Linwood Barclay - Fear The Worst

“Yeah,” I said.

“You know whether these are fully loaded?”

“Considering that they were shooting at me with them, I’d have to say no,” I said. “The one guy, Gary, I think he fired the most shots, so the gun that he was using, there might not be any rounds left in it at all. The other one, that was the one Carter was using. He got off a couple of shots into the ceiling of the van, but I think that was about it. Then I fired…” I had to think back. “I think I fired three shots with it.”

“So these guns might be empty,” Bob said.

“Yes, Bob, those guns might be empty.”

He powered down his window, suddenly putting us in the eye of a mini-hurricane. Gripping one of the guns, he rested his arm on the door and fired off into the night.

“What the fuck!” I shouted. “Don’t do that!”

He brought his arm in and powered the window back up. “That one still has some ammo in it,” he said.

“It did!” I shouted. “What if that was the last bullet?”

“Well, if it was,” he said, “you really couldn’t have hoped to accomplish much anyway with just one bullet.”

I was ready to get out my phone and tell Susanne to come pick up her boyfriend along the side of I-91 about twenty miles north of New Haven, but restrained myself.

“I think I can figure out how to remove the magazine to check,” Bob said.

“Jesus Christ, Bob,” I said. “Please don’t end up killing us here in the car.”

I had my eyes on the road but was pretty sure he gave me a look. “I know what I’m doing,” he said. “You just press this little button here and the clip falls out. There, see?”

He displayed the candy bar-shaped magazine for me. “It’s got like a little slit in the side here so you can see how many bullets you have left. You gotta turn on the light for just a second, okay?”

Reluctantly, I reached up and flicked on the interior light. If Bob was going to inspect the guns, I supposed it made sense that he be able to see what he was doing, for both our sakes.

“Okay, hang on,” he said, pulling the magazine out of one gun and examining it. “There’s one bullet left in this one. And let’s have a look at this other one here. Hang on, okay, there’s three in this one. So we’ve got four bullets between us.”

“Great,” I said.

“How many bad guys you figure we’re going to be running into?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Well, if there’s more than four, we’ll ask them to stand in front of each other.”

That nearly made me smile. “How come you’re so laid back about this?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Come on,” he said. “What are the odds that we’re really going to run into a bunch of badass gunslingers?”

Maybe, if Bob had had the kind of evening I’d had, he wouldn’t have asked a question like that.

MY CELL RANG.

I held on to the wheel with one hand, fumbled the phone to my ear with the other.

“It’s me,” Susanne said. “Thought I’d check in.”

“Bob’s shooting at trees, but other than that, we’re fine.”

“I went online. Getting to Stowe’s pretty simple. You just stay on 91 for a dog’s age. Then, when you’re well into Vermont, when you get to 89, you take that northwest, follow signs to Montpelier. You go past Montpelier a few miles, look for the Waterbury exit, go north, Stowe’s just up there. Do you need me to go over that again?”

“No,” I said. “Thanks.”

“The computer says it’s more than four hours to drive there.”

“I think we can cut an hour off that,” I said. “So long as we don’t get stopped by the cops.”

“Speaking of which,” Susanne said, “Detective Jennings called again.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“She sounds pissed.”

“There’s a shocker.”

“She’s tearing apart Milford trying to find you. I think she’ll be calling your cell next.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her what went down at the dealership. But not where you’re going.”

“She didn’t like that.”

“No. Like Bob predicted, she accused me of aiding a fugitive.”

“Did she say whether the guy I shot was dead?”

“She didn’t get into it with me,” Susanne said. “But she did say someone was taken to Milford Hospital.”

If the guy was able to talk, he might tell Jennings Sydney was in Stowe. Then she’d send out the troops to intercept me.

“How do you think they know Syd is up there?” Susanne asked.

“I don’t know.” Bob was making motions to hand the phone to him. “Hang on, Bob wants to talk to you.” I gave him the cell.

“Hey,” he said. “You remember one of Evan’s friends had a summer job up in Stowe? Ask him about that. Ask him who it was, where the place was.” He said to me, “If Sydney heard about it, maybe she might have gone there to hide out for a while.”

Then he got very quiet. He said, “It’s okay… I do… You know I do… Okay.” He stayed on the phone a moment more, then handed the phone to me.

“Hey,” I said.

“If I hear anything more, I’ll call,” she said.

“Okay,” I said, and flipped the phone shut. Tentatively, I asked Bob, “Everything okay?”

Bob said nothing for a moment, then, “She just… she was just thanking me for going with you.” Long pause. He glanced over at me, the gauges casting soft light across his face. “She thinks she made a mistake, leaving you.”

“I doubt that,” I said.

“It’s true,” he said. “And now, with all this shit with Evan, I wouldn’t blame her if she moved out and tried to patch things up with you.”

I watched as the dotted lines came zooming toward the Mustang and then slipped away. “I know you love her,” I said. “I saw it when Susanne collapsed that day.”

We went another mile or so before Bob said, “I know you think that I think I’m better than you. But I have to compete with your ghost every day.”

My cell rang. I flipped it open.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Mr. Blake.”

“Detective Jennings,” I said.

“Do you know where I am right now?”

“I’m guessing the hospital, or the dealership.”

“The dealership,” she said. “At least what’s left of it. The whole place is ablaze. Your wife tells me that once this fire is out, we’re going to find three dead people inside. We’ve got a man in the hospital in serious condition. Shot in the shoulder and the knee. But I gather I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”

“I know Susanne’s told you that two of the men in the building tried to kill me. So did the one you found outside, the one you took to the hospital. A man named Gary executed Andy Hertz. Shot him point-blank in the head. Same way he shot Kate Wood.”

“We need to talk about that.”

“Soon,” I said.

“How did the other two men in that building die, Mr. Blake? Did you kill them?”

“You’re kind of fading in and out,” I lied.

“Wherever you are, turn around and come in right now.”

“I can’t do that. Maybe, if I had any faith that you and Detective Marjorie weren’t trying to pin everything on me, I’d feel differently. The fact is, there’s been a goddamn human-trafficking operation going on at that hotel right under your noses. Why don’t you work on that till I get back?”

“Human trafficking? Is that what your daughter’s gotten mixed up in?”

“She was working there all the time,” I said. “Everybody there was told to lie. And they did a pretty convincing job of it.”

“Mr. Blake, please , come in. We’ll take over looking for Syd and-”

“You need to go through that hotel,” I pressed. “Room by room.” I felt a lump in my throat. “You need to see if there’s any sign of Patty.”