Linwood Barclay - Too Close to Home

He was settling into the back when my cell rang again. “Still no sign of him,” Ellen said. I could hear the edge in her voice.

I looked at the clock again. It was six. “Still no luck with his cell?”

“Nothing.”

“You know what the job’s like,” I said, trying to be positive. “There’s any number of things that could hold them up. Tractor breaks down, they run out of gas, and if they’re running the machinery, Derek’s not going to be able to hear the phone anyway.”

“I know. I just, I don’t know. What if those people, what if they changed their mind? What if they still want revenge for what Drew did?”

“Have you got the phone book there?”

“Hang on. . Okay, I’ve got it.”

“Look up Lockus. That’s Drew’s last name. He hasn’t got a cell, but his mother must have a phone. Try the house, see if Derek’s already dropped him off.”

“Just a sec. . There’s no Lockus,” she said.

“The house is on Stonywood,” I said.

“There’s nothing.”

“Well, shit. So his mother’s name is either different from his, or she’s got an unlisted number.”

“Hey, Cutter,” the mayor said from the backseat. “We going to just sit here or what?”

I held up my hand, asking for silence. I was trying to think what day it was, then said, “Okay, I know the houses they’d be hitting today, the ones Derek and I would do in the afternoon. I’ll swing by them, see if they’re there, and I’ll get back to you.”

“Thanks,” Ellen said.

I closed the phone, turned to Randy, and said, “What have you got between now and seven?”

“Jeez, Cutter, I was thinking maybe I’d find someone, get me a blowjob. What do you think I want to do? Let’s go back to the office, I’m gonna have a stiff drink, then we’ll head over to the Walcott around ten to seven, make my big entrance.”

“I’ve got to do a couple of things. Why don’t you just sit back and relax and I’ll give you a tour of Promise Falls.”

“What is this, Cutter? A joke?”

“Randy, just chill out. It’s important. My son hasn’t shown up.”

Randall Finley sighed. “So what? He’s probably jumping some teenage pussy. Isn’t that what happens when guys get released from jail?”

I already had the car in drive and was heading in the opposite direction of downtown. We tried to organize our clients by neighborhood, do the north side one day, the south another, and so forth, instead of crisscrossing Promise Falls every day. This particular day, we did properties mostly in the northeast.

“Cutter, honestly,” Finley said. But there was more resignation than anger in his voice, so it looked as though he was going to indulge me.

I sped past the four clients we had in that part of the town, and I didn’t need to knock on anyone’s door to see if the work had been done. I could see for myself. All the yards had been cut, the edges neatly trimmed, the driveways blown free of clippings.

I called Ellen again. “Anything?”

“No,” she said.

“Did you try calling Penny?” I hated to suggest it, knowing Ellen wouldn’t get a warm reception if she called the Tucker house and got Penny’s mother or father.

“Already did it,” Ellen said. “I got Penny. Derek’s not there.”

“I’ll stay on it as long as I can,” I said, and ended the call.

“This kid of yours,” Randy said. “He’s starting to strike me as some sort of a problem child, you know? You thought about getting him counseling or anything like that?”

I ignored him.

Maybe Derek and Drew had gone for a drink after work. Derek was too young for a bar, but there was no reason they couldn’t have popped into a fast-food place, or a Dairy Queen, for something to help cool them down after a hot day.

But why wasn’t he answering his phone?

I was worried. Not panicked, but definitely worried. But there was one other stop I needed to make before I started sounding any alarms.

“Hey, Cutter,” Randy said from the backseat, “it’s nearly six-twenty. I’m at least gonna want to take a piss before this thing at the Walcott.”

“One more stop,” I said, turning the town car around and heading back in the direction we’d just come from. “Just hold your horses. It’s not like they’re going to start without you. You walk in a couple minutes late, it’ll just build the suspense.”

“That’s probably true,” Finley mused.

I tried not to think about what sort of trouble Derek and Drew might have stumbled into. But if they were being stalked by the kind of people who thought nothing of taping your fingers into a hedge trimmer, then-

No, better not to think too long on that.

The only thing left to check that I could think of was to go by Drew’s house, see if he’d already been dropped off. If he had, that would mean, presumably, that Derek was somewhere between Drew’s place and ours.

Or that something had happened to Derek between Drew’s place and ours.

I parked out front of the house on Stonywood, still half hidden by tall shrubs that hugged the sidewalk.

“Two minutes,” I said to Randy, and was out of the Grand Marquis before he could object. I left the motor running so he could enjoy the A/C.

I trotted up the walkway between the hedges, mounted the steps to the front door, and rang the bell. After ten seconds or so, I leaned on the buzzer again. Now I could hear footsteps inside the house, approaching the door.

It opened wide, and there was a man standing there. Not Drew, but a silver-haired man in his fifties, glasses, a white shirt and nicely pressed tan slacks, slippers. He had a folded newspaper in his hand.

“May I help you?” he asked quietly.

I was a bit surprised to see this man and not Drew’s mother. Hadn’t Drew said his father had passed away? Maybe an uncle. But I was also pretty sure Drew had mentioned that he was looking after his mother on his own.

“I was looking for Drew,” I said.

“Who’s that again?” the man said.

“Drew,” I repeated. Maybe he was hard of hearing.

“Drew?” he said. “No Drew here.”

“No no,” I said. “This is the house. I’m looking for Drew Lockus. He lives here, with his mother.”

“Don’t think so,” the man said. “My name’s Harley, and I live here alone. My wife, she passed away a few years ago.”

I took a step back, looked at the house, said, “Big guy? Could be a football player? Short hair?”

“Oh yeah,” Harley said. “That sounds like the fella that’s been standing out here on the sidewalk every morning, waiting for some lawn service truck to pick him up. That the guy you’re looking for?”

"What’s with you?” Randy asked, putting down his window as I walked slowly back to the town car. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I had a very bad feeling. Something was very, very wrong.

“The fuck?” the mayor said. “Hello? Earth to Cutter!”

“Shut up, Randy,” I said.

“What?”

“Shut the fuck up for a minute.” I stood there by the car, thinking, trying to put it together. If Drew didn’t live here, if this wasn’t his house. .

I thought back to the times I’d dropped him off. How I’d see him in my rearview mirror, standing on the sidewalk, watching me leave. How I’d never seen him go in or come out of that house. How the very first time I’d seen him, he’d been using the hedges to shield himself.

I felt my knees weaken when it hit me.

Drew had been following me.

Telling me he lived there, with his mother, it was all bullshit, so I wouldn’t realize he’d been following me.

But if he was meeting me here every day, then he had to get here somehow-