Linwood Barclay - The Accident

Kelly glanced up at him and smiled. “Sure. What do you want to do?”

“We could watch a movie or something,” he said.

“I don’t really feel like a movie.”

“I’m sure you two will think of something,” Fiona said.

“Why don’t we go for a walk?” Marcus said.

“I guess,” Kelly said without enthusiasm.

Fiona grabbed her purse and dug out her car keys. “I shouldn’t be too long,” she said. “An hour or so.”

“Sure,” Marcus said.

The moment she was out the door, Kelly noticed Fiona had forgotten her cell phone. It was sitting on the table in the hall, hooked up to the charger.

“Don’t worry about it,” Marcus said. “She’s not going to be gone that long.” He invited Kelly to come sit with him on the back deck. It looked out on the well-manicured backyard, and beyond that, Long Island Sound.

“So, going home today,” he said.

“I guess,” Kelly said, sitting on one of the wicker chairs and swinging her legs back and forth.

“I think this is the first time just the two of us have had a chance to talk since you got here.”

“I guess.”

“Your grandmother told me the news. Sounds like things have settled down at home. Everything your father was worried about is taken care of. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

Kelly nodded. She wished her father could pick her up right now. She’d rather have dinner with her dad. Being with Grandma and Marcus once in a while was okay, but living with them was pretty boring. Fiona was always reading books or fancy magazines about homes where famous people lived, and Marcus watched television. That would have been okay if he watched anything interesting, but he always had it on the news. Kelly knew for sure she wouldn’t want to live and go to school here and be away from her dad all week. Grandma and Marcus were, well, they were old. Her dad was old, too, but not this old. Fiona would do things with her some of the time, but then she’d tell her to go find something to do, something quiet. And she really hated the way Marcus smiled all the time. It was one of those old people smiles where they really don’t mean it.

Kind of like the way he was smiling now.

“This has been a crazy time for you,” Marcus said. “Starting with that sleepover at your friend’s house.”

“Yeah,” Kelly said.

“Fiona-Grandma-when she was asking you all those questions about what happened, when you were hiding in the mother’s closet, I could tell that made you pretty uncomfortable.”

Kelly nodded. “It did kinda.”

“Of course it would.”

“I really wasn’t supposed to talk about it. I mean, Emily’s mom said that, and Dad didn’t want me talking about it, either. Especially to Emily’s dad, who was all upset about it and wanted to know what I’d heard.”

“But you didn’t tell him,” Marcus said.

Kelly shook her head side to side.

“But now, the bad guy’s dead,” Marcus said. “I guess none of it matters anymore. It’s one of those things you can put behind you.”

“Maybe now,” Kelly said, “I can erase the video from my phone.”

Marcus blinked. “Video? What video is that, Kelly?”

“The one I took when I was hiding in the closet.”

Marcus coughed. “You took a video when you were hiding in the closet? Of Ann Slocum? When she was talking on the phone?”

Kelly nodded. Marcus’s smile struck her as particularly forced right now.

“Do you have your phone on you?” he asked. When Kelly nodded, he said, “Show it to me.”

Kelly reached into her front pocket for it, tapped a couple of buttons, and then went over and sat next to Marcus so she could hold it as he looked on.

“Okay, so I just press this, and here it is.”

“Hey. Can you talk?”

“What’s this?” Marcus asked. “When was this?”

“This was just when she came in. She was phoning somebody who hurt their wrist.”

“… if that works for you? But I have to tell you, I’ve got-”

“Who’s she talking to here?” Marcus asked.

Kelly shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know who either of her callers were.”

“There were two callers?”

“Okay, you just missed it because you were talking so much,” she scolded him. “She gets another call, so she says goodbye to the first person. I’ll move it back so you can hear it.”

“Why are you calling this… my cell’s off…”

“See, this is the other person,” Kelly said.

“Shh!”

He said it so harshly Kelly felt it like a slap. Marcus wasn’t smiling anymore.

“… something in return… mark us… down for-”

“Turn it off,” Marcus said.

“But there’s a little bit more,” Kelly said.

“Stop it. Stop it right now.”

Kelly thought it was funny that all of a sudden he didn’t want to see any more. He’d been so interested just seconds earlier.

Kelly shifted away from him on the wicker couch. Marcus stood up. He was brooding. She thought it was weird how fast grown-ups could go from a good mood to a bad one.

“Go find something to do,” he snapped.

“Fine,” she said. “I hope my dad comes soon.”

She went to the spare room she used when she stayed here and started taking what few clothes she had brought out of the drawer. She was especially glad to be getting out of here if Marcus was going to start acting all weird.

She had her bag packed in a couple of minutes, then took out her phone to delete the video. She was just about to do it when she decided to watch it again, since Marcus had kept her from watching it to the end.

Kelly got the earbuds she brought along for when she used the phone for music and plugged them in. And then she played the video.

She played it again.

And again.

She had no idea what had made Marcus angry, but she’d discovered something interesting that she had never noticed before.

She unplugged the earbuds and decided to go looking for him, even if he was being all cranky. Kelly found him pacing back and forth in the kitchen.

“You want to know something really weird?” she said.

“What?” he said. He still sounded grumpy.

Holding up the phone, Kelly said, “You know, in the video? It sounds like Emily’s mom is saying your name.”

First, I phoned Fiona’s house. After five rings, it went to message. “Fiona, call me,” I said. Then I tried her cell, which went to eight rings before the voicemail kicked in. “Fiona, it’s Glen. I tried the house and there was no answer. Call me as soon as you get this. My cell. Call my cell.”

And then I tried Kelly’s cell phone. She’d set hers to go to message after five rings. Which was exactly what it did.

“Hi! It’s Kelly! Leave a massage!” Her little joke.

“Kelly, it’s Daddy. Call my cell the second you get this, okay?”

I grabbed my truck keys. I swung open the front door.

“Mr. Garber! Mr. Garber!”

On the walkway leading up to the porch, a smartly dressed blonde woman brandishing a microphone, and alongside her, a cameraman. There was a news van parked across the end of the driveway.

“Mr. Garber, we’d like to talk to you!” the woman shouted. “Police are saying you brought down the man who shot and wounded two Milford police officers and we wondered if we could get-”

“Move that fucking van out of my way,” I said, moving past her and shoving the cameraman to one side.

“Hey, watch it, pal.”

“Please, Mr. Garber, if we could just-”

I got in my truck. Neither the reporter nor the cameraman was making a move toward the van, and I didn’t have time to wait. I turned on the engine and backed partway down the drive, then cut across the lawn, narrowly missing the tree and dropping over the curb with a thud.