Linwood Barclay - Trust Your Eyes

Wait a second.

Julie had a sister who lived in the city. She had a place that sold cupcakes. What did Julie say her name was? Candace? That was it. And her store was called Candy’s Cupcakes. Julie had said Candace lived above her shop.

On West Eighth.

Thomas closed his eyes for a second. He could see it. The window filled with baked goods. The red-and-white-striped awning. The couple of wrought-iron table and chair sets out front on the sidewalk.

Thomas bet if he could find Candace, she’d know how to get in touch with Julie.

Now he just had to get to West Eighth.

Thomas looked up the street, saw another one of those yellow cars approaching. So he walked out into the street, right into the middle of the lane, put both hands into the air, and shouted, “Taxi!”

The driver hit the brakes and the car screeched to a halt.

“You some kind of fucking nut?” the cabbie shouted.

Thomas walked up to the driver’s window. “Sir, I need you to take me to Candy’s Cupcake shop on West Eighth Street in New York City.”

“Where the hell do you think we are now?”

“We’re at St. Marks Place and First Avenue,” Thomas said, thinking a man who drives a cab should know that kind of thing.

“Get in,” he said.

Thomas ran around the car to get into the front passenger seat. “The back!” the driver shouted, shaking his head. Thomas got into the backseat and, although it had been a long time since he’d seen a movie, said what he thought was the logical thing to say at a time like this. “Step on it.”

The driver stepped on it.

“I have to get help for my brother who’s being held prisoner,” Thomas said.

“Uh-huh,” said the driver.

“That’s why I’m in such a hurry. It’s all because of the woman who was murdered in the window.”

“Listen, pal, we all got problems, you know?”

Thomas, observing street signs as they passed them, said, “I think there’s a better way you could go.”

“Never heard that before,” the cabbie said.

There was so little traffic it wasn’t long before the taxi pulled up in front of the cupcake store. “Looks closed,” the driver said. “If you need a cupcake real bad I know a few all-night diners could help you out.”

Thomas looked at the second-floor windows, figuring that was where Candace lived, but he didn’t know how to get up there. Maybe the apartment entrance was through the shop. If he banged hard enough on the door, maybe she would wake up and come down.

Thomas pulled on the door handle, putting one foot down on the pavement. “Thank you very much.”

“Whoa!” the cabbie said. “There’s five-eighty on the meter.”

“What?”

“You owe me five-eighty.”

“I don’t have any money,” Thomas said. “I don’t need it because I’m home all the time.”

“Five-eighty!”

Thomas said, “My brother has money. When he’s not abducted anymore, he could pay you.”

“Get the fuck out of my cab,” the driver said, and floored it the moment Thomas had closed the door.

He walked to the door of Candy’s Cupcakes and banged on the glass. The shop was dark, but he thought he could see light in the back.

“Hello!” he shouted. “Candace?”

He banged the door continuously, the glass rattling relentlessly. Finally, a small black man came striding through the store, unlocked the door, and opened it a foot.

“Knock it off!” he shouted.

“I need Candace to call Julie,” Thomas said. He could smell baking aromas, and this man had what looked like cake batter splattered on his shirt. Was he working in the middle of the night?

“What?” the man said.

“I have to talk to Julie. It’s about Ray. They’ve got him tied to a chair.”

“Piss off!” the man said, and started to close the door, but Thomas was pushing back.

“I have to talk to Candace!” he shouted. “Does she know Julie’s phone number?”

The man yelled to the back of the store: “Boss! Hey, boss!”

Seconds later a woman in a full white apron, her hair in a net, appeared and came to the door.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“This nut bar’s screaming for you, something about a sister? Julie?”

The woman shunted the man aside and opened the door wider. “Who are you?”

“Thomas.”

“Thomas who?”

“Thomas Kilbride. Are you Julie’s sister?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have to work in the middle of the night?”

“What the hell do you want? What’s this about Julie?”

“Do you know her cell phone number?”

“Why?”

“I want her to help me save Ray.”

Candace shook her head in exasperation, stuck her hand into her pocket, and pulled out a cell phone. She called up a number, hit the button, and put the phone to her ear.

She looked surprised that someone picked up so quickly.

“Hey, listen, it’s me. I’m really sorry to call you but there’s this crazy guy here, says he has to talk to-uh, Thomas. He says his name is Thomas. Okay.” She handed the phone to him. “She wants to talk to you.”

Thomas took the phone and said, “Hi, Julie, they kidnapped me and Ray and took us here and I got away and they’ve still got Ray and he helped untie me but there wasn’t time for me to untie him and-”

“Are you at the cupcake shop?” Julie asked incredulously.

“Yeah.”

“I can be there in two minutes. Stay there!”

Thomas handed the phone back to Candace. “She’ll be right here.”

Candace, looking perplexed and bewildered, said, “How come, if my sister’s in New York, she doesn’t call me?”

Morris Sawchuck had slipped his gun, the one he’d started carrying back in the days when he was receiving death threats, back into its holster and had his hand on the inside of the front door to Ferber’s Antiques, but before he could open it Howard threw up a hand and slammed it shut.

“What are your intentions, Morris?” Howard said.

“Get out of my way.”

Lewis had caught up to them. “It’s a good question,” he said. “What are you planning to do when you walk out of here?”

“I don’t care what happens,” Morris said. “Nothing’s worth this. I’m going to tell them what I know. They’ll believe me or they won’t.”

Morris felt something cold and hard touching his temple. He shifted his eyes left and saw that Lewis was holding the barrel of his gun to the attorney general’s temple.

“You think that’ll make it easier, Lewis? Blowing my brains out? You think you’re in a mess now? Think that’ll make your problems go away?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Howard, get his gun.”

Howard reached under Morris’s coat and removed the weapon and handed it to Lewis, who tucked it into the waistband of his pants.

Howard said, “I know this has all been a terrible shock, a hell of a lot to take in. I get that. But you need to think before you do anything rash. The thing is, Morris, while all of this was done to help you, things are kind of turned around now. You have to help us continue to help you, or there won’t be a you anymore.”

“I don’t know why I didn’t cut you loose years ago.”

“You didn’t because I’ve always done my job so well. You know it and I know it. But understand what happens if you don’t play ball. Lewis here will put a bullet through your brain. And then you know what he’s going to have to do?”

Howard tilted his head in the direction of the street. It took Morris a moment to figure out what Howard was getting at.

Then he knew.

“Dear God, for Christ’s sake, no.”

Howard nodded. “Tell him, Lewis.”

“We kill you, then we have to kill Heather,” Lewis said. “Because sooner or later, she’s going to come in here looking for you.”