Linwood Barclay: Fear The Worst

“Oh yeah,” he volunteered. “Three years ago I rear-ended a guy, they had to replace everything up front.”

I explained that an accident translated into a much lower trade-in value. His counterargument was that all the parts in the front of the car were newer, so if anything, the car should be worth more. He wasn’t happy with the number I gave him, and left.

Twice I called my ex-wife in Stratford, where she worked at one of the car lots Bob owned, and twice I left messages, both asking how thrilled she was with Bob’s plan to immortalize our daughter on a bathroom calendar at the local Goodyear tire store.

After the second call, my head cleared some, and I realized this wasn’t just about Sydney. It was about Susanne, about Bob, about how much better her life was with him, about how much I’d screwed things up.

I’d been selling cars since I was twenty, and I was good at it, but Susanne thought I was capable of more. You shouldn’t be working for somebody else, she said. You should be your own man. You should have your own dealership. We could change our lives. Send Syd to the best schools. Make a better future for ourselves.

My dad had passed away when I was nineteen, and left my mother pretty well fixed. A few years later, when she died of a heart attack, I used the inheritance to show Susanne I could be the man she wanted me to be. I started up my own dealership.

And fucked the whole thing up.

I was never a big-picture guy. Sales, working one-to-one, that was my thing. But when I had to run the whole show, I kept sneaking back onto the floor to deal with customers. I wasn’t cut out for management, so I let others make decisions for me. Bad ones, as it turned out. Let them steal from me, too.

Eventually, I lost it all.

And not just the business, not just our big house that overlooked the Sound. I lost my family.

Susanne blamed me for taking my eye off the ball. I blamed her for pushing me into something I wasn’t cut out for.

Syd, somehow, blamed herself. She figured that, if we loved her enough, we’d stay together no matter what. The fact that we didn’t had nothing to do with how much we loved Syd, but she wasn’t buying it.

In Bob, Susanne found what was missing in me. Bob was always reaching for the next rung. Bob figured if he could sell cars, he could start up a dealership, and if he could start up one dealership, why not two, or three?

I never bought Susanne a Corvette when I was going out with her, like Bob did. At least there was some satisfaction when it blew a piston, and she ended up getting rid of it because she hated driving a stick.

On this particular day, I went home, somewhat reluctantly, at six. When you’re on commission, you don’t want to walk out of an open showroom. You know, the moment you leave, someone’ll come in, checkbook in hand, asking for you. But you can’t live there. You have to go home sometime.

I’d been planning to make spaghetti, but figured, what the hell, I’d order pizza, just like Syd wanted. It’d be a kind of peace offering, a way to make up for the sunglasses thing.

By seven, she had not shown up, or called to let me know she’d be late.

Maybe someone had gone home sick, and she’d had to stay on the front desk for an extra shift. Ordinarily, if she wasn’t going to make it home in time for dinner, she’d call. But I could see her skipping that courtesy today, after what had happened at breakfast.

Still, by eight, when I hadn’t heard from her, I started to worry.

I was standing in the kitchen, watching CNN, getting updated on some earthquake in Asia but not really paying attention, wondering where the hell she was.

Sometimes she got together with Patty or one of her other friends after work, went over to the Post Mall to eat in the food court.

I called her cell. It rang several times before going to message. “Give me a call, sweetheart,” I said. “I figured we’d have pizza after all. Let me know what you want on it.”

I gave it another ten minutes before deciding to find a number for the hotel where she worked. I was about to make the call when the phone rang. I grabbed the receiver before I’d checked the ID. “Hey,” I said. “You in for pizza or what?”

“Just hold the anchovies.” It wasn’t Syd. It was Susanne.

“Oh,” I said. “Hey.”

“You’ve got your shorts in a knot.”

I took a breath. “What I don’t get is why you don’t. Bob and Evan giving Syd the eyeball? Thinking she should model?”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Tim,” Susanne said. “They were just being nice.”

“Did you know when you moved in there with Sydney that Bob was taking his son in? That okay with you?”

“They’re like brother and sister,” she said.

“Give me a break. I remember being nineteen and-” The line beeped. “Look, I gotta go. Later, okay?”

Susanne managed a “Yeah” before hanging up. I went to the other line, said, “Hello?”

“Mr. Blake?” said a woman who was not my daughter.

“Yes?”

“Timothy Blake?”

“Yes?”

“I’m with Fairfield Windows and Doors and we’re going to be in your area later this-”

I hung up. I found a number for the Just Inn Time, dialed it. I let it ring twenty times before hanging up.

I grabbed my jacket and keys and drove across town to the hotel, pulled right up under the canopy by the front door, and went inside for the first time since Syd had started here a couple of weeks ago. Before heading in, I scanned the lot for her Civic. I’d seen it the odd time I’d driven by since she’d started, but it wasn’t there tonight. Maybe she’d parked out back.

The glass doors parted before me as I strode into the lobby. As I approached the desk, I hoped I would see Syd, but there was a man there instead. A young guy, late twenties maybe, dirty blond hair, his face cratered by the ravages of acne a decade earlier. “May I help you?” he asked. His name tag read “Owen.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I was just looking for Syd.”

“I’m sorry. What’s his last name?”

“It’s a she. Sydney. She’s my daughter.”

“Do you know what room she’s staying in?”

“No, no,” I said, shaking my head. “She works here. Right here on the desk, actually. I was expecting her home for dinner, just thought I’d swing by and see if she was going to be working a double or something.”

“I see,” said Owen.

“Her name’s Sydney Blake,” I said. “You must know her.”

Owen shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Are you new here?” I asked.

“No. Well, yeah.” He grinned. “Six months. I guess that’s new.”

“Sydney Blake,” I repeated. “She’s been working here two weeks. Seventeen, blonde hair.”

Owen shook his head.

“Maybe they’ve got her working someplace else this week,” I suggested. “Do you have an employee roster or a schedule or something that would tell you where I could find her? Or maybe I could just leave a message?”

“Could you wait just a moment?” Owen asked. “I’ll get the duty manager.”

Owen slipped through a door behind the front desk, returning a moment later with a lean, good-looking, dark-haired man in his early forties. His name tag read “Carter,” and when he spoke I pegged him as from the South, although what state I couldn’t guess.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“I’m looking for my daughter,” I said. “She works here.”

“What’s her name?”

“Sydney Blake,” I said. “Syd.”

“Sydney Blake?” he said. “Don’t recognize that name at all.”

I shook my head. “She’s only been here a couple of weeks. She’s just working here for the summer.”

Carter was shaking his head, too. “I’m sorry.”