Linwood Barclay - Fear The Worst

“Sure,” I said.

“And Patty, she could see everything so clearly, she was so cool. She told me to just go, and keep going. Because I’d shot a guy, right? She said the police would never understand, that they never believed teenagers, and those bad people at the hotel would be after me, too. Patty told me not to think about anything but getting away, and she’d explain to you and the police what happened before everybody, you know, started flying off the handle. So I got in the car and just started driving away like crazy.”

Another breath, then, “So I ditched the car, because I figured everyone’d be looking for it, and hitched my way up to Stowe. I remembered this friend of Evan’s talking about living up here, getting a job, so I figured, it’d be as good a place as any to hide until you told Patty to tell me it was safe to come home.”

“Syd,” I said, “tell Bob I’m on the bridge with Patty. He can scoop us all up, we can get the hell out of here, sort it all out on the way back.”

Patty had her back to me. She had her cell out and was punching in a number.

“Hang on,” I said to Sydney. To Patty, I said, “Who you calling?”

“Like you said,” she snapped. “I’m calling my mom.”

I almost reached out and took the phone from her, but instead said to Syd, “Hon, put Bob on for a second.”

“Hang on.”

Then: “Yeah?”

“What about that car that was following us?” I asked him.

“I did a couple of quick turns, think I lost it. I’m parked with the lights off in some driveway by a hotel.”

“Okay. When you think it’s safe, whip down to the bridge and we’ll all get the hell out of here.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Bob said. “Hey, I know there’s a lot of bad shit coming down, but there’s some good news.”

“What?”

“I asked Sydney here if Evan had knocked her up, if she was pregnant. But she’s not.”

“Bob!” Sydney shouted, and grabbed the phone back from him. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “The only thing that matters is that you’re okay.”

Patty, talking into her own phone, was saying, “Yeah, I’m here with Mr. Blake, on the bridge, and Bob and Sydney are going to be here in just a second, and then we’re all supposed to head back.”

Now Bob was back on the phone. “Hey, Tim,” he said, “doesn’t some of what Sydney just told you sound kind of goofy?” To Syd, he said, “No offense.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking at Patty. “It does.”

Patty said, “Okay, see you soon.” And she put her phone away.

I said to Bob, “Get here quick.”

“Give us a minute to make sure the coast is clear,” he said.

I put my phone away. Patty eyed me nervously. “So that’s great,” she said, trying to smile. “We’re all going back.”

“What’s this game you’ve been playing?” I asked her, keeping my voice level. “Telling Sydney to stay up here until it was safe? What was going on in your head?”

“Don’t yell at me,” she said.

I took hold of her by the shoulders. “You think this is yelling? Patty, why did you do this?”

She tried to wriggle away, but I held on to her.

“I hate you,” she said. “I thought I could love you, but I hate you.”

I wasn’t letting go. “Why did you do it?”

She stopped fighting me, but wouldn’t look at me. “At first, I thought if she came back, I’d be in deep shit.”

“You? Why would you be in trouble?”

“Because… I gave her the tip to work for the hotel. I put her in touch with somebody.”

I thought about what Andy had told me, about finding Gary and Patty meeting over a milk shake.

“You knew Gary,” I said. “Andy saw you together.”

Now she looked at me. She was puzzled. “Knew?”

“Gary’s dead,” I said.

“Dead?” Patty said.

“How did you know Gary?”

“I did some work for him. Couple of places I worked.”

“Stealing data off credit cards?”

“It was no big thing.” She looked away. “But I knew, if Sydney came back, and told everybody everything, it’d come back on me. How Syd got the job, that I knew Gary, that I used to rip off numbers for him. I’d be in deep shit.”

“Patty, Patty, Patty,” I said softly, thinking of all the anguish she’d put me, and so many others, through the last few weeks. “Didn’t Gary, and the others at the hotel, didn’t they think you’d know where Sydney was? Because you were friends?”

“They didn’t know we were that close. I mean, they came to see me, right? I wasn’t going to tell them where Sydney was, but I had to give them something, so I told them they should watch your house and Sydney’s mom’s place, but so what? I knew Sydney wasn’t going to show up, because she was listening to me. She’d call me every few days and I’d tell her to keep laying low, right? And come on, let’s face it, she’s been safe all this time, right?”

I heard a car pull up, a door open and close.

“But you still could have told me,” I said. “It didn’t make any sense to trick Sydney into staying away.”

“The thing is…”

“What?”

She bit her lower lip. Then, “I liked it that she was gone.”

I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. I thought of all the times Patty, since Syd’s disappearance, had dropped by to see me. Showed up with dinner. Popped into the dealership.

Patty wanted to take Sydney’s place. She could be my daughter if Sydney didn’t come back.

Then why had Patty finally decided, in the end, to come to Stowe to bring Sydney back?

Unless that hadn’t been the plan at all.

That’s when I realized that someone was standing on the covered walkway only a few steps away. I’d been so focused on Patty, trying to figure out what she’d done, that I’d failed to notice we were no longer alone.

I whirled around. There was a woman standing there. She was holding a gun, and it was pointed at me.

It was Veronica Harp.

“YOU LITTLE BITCH,” VERONICA SAID TO PATTY. “You mean you knew where she was all along? You waited until yesterday to tell us? You couldn’t have mentioned this a couple of weeks ago?”

So, there it was.

Patty had led Veronica here. To get Sydney. I could guess when she’d decided to make her betrayal of Sydney complete. After I’d told her I had one daughter, and didn’t need another.

“He has a gun,” Patty told Veronica.

Great.

Veronica, keeping her weapon trained on me, said, “Take it out slowly and toss it over the railing.”

I reached behind me, pulled the Ruger from behind my belt, and did as I was told. A second later we heard it splash into the creek.

“Do your Yolanda Mills voice for me,” I said to Veronica. She held back a smile. “Emailing me that picture was what really clinched it.”

“That was a bit of luck,” Veronica said. “I really was trying to figure out how to take pictures with my phone. I’m not very technical, you know, but I want to be able to take lots of shots of my grandson, and I don’t want to have to carry a camera around if the phone will do the trick. So I was fiddling with it up in the hall when Sydney walked by. Who knew it would come in handy later?” To Patty she said, “You told me you hardly knew this Sydney kid. You’re friends?”

More than that, I thought.

“I didn’t want something to happen to her,” Patty said. “Then.”

Veronica sighed. “Working with children, I swear.”

I said, “I don’t get it.”

“You don’t get what?”

“How does someone like you, a goddamn grandmother, sleep at night doing what you do? Bringing people into the country, farming them out as slave labor. Taking all their rights away. Turning them into prostitutes and God knows what else.”