Linwood Barclay - No Time For Goodbye

“This can’t be happening. She said he’d gotten a job. Out west.”

“What?”

“Enid. She said Jeremy got a job, in…in Seattle or someplace. An opportunity. Had to go out there. That he’d come back and see me soon. That was why he wasn’t coming to visit. I thought…just not caring, that would be reason enough.” He seemed to drift off a bit. “Jeremy, he’s…he can’t help what he is. She made him what he is. He does whatever she tells him to do. She poisoned him against me from the day he was born… Can’t believe she even comes to visit. She says to me, ‘Hang on, just hang on a little longer.’ It’s like, she doesn’t care if I die. She just doesn’t want me to die yet. She’s been up to something, I’ve known it. She’s been lying to me. Lying to me about everything, lying to me about Jeremy. She didn’t want me to know where he’d gone.”

“Why wouldn’t she want you to know? Why would Jeremy have gone to Milford?”

“She must have seen it,” he whispered. “Found it, something.”

“What? Seen what?”

“Dear God,” he said faintly, and rested his head back on the pillow, closed his eyes. He moved his head from side to side. “Enid knows. Dear God, if Enid knows…”

“If Enid knows what? What are you talking about?”

“If she knows, there’s no telling what she might do…”

I leaned in closer to Clayton Sloan or Clayton Bigge and whispered urgently inches away from his ear, “If Enid knows what?”

“I’m dying… She…she must have called the lawyer. I never intended for her to see the will before I died… My instructions were very specific. He must have screwed up… I’d had it all setup…”

“Will? What will?”

“My will. I had it changed. She wasn’t to know… If she knew…It was all arranged. When I died, my estate, everything would go to Cynthia… Enid and Jeremy, they’d be left out, left with nothing, just what they deserve, just what she deserves…” He looked at me. “You have no idea what she’s capable of.”

“She’s here. Enid is here, she’s in Youngstown. It was Jeremy who went to Milford.”

“He’d do whatever she tells him to do. He has to. She’s in a wheelchair. She won’t be able to do it herself this time…”

“Do what herself?”

He ignored my question. He had so many of his own. “So he’s coming back? Jeremy’s on his way back?”

“That’s what Enid said. He checked out of a Milford motel this morning. I think we beat him back here.”

“‘We’? I thought you said Cynthia wasn’t with you.”

“She’s not. I came with a man named Vince Fleming.”

Clayton thought about the name. “Vince Fleming,” he said quietly. “The boy. The boy she was with that night. In the car. The boy she was with when I found her.”

“That’s right. He’s been helping me. He’s with Enid now.”

“With Enid?”

“Making sure she doesn’t call Jeremy, tell him that we’re here.”

“But if Jeremy, if Jeremy’s already on his way back, he must have already done it.”

“Done what?”

“Is Cynthia okay?” He got a desperate look in his eyes. “Is she alive?”

“Of course she’s alive.”

“And your daughter? Grace? She’s still alive?”

“What are you talking about? Yes, of course they’re alive.”

“Because if something happens to Cynthia, everything goes to any children… It’s all spelled out…”

I felt my whole body shiver. How many hours had it been since I’d talked to Cynthia? I’d had a brief chat with her this morning, my one conversation with her since she’d slipped away in the night with Grace.

Did I really know, with any certainty, that she and Grace were alive now?

I got out my cell phone. It occurred to me then that I probably wasn’t supposed to have it on within the hospital, but since no one even knew I was here, I figured I could get away with it.

I punched in our home number.

“Please, please have gone home,” I said under my breath. The phone rang once, twice, a third time. On the fourth ring, it went to voicemail.

“Cynthia,” I said, “if you come home, if you get this, you’ve got to call me immediately. It’s an emergency.”

I ended the call and then tried her cell. It went to voicemail immediately. I left her pretty much the same message, but added, “You must call me.”

“Where is she?” Clayton asked.

“I don’t know,” I said uneasily. I considered, briefly, calling Rona Wedmore, decided against it, called another number. I had to let it ring five times before there was an answer.

A pickup, then throat clearing, then, “Hello?” Sleepy.

“Rolly,” I said. “It’s Terry.”

Clayton, hearing the name “Rolly,” blinked.

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Rolly said. “No problem. I’d just turned out the light. You’ve found Cynthia?”

“No,” I said. “But I’ve found someone else.”

“What?”

“Listen, I don’t have time to explain, but I need you to find Cynthia. I don’t know what to tell you, or where to have you start. Go by the house, see if her car’s there. If it is, bang on the door, break in if you have to, see if she and Grace are there. Start calling hotels, I don’t know, anything you can think of.”

“Terry, what’s going on? Who have you found?”

“Rolly, I’ve found her father.”

There was dead silence on the other end of the line.

“Rolly?”

“Yeah, I’m here. I…I can’t believe it.”

“Me neither.”

“What’s he told you? Has he told you what happened?”

“We’re just getting started. I’m north of Buffalo, at a hospital. He’s not in very good shape.”

“Is he talking?”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you all about it when I can. But you have to look for Cynthia. If you find her, she has to call me immediately.”

“Right. I’m on it. I’m getting dressed.”

“And Rolly,” I said, “let me tell her. About her father. She’s going to have a million questions.”

“Sure. If I find out anything, I’ll call.”

I thought of one other person who might have seen Cynthia at some point. Pamela had phoned the house often enough that I’d memorized her home number from the caller ID display. I punched in the number, let it ring several times before someone picked up.

“Hello?” Pamela, sounding every bit as sleepy as Rolly. In the background, a man’s voice, saying, “What is it?”

I told Pamela who it was, quickly apologized for calling at such a terrible hour.

“Cynthia’s missing,” I said. “With Grace.”

“Jesus,” Pamela said, her voice quickly become awake. “They been kidnapped or something?”

“No no, nothing like that. She left. She wanted to get away.”

“She told me, like, yesterday, or the day before yesterday-God, what day is this?-she might not come in, so when she didn’t show up, I didn’t think anything of it.”

“I just wanted to tell you to be on the lookout for her, if she calls you, she has to get in touch with me. Pam, I found her father.”

From the other end of the line, nothing for a moment. Then, “Fuck me.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“He’s alive?”

I glanced at the man in the bed. “Yeah.”

“And Todd? And her mother?”

“That’s another story. Listen, Pamela, I have to go. But if you see Cyn, have her call me. But let me tell her the news.”

“Shit,” Pamela said. “Like I’m gonna be able to keep a lid on that.”

I ended the call, noticed that the phone battery was getting very weak. I’d left home in such a hurry I didn’t have anything to recharge it with, not even in the truck.

“Clayton,” I said, refocusing after all the phone chatter, “why do you think Cynthia and Grace might be in danger? Why are you thinking something might have happened to them?”