Linwood Barclay - Fear The Worst

Richard Fletcher, I guessed. The son of a bitch.

I came to a stop at the end of the gravel driveway. Any other time, I might have had the sense to drive on. So the guy pulled a fast one. Took a truck out for a spin, used it to pick up some manure. Next time you’ll know better, you won’t let a guy test-drive a truck without tagging along. Fletcher got lucky with me today. Not next time. Live and learn.

I was too on edge to be that rational.

I got out of the car and started striding up the driveway. A dog I’d not seen before started loping up the lane toward me. But this was no guard dog. He was a mutt of undetermined heritage, limping, gray in the snout. His frame had the same sag in it as the Fletcher house roof. His weary tail wagged like a sideways metronome at the slowest beat.

I walked on past the dog. As I came up around the truck, I saw that it was, indeed, Richard Fletcher staring into the engine well. He had his elbow on the rad, and his head was resting on his hand. He held no tools, wasn’t actually repairing anything. He was looking at the engine the way a washed-up fortune-teller might gaze into the bottom of a teacup. Trying to come up with answers, not having much luck.

“Hey,” I said, an edge in my voice.

He looked over at me. His eyes narrowed. He was trying to place me.

“Next time you take a truck for a test drive, you mind cleaning out all the shit before you bring it back?”

Now he knew.

Fletcher straightened up, ran his hand back over his head, and looked at me, not saying anything.

“You’re a real fucking piece of work, you know that?” I said. “Who the fuck do you think you are? I got a bulletin for you. We’re not a fucking truck-rental agency.”

He moved his mouth around, like he was trying to think of what to say to me but couldn’t find the words.

The front door of the house popped open, squeaking on its hinges. Fletcher turned his head around. A young girl poked her head out and said, “I’ve got dinner ready, Dad.”

She was maybe ten, twelve years old. I couldn’t see that much of her. Just enough to see that she was on some kind of metal braces.

Fletcher said, “Be right in, sweetheart.”

He turned back to look at me. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “I’ve got to go have dinner with my daughter.”

He walked back to the house, climbed the steps to the front door. I stood there, watched him go inside, and suddenly felt very small.

I SPOTTED KATE WOOD’S SILVER FORD FOCUS in the drive as I came down my street. She was standing by the back of it, a large brown takeout bag in one hand and what appeared to be a bagged bottle of wine in the other.

I parked, came over to her, and something primal took over. I needed her. I needed her to comfort me. I slipped my arms around her and pulled her close, resting my head on her shoulder. Her hands still full, she squeezed me with her outstretched arms.

“Oh, baby,” she said. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

I didn’t say anything. I just held her.

“Has something happened?” she asked. I still had no words. “Come on, let’s go inside. Come on.”

I found my house key on the ring as she led me to my own door. Once inside, she said, “I’ll get some plates, we’ll get some food into you, we’ll talk. I swear, you look like you’ve lost ten pounds.”

I’d noticed my pants had seemed looser the last few days but hadn’t really given it much thought.

“You want to open the wine?” Kate asked.

“Let me check something first,” I said.

“When you get back, I’ll tell you what’s happened with Edith,” she said. “She totally fucked up an entire order.”

“In a minute,” I said.

“Good God!” she said as she entered the kitchen. “What happened here?”

My earlier outburst. “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

I went up the stairs, two at a time. I didn’t even bother to sit in front of the computer, just leaned over, moved the mouse around, hit the button to see whether there had been any responses to the website, other than offers for discounted Viagra.

There were two messages. One said there was a problem with my eBay account. I did not have an eBay account. I deleted it.

Then I opened the second email.

It began:

“Dear Mr. Blake: I’m pretty sure I’ve seen your daughter.”

I WAS TREMBLING EVEN BEFORE I SAT DOWN.

The email, from a Hotmail address that was preceded by the letters “ymills” and a series of numbers, read:

“Dear Mr. Blake: I’m pretty sure I’ve seen your daughter. I work at a drop-in shelter for teens in Seattle-”

Seattle? What the hell would Syd be doing in Seattle? No, wait. What mattered was: Syd was alive.

Having just seen traces of blood on my daughter’s car, this email already had me fighting back tears.

I started reading again: “I work at a drop-in shelter for teens in Seattle, and because I’m in that line of work I’m often scanning websites about kids who are missing, and I came to your site and when I saw the pictures there of your daughter Sydney I recognized her because she’s very pretty. At least I am kinda sure that it was her but of course I could be wrong. I don’t think she said her name was Sydney, I think she might have said Susan or Suzie or something like that.”

She was using her mother’s name. I wondered, for a moment, whether there was something wrong with the computer, because the cursor was jiggling all over the place. I glanced down and saw that my hand on the mouse was shaking.

“Feel free to get in touch at this email address,” the note continued. “It must be very stressful not to know where your daughter is and I hope that maybe I can help.”

The note signed off with “Yours in Christ, Yolanda Mills.”

From downstairs, Kate shouted, “Come get this while it’s hot! This chow mein looks pretty decent.”

I hit the reply button and wrote: “Dear Ms. Mills: Thank you so much for getting in touch with me. Please tell me how to reach you other than email. What is the name of your drop-in shelter? What is the address in Seattle? Do you have a number where I can reach you?”

I was typing so quickly I was making numerous typos, then backspacing and fixing them.

“Tim? Everything okay up there?”

I typed, “Sydney went missing nearly a month ago and her mother and I are frantic to find her, to know that she is okay. When did you see her? How long ago? Has Syd been in there several times or just once? Here’s how you can get in touch with me.” I then typed my home phone number, my cell number, my number at the dealership. “Please get in touch the moment you receive this email. And call collect, please.”

I double-checked that I hadn’t entered in any of the phone numbers wrong, typed my name at the end, and hit Send.

“What’s going on?” Kate said. She was at the door, leaning into the frame.

I turned, and I know I must have had tears on my cheeks, because Kate suddenly looked horrified, as though I’d just gotten bad news.

“Oh my God, Tim, what’s happened?”

“Someone’s seen her,” I said, feeling overcome. “Someone’s seen Syd.”

Kate closed the distance between us, pulled my head to her breasts, and held me while I tried to pull it together.

“Where?” Kate asked. “Where is she?”

I pulled away and pointed to my screen. “This woman in Seattle. She works at a drop-in shelter. Some place, I guess, where runaways can go.”

“Seattle?” Kate asked. “What would Syd be doing in Seattle?”

“I don’t know and right now I don’t care,” I said. “Just so long as I know where she is, I can go get her and bring her home.”