Jeff Abbott - Panic

Goinsville – where Bernita Briggs had told him that the Smithson family, his family, was from – lay ten miles west of the slant of Interstate 71. The pilot drove. Evan sat in the backseat. Carrie’s arm rested in a sling and she seemed tired but relieved. Relieved, Evan decided, to be out of her bed, to be taking action against Jargo.

They left the CIA pilot drinking coffee and ordering a second breakfast in a diner at the edge of town, working through a thick magazine of crossword puzzles.

Evan drove into Goinsville and parked in the town square. Four junk shops angling for antiquers’ dollars; an outdoor cafe with weathered tables, empty under the rain-bottomed clouds; an optometrist’s office; a law office; a title office. A normal, anonymous town.

‘Goinsville never quite got going,’ he said. He drove a block off the square and parked in front of a small, newer building with GOINSVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY in metal letters mounted against the brick.

Evan told the librarian on duty that they were researching genealogies.

The woman – small, dark, pretty – frowned. ‘If you’re looking for birth certificates, you’re out of luck before 1967.’

‘Why?’

‘County courthouse burned down. We’re the county seat. All the records went up in smoke with them. Anything from ’68 on, we can do.’

‘What about your local newspaper?’

‘On microfilm back to the 1940s,’ the librarian said. ‘We’ve also got old phone books – in original form, if that helps. What’s the family name?’

‘Smithson.’ First time he could claim the name as his own, first time he had said it aloud in public. Arthur and Julie Smithson. They used to live here. They grew up here.

‘I don’t know any Smithsons,’ the librarian said.

‘My parents grew up in an orphanage here.’

‘Goodness. No orphanage here. Closest one would be in Dayton, I’m sure. But I’ve only lived here for five years.’

She showed them the microfilm machines, told them to ask if they needed any help, and retreated back to her desk.

‘The orphanage must be closed,’ he said. Or Mrs. Briggs was mistaken. Or a liar. ‘Start with the current phone books, look for any Smithsons. I’ll start with the paper. I got to go to the bathroom though.’

She nodded and he returned to the entry foyer. Next to the rest-room was a pay phone. He fed it quarters, dialed Shadey’s cell phone.

‘H’lo?’

‘Shadey. It’s Evan. I only have a few seconds. Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, man, where are you?’

‘I’m fine. I’m with… the government.’

‘Please be kidding.’

‘I’m not. Did you make it back to Houston?’

‘Yes. Charged a plane ride back on my Visa, man, you owe me.’ But the earlier bite in his tone, when he and Evan had talked in Houston, was gone. ‘You sure you okay?’

‘Yes, and I’ll make sure you get your money.’

‘I… I don’t mean to sound cheap. It’s just now I’m scared, Evan.’

‘You should stay out of sight.’

‘I am. I called in sick at work, I’m staying at a friend’s house.’

‘Good idea. Did you get Jargo and Dezz on film?’

‘Crystal clear. Got Dezz grabbing that little mama, him shooting and missing that guard, too. That’s called attempted murder in Louisiana, I do believe.’

‘I need you to upload the film to a remote server where I can get it. Do you know how to do that?’

‘No, but my friend knows computers. Where do you want it?’

Evan gave him the name of a remote server service he’d used to back up dailies of his films, so he always had an off-site backup in case his computer was stolen or his house burned down.

Shadey repeated back the information. ‘I’ll set up an account under my stepbrother’s name. Password is evanowesme.’

‘Thanks. Stay low, Shadey.’

‘When are you coming back to Houston?’

‘I don’t know. Thanks for everything. I’ll wire you your money.’

‘Man. Don’t worry about it. Watch your back.’

‘I will. I got to run, Shadey. Stay safe. I’ll call you when I can.’

He walked back to the table and Carrie gave him a smile as he sat back down.

‘Not much to look for in the phone books, the last twenty years,’ she said. ‘No Smithsons. I’m already on the newspapers. You start on that set.’

Evan put in the microfilm to search through the town paper. He was conscious of Carrie’s closeness, of the smell of soap on her skin, of what it would be like to kiss her and pretend none of this nightmare had happened.

It wouldn’t ever be the same between them, he knew. The innocence was gone forever.

‘Your parents could have lied to your source,’ Carrie said.

‘It bothers you I won’t tell you the source’s name.’ He had not told anyone Bernita Briggs’s name or how he’d found the information tying his family to the missing Smithsons. Bedford hadn’t pressed him.

‘No. You’re protecting that person. I’d do the same in your shoes.’

‘I want to trust you. I know I can. I just don’t want Bedford to know.’

‘You can trust him, Evan.’ But she went back to her search.

He started on a set of microfilmed newspapers that began in January 1968. Goinsville news was full of civic events, farm reports, pride in the school’s students, and a smattering of news from the wider world beyond. He spun the film reader’s wheel past car crashes, births, football reports, a saints’ parade of Eagle Scouts and FFA honorees.

He stopped at February 13, 1968, when the county courthouse burned. Read the article. The fire completely consumed the papers in the old courthouse. In the following days, arson rose its head and had also been suspected in the orphanage fire three months before. Investigators were attempting to find a link between the two fires.

‘Are you to the end of 1967?’ he asked.

‘No. Halfway through ’63.’

‘Go to November ’67. I found it. Orphanage fire.’

In a few minutes, she found the newspaper account. The Hope Home for Children sheltered the illegitimate unwanted in Goinsville after World War II. The stray seeds of southwest Ohio that didn’t end up at church homes in Dayton or Cincinnati apparently found root at the Hope Home. It housed both boys and girls. In November 1967, fire erupted in Hope’s administrative offices, tearing like wind through the rest of the complex. Four children and two adults died of smoke inhalation. The rest of the children were relocated to other facilities throughout Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

The Hope Home never reopened. Evan went back to the courthouse fire story. Most articles written about the orphanage tragedy and the courthouse fire carried the byline of Dealey Todd.

‘Let’s look him up in the most recent phone book,’ Evan said.

Carrie did. ‘He’s listed.’

‘I’ll call him and see if he’ll talk to us.’ Evan did. ‘His wife says he’s retired, at home and bored. Let’s go.’

‘T hose poor kids,’ Dealey Todd said. He hovered near eighty, but he wore the unfettered smile of a child. His hair had beaten a long-ago retreat, leaving a trail of freckles mapped across his head. He wore old khakis that needed a wash and a shirt faded with loving wear. His den held a rat’s nest of old paperbacks and three TVs, one tuned and muted to CNN, the others tuned to a telenovela, also muted.

‘Learning Spanish,’ he said.

‘Watching pretty girls,’ his wife said.

Evan’s throat tightened as CNN played. His face had been on CNN repeatedly in the past couple of days, although other stories had now bumped his from the news. But Bedford’s disguise seemed to work; Dealey Todd hadn’t given him a more curious look than he would have given any other stranger when Evan introduced himself and Carrie as Bill and Terry Smithson. Probably Dealey paid more attention to the telenovela bosoms than he did the news feeds.