Jeffery Deaver - Shallow Graves

Meg asked, "You think it was Pellam?"

"Kind of a coincidence, wouldn't you say? His friend's doing drugs and gets himself killed. Then your son overdoses." He asked, "Was Sam alone with Pellam today?"

She didn't answer at first. "No."

"Any other time they may have been together alone?"

She swallowed and shook her head. "I want to be with my son."

"Sure, Meg."

Outside, Pellam watched the two of them push out the door and head toward Keith's car. Meg hugged Sam. "Let's get you home, into bed."

"I don't feel good."

Pellam stepped forward, crouched down and took the boy by the shoulders. "When you're better, young man, you and I're going to-"

Meg took her son's hand firmly in hers and practically pushed the boy into the Cougar. Pellam stared at her. She wouldn't look back. Meg didn't say anything as she walked to her car and started it.

Keith got in the Cougar, put Sam's seat belt on him.

Both cars pulled out of the parking lot, Keith's red Mercury and Meg's gray Toyota. She didn't even look at him. Pellam stared after the import for several minutes. Finally, there was nothing left to see but a residue of haze above the asphalt in the car's wake. It was only then that he realized that while he was looking at the spot where Meg's car had disappeared the sheriff, sitting in his glossy, pristine squad car, had been staring at him.

He walked over to the man. "I drove here in Meg's car from the fairgrounds. My camper's back there. You give me a lift?"

"Sorry, sir. I'm heading the opposite direction."

"Sure," Pellam said, watching his black-and-white pull dramatically out of the parking lot, slinging gravel behind it. "Thanks anyway. Sir."

Bobby sat inside the cabin at the junkyard and read a National Geographic. He looked at the stain in the margin and wondered what it was. Grape jelly, maybe. Blood? Beef juice?

R &W was fat with National Geographics. Stacks and stacks of them, going moldy. Yellow and green. His brother didn't understand why Bobby continued to buy the old ones. Something about that magazine, people thought you shouldn't throw them out, like doing that was somehow unpatriotic. So what they did was bundle them up and take them to antique stores or tag sales or junkyards like R &W and sell them, all organized by year. Or decade. Didn't matter if they made money on them. The point was, a part of America got preserved and, besides, where else but in articles about Africa or the Amazon could a twelve-year-old boy get a look at tits and not run the chance of getting whipped?

Today, Bobby was reading about Portland, which seemed like a great place to live. He closed the magazine and tossed it against the wall of the shack. True, they were starting to smell. He'd have to get out the Lysol spray.

He heard the car door slam.

Bobby knew right away, even before the door to the shack opened that there was trouble. This was something about twins, at least something about Billy and him. A telepathy thing. So now when his brother opened the door and walked through it, Bobby was staring right into his eyes, frowning with an expression that matched Billy's almost identically.

He said, "So?"

"So our ass is in deep shit," Billy muttered.

"What?"

"Torrens's kid got some of the pills. Almost OD'd."

"Fuck. That little blond kid?" Bobby glanced in a perfunctory way toward the backroom of the shack where several cartons of their special candy were stacked. "How'd he get it?" Then he knew, the message from his brother coming through loud and clear. He nodded grimly. "The pretty boy? Ned. The other day."

"Your playmate."

Bobby said, "Our playmate. Just 'cause I saw him first don't go blaming me. Why'd he give them away?"

"Why'd you give him so many in the first place? Damn, I'll ream that boy's ass."

Bobby gave a splinter of a smile. "You already done that."

But his brother wasn't in any mood to joke. "This isn't funny."

Bobby was nodding slowly. "The Torrens kid," he muttered. "They know it was us?"

"They did, don't you think we'd've heard by now?"

"What if Ned said something to the kid? About where he got it?"

"Could be a problemo," Billy said absently. "Too bad the kid didn't take 'em all. And just, you know, die. Would've been better."

"So they've got some? Of the stuff, I mean."

"Yeah," Billy explained.

"Ouch."

"It's at the clinic. They're going to be shipping it somewhere to find out what it is."

"Fuck," Bobby said. "That's bad. Man, that's bad. What're we gonna do?"

And Billy looked at his brother as if he'd just asked the most dumb-ass question in the world. "Well, if you think real hard, maybe a couple things'll come to mind."

He didn't have to wait very long before they did.

"Hello?"

The voice of Wex Ambler's housekeeper answering the phone.

Meg didn't know the woman. She'd seen her several times since she and Ambler had begun their affair-once coming out of the brick and white-trim First Presbyterian Church on Maple Street. But Meg hadn't actually heard her voice before this moment. She sounded older than Ambler.

"Is Mr Ambler there please?" Meg, who had never typed a letter for anyone other than herself or Keith in her life, tried to sound like a Kelly Girl.

"Just a minute, please. Who shall I say's calling?"

This she'd thought about. "Dutchess County Realty."

"One minute."

"Hello?"

"Wex."

A moment later, she was listening to her lover say with a tortured formality, "Yes, Meg. How are you? I wasn't expecting to hear from you." There was a pause at the end of his sentences. She knew that Ambler liked phrases of affection and it would be natural for him to add a "darling" or "dear." Under the circumstances, of course, he'd have to watch himself carefully to avoid these.

Ambler had reluctantly agreed to Meg's demand that not a single soul in town know about their affair.

Meg asked, "Is it safe to talk?" Then she regretted the idiocy of the question.

Ambler ignored it. "What can I do for you?"

"There was an accident. Somebody gave Sam some drugs."

There was a pause. "Is he all right?"

"He'll be okay. But I can't make it today."

"Of course. I understand. What kind of drugs?"

"Heroin, it looked like."

"Are you sure?" His voice sounded flatlined. As if he hadn't even heard her.

"That's what the doctor said."

"Where did he get it?"

Meg hesitated. "I have no idea. He claims he found it."

"Will he be okay?"

"The doctor said he would."

He spoke again slowly. "I'm sorry. I wish I could have been there."

She said, "Yes, that would have been good."

Static growing on the line. She guessed he was on a cordless phone and had moved into a den, or outside. He spoke more freely. "When can I see you? I-"

Then he stopped talking and-his housekeeper undoubtedly approaching-said, "Those prices are a little high."

"I want to talk to you," she said. "There're some things we should talk about."

She was thankful Ambler wasn't alone and wasn't free to ask the questions that she didn't want to answer right now, certainly not over the phone. She heard the frustration in his voice. "I understand. It's a mutual situation. Day after tomorrow?"

"Probably."

"Have you thought any more about my proposition of the other day?"

"I don't want to talk about that now."

"I'm sorry. It's just… I'll look forward to seeing you day after tomorrow."

Meg found she was answering as if Keith were in the room, which he was not. "Those would be acceptable terms." She hung up.

"How you feeling, skipper?" Keith asked his son.

"Pretty good, Dad." But Sam's voice was weak and he was huddled in his bathrobe and blanket on his bed. Heartbreaking, the way he was lying, so small and fragile.