Jeff Abbott - Panic

You cannot afford shock right now. You have to help the police catch these guys. So have shock later. Snap out of it.

‘Evan? Did you hear me?’ Durless said.

‘Yes. I can do whatever you need me to do.’ Evan steadied himself. Sitting out on the driveway, crumpled with grief, he’d given the responding officer a description of Bald and his car. More officers had arrived and secured the house with practiced efficiency, strung crime-scene tape along the front door and the driveway, across the shattered kitchen window where Bald had fired his shotgun. Evan had sat on the cool of the cement and dialed his father, again and again. No answer. No voice mail. His father worked alone, as an independent consultant, no employees. Evan didn’t know anyone he could call to help him locate his dad in Sydney.

He’d left a message for Carrie on her cell, tried her at her apartment. No answer.

Durless had arrived, first interviewing the patrol officer and the ambulance crew who had responded to the initial call. He’d introduced himself to Evan and taken his initial statement, then asked him to come back into the house, escorting him to his mother’s bedroom.

‘Anything missing?’ Durless asked.

‘No.’ And through the haze of shock Evan knelt by one opened suitcase: it lay choked with men’s pressed khakis, button-downs, new leather loafers and tennis shoes.

All in his sizes.

‘Don’t touch anything,’ Durless reminded him, and Evan yanked his hand back.

‘I’ve never seen these suitcases or clothes before,’ he said. ‘But this bag looks like she packed it for me.’

‘Where was she going?’

‘Nowhere. She was waiting for me here.’

‘But she had four packed bags. With clothes for you. And a gun packed in her bag.’ He pointed at a gun, tossed atop one of the clothes piles spilling from a suitcase.

‘I can’t explain it. Well, the gun looks like my dad’s Glock. He uses it in target shootings. It’s his hobby.’ Evan wiped his face. ‘I used to shoot with him, but I’m not very good.’ He realized he was rambling and he shut up. ‘Mom… must have not had a chance to get to the gun when the men came.’

‘She must have been afraid if she was packing your dad’s gun.’

‘I just don’t know.’

‘So. Let’s go through it again. She called you this morning. Around seven.’

‘Yes.’ Evan again walked Durless through his mother’s frantic phone call insisting he come home, his coming straight from Houston, the men attacking him. Trying to dredge up any detail that he’d forgotten in giving his initial account.

‘These men that grabbed you in the kitchen, you’re sure there were two?’

‘I heard two voices. I’m sure.’

‘But you never saw their faces?’

‘No.’

‘And then another man came, shot at them, blasted the ceiling, cut you down from the rope. You saw his face.’

‘Yes.’ Evan rubbed a hand across his forehead. In his initial statement, still trembling with shock, he had said it was a bald man, but now he could do better. ‘In his fifties. Thin mouth, very straight teeth. Mole on his’ – Evan closed his eyes for a minute, picturing – ‘left cheek. Brown eyes, strong build. Ex-military, possibly. About six feet. He looked like he might be Latino. No accent in his voice. He wore black pants, a dark green T-shirt. No wedding ring. A steel watch. I can’t tell you anything more about his car except it was a blue Ford sedan.’

Durless wrote down the additional details, handed them to another officer. ‘Get the revised description on the wire,’ he said. The officer left. Durless raised an eyebrow. ‘You have an exceptional eye for detail under stress.’

‘I’m better with pictures than words.’ Evan heard the low voices of the APD crime-scene team as they analyzed the carnage in the kitchen. He wondered if his mother’s body was still in the house. It felt strange to stand in her room, see her clothes, her pictures, know she was dead now.

‘Evan, let’s talk about who would have wanted to hurt your mom,’ Durless said.

‘No one. She was the nicest person you could imagine. Gentle. Funny.’

‘Had she mentioned being afraid, or threatened by anyone? Think. Take your time.’

‘No. Never.’

‘Anyone with a grudge against your family?’

The idea seemed ridiculous, but Evan took a deep breath, thought about his parents’ friends and associates, about his own. ‘No. They argued with a neighbor last year about the guy’s dog barking all night, but they settled it and the guy moved away.’ He gave Durless the name of the former neighbor. ‘I can’t think of anyone who wishes us ill. This has to be random.’

‘But the bald man saved you,’ Durless said. ‘He, according to you, chased the killers off, called you by name, claimed he was a friend of your mom’s, and tried to get you to leave with him. That’s not random.’

Evan shook his head.

‘I didn’t get your dad’s name,’ Durless said.

‘Mitchell Eugene Casher. My mother is Donna Jane Casher. Did I tell you that already? Her name?’

‘You did, Evan, you did. Tell me about the relationship between your parents.’

‘They’ve always had a strong marriage.’

Durless stayed quiet. Evan couldn’t bear the silence. The accusing silence.

‘My dad had nothing to do with this. Nothing.’

‘Okay.’

‘My dad would never hurt his family, no way.’

‘Okay,’ Durless said again. ‘But you see I have to ask.’

‘Yeah.’

‘How you get along with your folks?’

‘Fine. Great. We’re all close.’

‘You said you were having trouble reaching your dad?’

‘He’s not answering his cell phone.’

‘You got his itinerary in Australia?’

Now he remembered. ‘Mom usually keeps it on the refrigerator.’

‘That’s great, Evan, that’s a help.’

‘I just want to help you get whoever did this. You have to get them. You have to.’ His voice started to shake and he steadied himself. He rubbed at the raw rope burn on his neck.

Durless said, ‘When you talked to your mom, did she sound afraid? Like these guys were already here in the house?’

‘No. She didn’t sound panicked. Just emotional. Like she had bad news to tell me, but didn’t want to tell me over the phone.’

‘You talk to her yesterday, or the day before? Tell me about her mental state then.’

‘Perfectly normal. She mentioned taking an assignment in China. She’s a freelance travel photographer.’ He pointed at the cracked frames, the photos distorted under the broken glass. ‘That’s some of her work. Her favorites.’

Durless cast his gaze along London, the coast, the prairie. ‘Places. Not people,’ he said.

‘She likes places better than faces.’ It had been his mother’s joke about her work. Tears crept to the corners of Evan’s eyes, and he blinked. Willed them to vanish. He did not want to cry in front of this man. He dug fingernails into his palms. He listened to the snap of cameras in the kitchen, the soft murmurs of the crime-scene team working the room, breaking down the worst nightmare for his family into jotted statistics and chemical tests.

‘You have brothers or sisters?’

‘No. No other family at all.’

‘What time did you get here? Tell me again.’

He looked at his watch. The face was broken, hands frozen at 10:34. It must have happened when he fell as the rope broke. He showed the stopped watch to Durless. ‘I didn’t really notice the time, I was worried about my mom.’ He wanted the comfort of Carrie’s arms, the reassurance of his father’s voice. His world set to right.

Durless spoke in a whisper to a police officer who stood in the doorway, who left. Then he gestured at the luggage. ‘Let’s talk about these bags she had packed, for both of you.’