Linwood Barclay - Parting Shot

Brian said they didn’t have to be in any rush. The room, after all, was booked until the morning. But Jessica said she had to get back home, no matter what the roads were like. Even though they’d brought two cars, Brian offered to give her a lift. He could bring her back the following day to pick up her vehicle. But Jessica said she’d driven through some of the worst snowstorms upstate New York had ever seen, so she wasn’t about to let a few puddles scare her.

Once Brian had helped her into her car, and watched her pull out of the BestBet parking lot, he ran to his own set of wheels, soaked to the skin, and took off after her. He stayed far enough back that she wouldn’t see him, and besides, all he was in her rear-view mirror at this time of night was a pair of headlights.

She was right. She was a good driver. She got back to her place on Pilgrim’s Way — a small one-story white house with black shutters — without incident. Brian drove right on by. He went to bed that night confident that Jessica was safely in hers.

Hey, it was just the kind of guy he was.

So, now that he was hoofing it, he knew where to go.

Along the way, he thought of all the other people he needed to get in touch with. He wondered if he still had his job at the car wash. He’d gone two days without showing up or making any calls to explain his absence.

They’d be pissed.

He figured he’d have to go to his parents’ house to use their phone to cancel his credit cards. Then there’d be the hassle of getting a new driver’s license. Man, hepatitis was the least of his worries.

He reached Pilgrim’s Way and strode down the sidewalk. It wasn’t dark yet, so the house was not hard to find. Jessica’s car, a blue compact four-door, was parked behind a Ford pickup.

Brian went up the steps to the door and rang the bell. He was thinking he’d have to show Jessica what had been done to his back, but he’d really have to work up to it. Didn’t want to freak her out.

He could hear someone approaching the door. Quick, soft steps.

When the door opened, Brian had to look down. It was a girl, maybe four years old, in a pair of red pajamas. Curly blonde hair, rosy cheeks, bare feet. She looked up at Brian and grinned.

“Boo,” she said.

“Uh,” he said slowly, “I’m looking for Jessica?”

Could this be Jessica’s little sister? She hadn’t mentioned having one. If this girl was her sister, there sure was one hell of a big difference between their ages. More than twenty years, Brian figured. A visiting niece, maybe?

The little girl shouted, “Mommy!”

Brian felt a sudden queasiness in his stomach.

The child stayed by the door as Jessica shouted, “I’ll be right there, Gilda!”

The girl wiggled her nose as she looked up at Brian. “What’s your name?” she demanded.

Brian said, “Uh.”

Suddenly Jessica was there. Her expression was one of instant panic. “Go watch TV, Gilda.”

“There’s nothing on.”

“Go!” she said sharply.

Jessica did not invite Brian in. Instead, she closed the door partway and spoke to him through the crack. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“I... I wanted to apologize. I was supposed to meet you and—”

“You have to leave. You have to leave right now .”

A man’s voice boomed from deeper inside the house. “Jessica!”

“Who’s that?” Brian asked, starting to feel overwhelmingly confused. “Is that your dad?”

“No, it is not my dad,” she whispered.

“Whose kid was that?” he asked. He was pretty sure he knew the answer, but he was hoping maybe, just maybe, he was wrong. Before she could answer, he said, “Aw, Jeez.”

“You have to go,” Jessica insisted.

“So you’ve got a kid?” Brian said. “And you’re married ?”

“Please,” she said. “I was going to — I would have told you—”

“Ah man, I feel like such an idiot,” he said. “My family’s right. I really will fall for anyone’s bullshit. No wonder you didn’t want to be seen around here with me. I was starting to think maybe you were ashamed, but I get it now. You didn’t want to be—”

A hand came around the edge of the door and opened it wider. The hand, Brian quickly saw, was connected to a thin, ropy arm. Jessica’s husband was a good six feet tall, thin and wiry. His eyes were small and set deeply under his brow.

“What’s goin’ on?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Jessica said. “Just someone... What is it you’re selling again?”

Brian blinked. Thinking on his feet had never been an area in which he excelled. “Uh, I’m, uh...”

The man edged Jessica out of the way and came out onto the step. “Uh, what?”

“Ron, it’s nothing,” Jessica said to her husband. “He’s just going door to door. Is it a charity?” She looked at Brian with wide, hopeful eyes, trying to encourage him to play along.

But he wasn’t getting the message. “I just... I had an appointment with your wife and came by to explain why I wasn’t able to make it.”

“An appointment?” Ron cocked his head slightly to one side.

Brian nodded weakly. “You see, something happened to me. I was coming out of Knight’s, and—”

“You should go,” the man said.

“They did something to me,” Brian said, talking past Ron to Jessica, his voice starting to break. “They did something awful to me. I might even have hepatitis. I don’t know if I can die from that, but it could be bad. They’re doing tests.”

“Jesus, so you’ve got some sort of disease?” the man said. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“No,” Brian said, “it’s not something you can catch. At least, I don’t think so. Like I said, I... I was at Knight’s. And when I came out, someone — it might have been more than one person, I don’t know — but they grabbed me and—’

“You’re some sort of fucking lunatic,” Ron said. At which point he placed his palm solidly on Brian’s chest and gave him a shove.

Brian was pitched off the step. He hit the lawn on his back, which briefly knocked the wind out of him. He struggled to catch his breath as he got up on his knees. But before he could stand, Jessica’s husband put the toe of his boot into Brian’s chest. He screamed out in pain as he hit the ground.

Ron hovered over him. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? You’re one of the ones my wife’s been whoring around with.”

“I... I didn’t know,” Brian whispered.

“Just because she didn’t tell you doesn’t mean I won’t hold a grudge.”

And he kicked Brian a second time.

“You’ve gotten everything you got comin’ to you,” Ron Frommer said. “But that doesn’t mean there can’t be even more.” He turned and went back into the house.

Before the door closed, Brian, clutching his midsection, caught one last glimpse of Jessica’s fear-filled face.

Barry Duckworth drove out of the Starbucks lot after meeting with his son and his girlfriend thinking: That could have gone better.

What a disaster. And yet, what was he supposed to do? Ignore the possibility that his son might be able to help him with a serious investigation? He had to talk to him on the off chance Trevor had seen something that would lead Duckworth to whoever had abducted and tattooed Brian Gaffney.

Still, maybe he could have done a better job of it. Maybe he should have talked to his son separately from this new girlfriend of his, Carol Beakman. Except she was a potential witness, too. He’d needed to talk to both of them.

And still ...

He should have realized that once he’d told them he’d seen them on the Knight’s surveillance video, it meant that he’d seen them in an intimate moment.