Linwood Barclay - A Tap on the Window

“I know, and I appreciate it.” I turned to Sean, who looked slightly relieved. “In case you don’t remember, I’m Cal Weaver, and I’m a private investigator.”

“I know who you are.”

“I don’t think you understood what I was after when I saw you at Patchett’s. I’m looking for Claire, and I think Hanna can help me.”

“I don’t know where she is.” He looked at both his parents quickly. “Swear to God.”

“Why are you looking for Claire?” Sheila asked. “I don’t understand what’s happened with her. Is she missing?”

Sean looked down at the broadloom and shook his head. “Sort of.”

“What’s that mean? ‘Sort of’?” I asked.

“I mean, yeah, she’s gone away, but that doesn’t mean she’s missing . It just means she’s not around.”

“You know where she is?” I asked.

“I swear, I’ve got no fucking idea.”

Adam’s hand came out of nowhere and slapped the kid across the side of the head. “You watch your goddamn mouth.”

Sean winced but made an effort not to cry out. Maybe he was used to it.

“Does Hanna know where Claire is?” I asked.

Sean hesitated, bit his lower lip. “I don’t know. She might. She and Claire kind of cooked this thing up together.”

“Then we need to talk to Hanna.”

Sean said nothing.

“Where’s Hanna, Sean?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?” Sheila asked. “She’s practically attached to you. Did she go back to her parents’ house?”

“Maybe. But I don’t think so.”

Sadness washed over Sheila’s face. “Oh no, did you two break up?”

“That’d be the first bit of good news we’ve had around here in some time,” Adam said.

“No,” Sean said forcefully. “We didn’t break up.”

I was sensing something more urgent here than a teen romance in trouble. “Sean, did Hanna and Claire go off someplace together?”

“I don’t know. I’m starting to wonder. The thing is, I wasn’t at Patchett’s looking for Claire.”

“Don’t lie to us,” Adam said. “The man says he saw you there, and that when he tried to talk to you, somebody hit him in the head.”

“I was there, okay? I admit I was at Patchett’s. But I wasn’t looking for Claire.”

I nodded, suddenly getting it. “You were asking if anyone’s seen Hanna.”

He looked at me, his eyes starting to fill with tears. “I don’t know where she is. She’s not answering her phone. She’s ignoring all my texts.”

“Try her now,” I said.

“I tried her just a few—”

“Just try her and hand me the phone.”

He complied. After tapping Hanna’s name in his contact list he handed the phone over and I put it to my ear.

It rang eight times before it went to voice mail. “This is Hanna!” she said cheerfully. “Leave! A! Message!” I ended the call. So her phone was on.

“Does Hanna have one of those tracking apps on her phone?”

Sean shook his head. “No.”

“Still, the fact that the phone is on means we might be able to get in touch with the provider and figure out where it is.”

“Where she is,” he said.

“She could have lost her phone, forgotten it, even had it stolen,” I said. “Maybe that’s why she’s not answering.”

I returned his phone to him and said, “Do you know why I’m here, Sean?”

He gave me a “duh” look. “You told me, at Patchett’s, that you’re trying to find Claire.”

“That’s right. But do you know why it’s me , and not someone else?”

Sean puzzled over that one for a second. “I’m... not sure.”

“You know what Claire and Hanna were up to last night.”

Slowly he said, “Kind of.”

“Were you supposed to be Claire’s ride? Were you the one who was supposed to pick her up out in front of Patchett’s?”

It made sense to me. Clearly, Claire and Hanna had needed a third person for their stunt. Claire had been waiting for a ride that hadn’t showed. And since Hanna was in on it, it stood to reason her boyfriend might be as well. And Bert Sanders’ neighbor had said she’d seen Claire get picked up the night before in a vehicle that could have been Sean’s.

When the boy didn’t answer, I said, “When, exactly, did you last see Hanna?”

“Last night,” he said. “Around nine thirty or ten or something like that.”

“Where was that?”

“I... I dropped her off at Iggy’s.”

“Okay. Then what?”

“I was driving around, just, you know, driving.”

“You had some time to kill.”

“Kind of. But then I got stopped by the cops.”

“What?” his father said, taking on a will-this-never-end expression. “What for?”

“I went through a stop sign. Okay, not really. I mean, I didn’t run it, you know? I did one of those rolling stops. I almost stopped. But there was this Griffon cop sitting there, and he hits the siren and pulls me over.” He shook his head in disgust. “You know what they’re like in this town. Any little thing, especially if you’re my age, or you’re from out of town, or if you’re like Dennis and your skin’s not exactly as white as everyone else’s.”

Adam had briefly closed his eyes. Maybe he thought if he closed them hard enough, when he opened them once again we’d all be gone.

“And they had me sitting there forever while they ran the plates and checked my license, but it’s totally clean, right? So when the cop finally came back he just gave me a warning to always come to a dead stop.”

“No ticket?” his mother said.

“That’s right,” her boy said, and smiled, grateful that there was at least one thing that had turned out right.

It also helped me fit one piece into the puzzle. That was why he wasn’t able to get to Patchett’s to pick up Claire and drive her to Iggy’s, where Hanna was waiting.

“Did you make a phone call while you were waiting for the police to run your license?” I asked.

He looked surprised. “Yeah.”

“To tell someone you were going to be late, or weren’t going to make it at all?”

I could see it in his eyes, that he was figuring it out now, too. That I was the fill-in. He’d called Claire to say he was held up, and she’d told him she’d try to hitch a ride.

“I don’t understand what’s going on at all,” Sheila said. “What are you two talking about?”

“What’d you do then, Sean?” I asked.

“I didn’t — I didn’t really know what to do. But wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“A phone call, I guess. To let me know things went... okay.”

Sheila interrupted again. “I still don’t—”

I held my hand up to silence her. We were finally getting somewhere.

“Did you get a call?” I asked.

Now a tear ran down his cheek. “Yeah,” he nodded.

“Who called you?”

“Hanna.”

“What did she say?”

“She was talking real fast. She said things kind of got fu—” He glanced at his father. “Things got kind of messed up, but it sort of went okay, that they did the switch, but she was all kind of freaked out.”

“Switch?” Adam said. I held up my hand again.

“What do you mean, freaked out?” I asked.

“She said she just jumped out of some guy’s car, and it was raining, and she was soaked, and she needed a ride, and she was really upset.”

“You said the last time you’d seen her was earlier. But didn’t you go and pick her up then? The police were done with you by then, right?”

“Yeah, and I was going to pick her up. She was about to tell me where she was, and then she says — and don’t be angry, Dad, because this is exactly what she said to me — she says, ‘Shit, they’re here.’”