Linwood Barclay - Fear The Worst

“Why did you feel the need to do that?” Jennings asked.

Because it looked bad.

“Just, I don’t know, I thought she might have gotten the wrong idea,” I said. “Kate probably wanted to drop by, have a talk-”

“Why would she do that? Didn’t you say you used to be seeing her?”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s true. But I guess, I don’t know, I guess she thought there were still issues to resolve.”

Jennings said, “Is there anything else you want to tell me? Anything you want to get off your chest?”

“What? No. I mean, yes, there are things I want to talk about. I want to know what you’re doing to find Sydney. You’re always asking me questions, but you never have any news for me.” Other than Sydney’s blood being on the car, of course. “I’ve been driving all over the place today, showing Syd’s picture to hundreds of people. How many people have you shown her picture to today?”

Jennings held my gaze momentarily, then said, “We’ll talk more in a minute.”

She was taking out her cell phone as she left the kitchen. By the time she was talking to whoever she wanted to talk to, she was outside, where I couldn’t hear her.

I leaned up against the fridge, tried to get my head around what had happened here in the last hour.

Sydney was still out there.

People who wanted to know where she was were trying to kill me.

Just call me, Syd. Tell me where you are. Tell me what’s going on.

Jennings returned a moment later, pocketing her phone. “I’d like to go over this again. When you picked Patty up, when you brought her home.”

“Why’s this a big deal?”

“She’s missing,” Kip Jennings said.

THIS MUCH KIP JENNINGS TOLD ME:

Patty had a part-time job in that accessories store in the Connecticut Post Mall, two or three shifts a week. She was due in at ten that morning, and no one thought much about it when she hadn’t shown up by ten-thirty Patty had a somewhat cavalier attitude about things like punching in on time.

But when it got to be eleven, they started to wonder whether she didn’t realize she was scheduled to work, so they tried her cell. When they didn’t get any answer there, they tried her home. No luck there, either.

One of the staff knew where Patty’s mother, Carol Swain, worked, so a call was put in to her at a glass and mirror sales office on Bridgeport Avenue. She hadn’t seen her daughter since the afternoon of the day before, and while it was not unusual for Patty to get home late, her mother was surprised not to find her home in the morning. And then for her not to show up for work-while she was often late, she’d eventually show up-that was definitely out of the ordinary.

When Carol Swain got home and Patty wasn’t there, she tried her daughter’s cell herself. When that failed to raise her, she considered calling friends of her daughter’s, then had to admit she didn’t know very much about Patty’s friends. Patty didn’t tell her a damn thing about the kids she hung out with. Carol was telling all this to one of her friends, a woman she sometimes went drinking with after work, and the friend said, “Carol? Has it occurred to you your daughter might actually be in some trouble?”

So around six o’clock, Patty’s mother called the police. Almost apologetic about it. Probably nothing, she said. You know what girls are like today. But had there been, you know, any teenage girls who looked like her daughter run down at an intersection or anything?

The police said no. They asked Carol Swain if she wanted to file a missing-persons report on her daughter.

She thought about that a moment, and said, “Hell, I don’t want to make a federal case out of this or anything.”

The police said, “We can’t do anything to help you find her if you’re not going to report her missing.”

So Carol Swain said, “Oh, why the hell not?”

Jennings told me all this, finishing up with “I just made a couple of calls in the last few minutes, and she hasn’t turned up.”

“I tried to call her a couple of times today,” I said. “She never answered.”

“At the moment,” Jennings said, “it seems that you’re the last person who’s seen her.”

That seemed to be more than just an observation. “What are you saying?”

“Mr. Blake, you seem like a decent enough guy, so I’m just trying to be straight with you. We’ve found bloody towels in your house that you say were used to help a girl who hasn’t been seen in nearly twenty-four hours.”

“I’ve been totally straight with you,” I said.

“I hope so,” she said. “Now we’ve got two missing-girl cases, and you’re at the center of both of them.”

IN THE MORNING, I PHONED SUSANNE AT WORK.

“Has Bob got that Beetle ready?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “New tires, new headlight.”

“Oil leak?”

“I’m not a miracle worker, Tim.”

“I need a lift.”

“You had to give the car back already?” she asked.

“It’s gone,” I said. But it was the police who had it, not Laura Cantrell.

“I’m on it,” Susanne said.

I hoped she would come pick me up herself. I thought it was unlikely she’d send Bob.

I was surprised to see Evan drive down my street in the Beetle. There was an ominous rattling sound coming from under the hood. The short wheelbase allowed him to do a tight U-turn in the street, bringing the passenger door right to me.

I got in and he said, “What’s with the police tape around your house?”

I said, “Are you going to be able to pay those guys when they come back for the rest of their money?”

“Yeah,” he said, glancing back at my house as we pulled away.

“From your dad?”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Thanks for that yesterday.”

“I considered letting them have a go at you,” I said.

“Why?”

“Maybe you need to have the shit beat out of you. It might smarten you up.”

He kept his eyes on the road ahead. “Maybe,” he said.

“You do drugs, you steal, you’re addicted to online gambling,” I said. “And you slept with my daughter.”

He shot me a look. “Maybe she saw something in me that you don’t.”

“She must have,” I said. I didn’t know whether Evan was trying to be on his best behavior because he had me in the car, but he signaled all his turns, kept to the speed limit, and made no improper lane changes.

I said, “Have you seen Syd’s friend Patty in the last couple of days?”

“Huh?” he said. “No. Why?”

I shook my head, not interested in answering his questions since I had more of my own. “You used a fake credit card,” I said. “To pay for some of your gambling.”

“Yeah.”

“How does that work? If you win, doesn’t the money go back to the account of the guy whose card number you’ve ripped off?”

“I hadn’t really thought it through. It’s the playing that matters, not whether there’s money coming in.”

Once you put yourself in the head of a gambler, that actually made some sense. “Where’d you get the card?”

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” he said.

“It was Jeff Bluestein, wasn’t it?” I said.

Evan glanced over. “How did you-” And then he cut himself off.

“I didn’t,” I said. “Not until now.” I leaned back into my seat. “He’s my first visit today.”

Evan seemed to break out almost instantly into a sweat. “Don’t tell him I said anything.”

I said nothing for a moment. I was listening. Finally, I said, “Does the engine sound funny to you?”

I SLIPPED IN BEHIND THE WHEEL of the Beetle after we pulled into Bob’s Motors. Susanne, still on the cane, came out of the office as Evan slunk away.