Linwood Barclay - Parting Shot

“This is just weird, that’s all,” he said.

“I get that,” Duckworth said. “I mean, it’s not like I think you two tattooed this guy.”

Carol laughed nervously. “Well, that’s good to know!”

Trevor, however, did not look amused.

“Do you remember seeing Mr. Gaffney?”

Carol shook her head. “I don’t. But,” and she placed her hand gingerly over her mouth, as though she were about to tell a secret, “I wasn’t really paying attention to anyone else.”

“Trevor?”

“Don’t remember him.”

“What about when you left Knight’s? You had to have come out just a few seconds after Mr. Gaffney. This would have been right around the time he met the person or persons who abducted him. Did you notice anything odd? Maybe someone hanging around outside the bar, or at the entrance to the alley? Did you hear something that sounded like a fight or a scuffle?”

“No,” Trevor said quickly. “No to all of those things. We came out and went to my car and that’s that.” He looked at Carol. “Right?”

She studied Trevor’s face for a moment before replying. “That’s right. That’s certainly the way I remember it.”

“You didn’t talk to anyone, see anyone when you came out?” Duckworth persisted.

“Didn’t I just answer that?” Trevor asked before Carol could say anything.

Duckworth gave his son a slow appraisal. “Okay, then.” He smiled weakly at Carol. “I thought it was worth a shot, is all.” He put his phone back into his pocket and leaned back from the table.

“It’s such a pleasure to have met you,” he said to Carol.

“Nice to meet you too.”

“What do you do, Carol?”

“I work for the town.”

“That must be interesting, especially now that we have Randall Finley running things again.”

“Never a dull moment,” Carol said.

“And David Harwood’s still his assistant, right?”

“He is. They never charged him for shooting that escaped convict.”

“Lucky for Harwood. Listen, you must come by the house some time.”

She forced a smile. “That’d be nice.”

“I know Trevor’s mother would be delighted to see you. How did you two meet?”

“Jesus, Dad,” Trevor said. “This really is turning into an investigation. Does Carol have the right to call her lawyer?”

Carol forced a laugh. “Trevor, it’s okay.”

Duckworth raised his hands as though admitting defeat. “None of my business anyway.”

He got up from the chair and gave his son one last nod. “See you later.”

“Yeah, sure,” Trevor said. “Can’t wait.”

Duckworth walked back to his car, got behind the wheel, and drove out of the Starbucks lot.

“God, I’m sorry about that,” Trevor said. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve never been so humiliated. He watched us.”

“It’s okay,” Carol said quietly. “He seems like a nice guy.”

Trevor said nothing.

“Do you think he could tell?” Carol asked.

“Think he could tell what?”

“That we both lied to him?”

Trevor considered that. “I hope not.”

It was a long walk to Jessica Frommer’s house, but Brian Gaffney wasn’t troubled by that. Besides, it was closer than going back to his place and getting his car. He patted the front pocket of his jeans. At least he still had his keys. The bastard — or bastards — who’d done all this to him had stripped him of his wallet and his phone, but at least he’d be able to get into his apartment and start his car.

It sure was nice to get out of the hospital. Even though his family had come to see him, the visit had stressed him out. When his sister and mother started arguing, all he wanted was for them to leave. Once his mother left to find Monica and his dad, Brian decided he’d had enough. He wanted out of there before they returned to his room and started bickering all over again.

He felt badly for his father. It wasn’t his fault that Brian had decided to move out. He’d already been thinking about doing it. He’d landed this job at the detailing shop, and while it didn’t pay a fortune, it gave him enough money to rent a tiny apartment. It wasn’t like rents in Promise Falls were all that high. The town had lost so many jobs in the last few years — and a year ago, so many people — that a lot of rental units were going empty. On top of that, a lot of people had decided to leave, move away. The town had had such a run of bad luck that many feared it was never going to end. Best to get out before things got worse.

But even though Brian believed it had ultimately been his own decision to move out, his mother blamed his father for it. Albert had fully supported his son striking out on his own, learning to live independently. While Brian was no dummy, he was willing to concede he was no Steve Jobs or Mr. Spock or Sheldon Cooper — okay, those last two weren’t real, but still — and that sometimes people could get the better of him, confuse him.

Like this whole hepatitis thing. They were going to test to see whether he was positive for it. To Brian’s way of thinking, positive was good, so if he tested positive, that would mean he didn’t have it. But the doctor had explained to him that a good result would be a negative result, which would mean he did not have hepatitis.

Fuck, who knew. Why they couldn’t make things simpler, he didn’t know.

His dad had told him that if he ever had a question about anything, all he had to do was phone him. But he’d be okay out in the world, Albert assured him. He’d do fine.

And Brian was doing fine. Until he wasn’t.

The really good thing about being on his own, though, was privacy. Having your own place, you could come and go as you pleased. You could eat whatever you wanted. You didn’t have to explain yourself.

Maybe best of all was you could have a girl over.

A girl like Jessica Frommer.

Not that she’d ever actually stayed over at his place. But he’d believed that day was imminent. All the more reason to find her now and apologize. He was supposed to have met up with her during the time he was abducted. Since he no longer had a phone, he couldn’t call her, and without his wallet, he couldn’t even pay for a taxi.

So he would walk.

Brian figured Jessica would be surprised to see him. Not just because he hadn’t been in touch for a couple of days, but because she was unaware he knew where she lived.

One night they’d met up at the BestBet Inn, just off Route 98 on the road to Albany. Jessica never wanted to go anywhere with him in Promise Falls, and Brian wondered if that was because she thought maybe he wasn’t good enough for her, that she’d run into her friends when she was with him and be embarrassed. But she’d tell him she just thought Promise Falls was boring and it didn’t have any good restaurants. The BestBet, she said, had a pretty decent buffet. You could pick and choose what you wanted, and there was no limit on how much you could take.

Brian had started getting his hopes up that if Jessica wanted to meet him at a hotel, maybe she had plans that didn’t end with dinner.

He turned out to be right.

So after a meal that included pasta and roast beef and chicken wings and French fries and cherry pie with ice cream and about a dozen other things, Jessica confessed to him that she had booked them a room. At some point, around the time he was loading his plate with mashed potatoes, Brian must have lost hope that it was not going to happen. Now that he knew it was on, he was sorry he’d had quite so much to eat. He felt somewhat bloated.

But whatever.

They went upstairs and their first time was fast and clumsy. But within half an hour Brian was ready to go again, and things got so hot and heavy they didn’t notice that the winds outside were growing increasingly strong. Once Brian had finished, rolled off Jessica and collapsed onto his back on the bed next to her, they could hear the howling gale and the rain hitting the hotel room window. He pulled back the drapes to see a driving rain that was almost going sideways. Visibility was bad, and low spots in the road were flooding over.