with an instantaneous rage, swung the board as hard as he could into Dwayne’s right leg above the knee. Dwayne wasn’t able to move quickly enough to avoid it, but when Cal looked like he was ready to take a second swing, he stumbled back and out of the way.

“Jesus!” he said, grabbing his leg. “I think you broke it!”

“No,” Cal said, holding up the board and inspecting it. “It’s fine.” Celeste got between them and screamed, “Stop it! Stop it!” She pushed Cal back, then turned to her injured husband. “Did you do this? Did you do this to my brother?”