Linwood Barclay - Trust Your Eyes

I struggled to filter out all other sounds so I could hear his side of the conversation.

“Yeah, we’re on the way back…no problems…Yeah, he’s got a brother, he’s the one found the thing online…he’s kind of weird, a mental case or something…I don’t know, I’m leaving that for you to ask…And the place was freaky, the walls plastered with maps…No, no, like everywhere…Yeah, okay, and I’m bringing back a computer, the tower, they were using to surf that Web site…Yeah, and one other thing, kinda strange, but probably nothing. Phone rang, I answered it, pretended to be the brother with a cold. Anyway, caller said he was, and I’m not making this up, the caller said he was Bill Clinton…No, no real accent, but I only talked to him a second…I mean, yeah, s’what I figured, too, a crank call or something…Okay, see ya at the toy store.”

The next few miles went along in silence. Finally, Lewis said, “You haven’t got much to say.”

“You want to play I Spy?” Nicole said.

“Fine.” More silence. After another couple of miles, Nicole said, “Shit.”

“What?”

“I got a cop in my side mirror.” So Nicole was driving. “Coming up in the passing lane.

“He got his lights on?” Lewis asked. With all the blind spots a panel van offered, Lewis probably couldn’t see the car.

“No, he doesn’t, but-shit.”

“What?”

“He’s got them on now.”

And then we all heard a couple of whoops of the siren. I could sense Thomas stirring close to me. He’d no doubt been listening to everything just as closely as I had, and this most recent development probably had him wondering whether this was cause for hope.

The van slowed.

“Just be cool,” Lewis said.

“You still carry a shield?” Nicole asked. “He thinks you’re NYPD, he might cut us some slack.”

“No.” Lewis called back to us, “Either of you make a sound, cop gets shot.”

The van went off the edge of the shoulder, smooth pavement changing to crushed stone. It came to a stop and Nicole put it into park, left the motor running.

“Pulling in right behind us,” she said. “The door’s opening. Here he-it’s a woman.”

“Shit,” Lewis said. “They’re always worse.”

I heard a window power down. Nicole said, “Officer.”

“License and registration,” she said.

“Sure. Hon, you want to check the glove box?” Nicole asked Lewis, who sounded like he was shuffling through some papers, looking.

“This your van?” the woman asked.

“No, it’s a rental,” Nicole said. “We’re just going to his sister’s in White Plains, helping her move to Albany. Was I speeding?”

“You have a taillight out,” the police officer said.

“Oh, nuts. Is that my fault?” Nicole asked. “Isn’t it the rental agency’s?”

“When the vehicle is in your control, ma’am, you’re responsible for any problems.”

“Okay, well, if that’s the way it is. If I get fined for this, can I go after the rental people?”

Nicole was good. She wasn’t trying to blow her off, get rid of her in a hurry, which would set off alarms.

“That’d be up to you. I’m not going to ticket you. But if you’re going to have this truck for any length of time, you’re going to have to get it fixed. And you can send that bill to your rental company.”

“Appreciate that, Officer. Okay, here’s the registration, and here’s my license.”

“I’m going to take these back to my vehicle, ma’am. Please wait here until I return.”

“Of course.”

I heard the officer’s footsteps as she went back to her cruiser. Nicole said, softly, “Everyone’s being very good.”

A few seconds later, the cop was back at the window, saying, “Okay, here you go. Your license, registration. And like I said, you get that taillight fixed first opportunity.”

“Of course,” Nicole said.

“Thanks, Officer,” Lewis chimed in.

And then the cop, asking, “What you got in there?”

I didn’t know about Thomas, but my heart stopped. The world, at that moment, seemed to freeze, as though we’d drifted into some kind of suspended animation.

I was thinking, Please get out your gun, lady. Get out your gun.

But Nicole didn’t miss a beat. It was like she’d been waiting for the question. She said, “We have a stack of moving blankets so the furniture doesn’t get scratched.”

“You mind opening up the back for me?” the woman said.

“Hmm?” said Nicole.

“Just open it up and then you folks can be on your way.”

“Sure,” Nicole said. I heard a seat belt unbuckle and retract. I wondered whether she was reaching for her ice pick, or if Lewis was getting out his gun.

A door opened and it sounded as though Nicole had gotten out. Two sets of footsteps came down the side of the van, came to a stop around the back.

She’s going to die. The cop is going to die.

“Could you open it, ma’am?” she said.

“Sure thing.”

I was expecting to hear the door unlatch, but instead, there was some kind of electronic squawking. Static. Then the cop saying something unintelligible.

Then, “Good night, ma’am. You can go.” Then footsteps running away, the roar of the police car, tires hitting asphalt and squealing.

A door opened again, and the van shifted slightly as Nicole got back in.

“What the hell happened?” Lewis asked.

“She got some kind of emergency call.”

We got back on the road.

OVER the next hour, there was the sound of more traffic. We weren’t able to maintain a steady rate of speed. The humming of the tires sounded hollow as we crossed a bridge.

We were clearly in a more densely populated area. There were the sounds of other cars, radios, horns. We turned left and then right, and left again. More turns than I could count or remember.

Finally, the van lurched to a stop, then backed up, turning sharply. The sound of the engine echoed back at us, like we were in a garage, or an alley.

Nicole killed the engine and the two of them got out. Seconds later, the back doors opened.

“Okay, kids, we’re here,” Nicole said.

It can’t mean anything, Howard thought, moments after he’d finished talking to Lewis. He paced the floor of his brownstone living room, trying to think it through.

That call to the Kilbride house from someone claiming to be Bill Clinton was no doubt what Lewis believed it to be. A crank call. Or it could even be that it was Bill Clinton, just not the Bill Clinton. Howard himself knew a Franklin Clinton, a Robert Clinton, an Eleanor Clinton. Promise Falls probably had half a dozen Bill Clintons. Every town in America probably did.

And as worried as Howard was about the CIA’s possible involvement in his and Morris’s troubles, it made no sense at all to him that a former president would in any way be involved. That seemed even more preposterous than a Vermont illustrator doing undercover investigative work.

Soon enough, he’d be able to sort it out, once he was able to ask Ray Kilbride and his brother questions face-to-face. He had every confidence that Lewis, and this woman who’d botched things in the first place, and whom Lewis had brought along for this assignment, would be able to persuade them to talk.

Howard wondered about that, about why Lewis had brought her in for this-Howard sincerely hoped-last step in tying up any loose ends in this unfortunate mess. But he had a feeling. Now that this matter was coming to a close, Lewis was going to settle things. The woman’s error had caused them all a great deal of grief. Howard had known Lewis long enough to know that he couldn’t let that go.

Lewis would do what he felt he had to do. And Howard didn’t need to know about it.