Linwood Barclay - Parting Shot

Jeremy nodded.

“And I guess you weren’t in the bathroom forever last night because you had a stomach ache?”

Another sheepish nod. “I gave my mom another call, and got in touch with Charlene.”

“I’m an idiot,” I said. “I should have guessed.”

“Can Charlene come in and have breakfast with us?” he asked, oblivious to the fact that I was close to a meltdown.

“You know what Bob told me,” I said. “That there are all sorts of nutcases out there on the net, hoping to track you down. Maybe even get a cash reward. Every time you go on a phone — particularly one registered to you or your mom — or go on Facebook, or any of those other goddamn sites, you’re just helping them. They’ll find a way. For all we know, even the press is doing it. What did I say to you yesterday, about whether you liked Charlene? That if you did, you better not get in touch with her, because you’re exposing her to risk. I swear, Jeremy, you just don’t get it, do you?”

“I was real careful,” Charlene said. “I made sure no one was following me.”

I opened Jeremy’s door. “Let’s go,” I said. “And give me that phone.”

He handed it over.

“If you put that one in a fryer, my mom’ll be real mad,” Jeremy said.

“I’m not going to do that,” I said. I dropped it onto the pavement and stomped it with the heel of my shoe. Then I bent down and picked it up to check that the screen was damaged to the point of unusable. It was.

“God, you really are an asshole,” Jeremy said, getting out of the car.

“Goodbye, Charlene,” I said, taking Jeremy by the elbow and steering him back to the hotel entrance.

“This is not fun,” he said.

“No shit.”

I regretted my language. I was supposed to be the adult here. I hadn’t been hired to turn Jeremy into a likeable kid, just keep him safe. The truth was, I wasn’t making much progress on either front. I’d held out the possibility of taking him into Manhattan to explore some art galleries, but now I was reconsidering. If he got away from me there, I’d never find him.

We were nearly to the main entrance when Charlene came up alongside in the Miata, the engine revving in first as she slowed the car to a crawl.

“I’m sorry,” she said. I wasn’t sure which of us she was talking to. Maybe both.

I wasn’t looking at her. Instead, I raised my hand and pointed a finger in the direction of the exit. Maybe, if I’d looked her way, I would have been better prepared for what happened next. I might have seen what was coming and been able to stop it, although, honestly, I don’t know how. At the very least, I might have yelled at Charlene to hit the gas.

Just before the crunch of metal on metal, I heard the gunning of a car engine. Then the red Miata jumped forward.

Charlene screamed and her head snapped back and whacked the headrest. Jeremy screamed, too, and took a leap in the direction of the hotel, instinctively trying to get out of the way.

I whirled around, reaching just as instinctively for my weapon.

The sound of the crash was followed almost instantaneously by the squealing of brakes. Charlene had hit hers, and the driver of the car that had rear-ended her had also made an abrupt stop.

It took only half a second to recall the woman behind the wheel, and the man sitting next to her. It was the couple from the lobby of the first hotel the night before. The ones who’d recognized Jeremy.

Not that I had a perfect view of them. Both front airbags had deployed. They’d deflated enough for me to see that the man had a phone in his hand, holding it in camera mode, and the woman had put her hand over her mouth in what looked like a gesture of shock and horror. I was guessing she hadn’t meant to ram Charlene’s car, but had gotten caught up in the moment.

The man had flung open his door and was aiming the phone at Jeremy, snapping away. But then he saw me, pointing my gun at him.

The woman behind the wheel started screaming.

“Donny!” she shouted.

Donny put his hands over his head. “Jesus! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

I yelled at Jeremy, “Check Charlene!”

He ran toward the Miata. I moved toward Donny, who still had his hands in the air. “Get down,” I said.

He lay flat on the pavement, head down, arms outstretched. “Please don’t shoot me!” he said again.

I tucked the gun away and leaned into the car from the passenger side. “Are you hurt?” I asked the woman.

“It was an accident!” she said. “I didn’t mean to hit that car! Donny said speed up, the kid was going back into the hotel!”

“Are you hurt?” I repeated.

While she’d hit the Miata hard enough to make the airbags go off, it was still a low-speed accident. Damage to the cars, I’d noticed seconds earlier, appeared minimal.

“I... I don’t know,” she said, patting her face and her chest. “I... I think I’m okay.”

Several staff from the hotel had run outside. I shouted, “Call 911.”

A couple of them nodded, as if it had already been done.

“Donny just wanted a picture,” the woman said. “For the website. There’s money!”

I moved away from the car and said to Donny, still splayed out on the asphalt, “Get up.”

Jeremy was with Charlene. He’d opened her door and she was sitting sideways, her butt in the seat, her feet on the pavement. She had her head down and was rubbing the back of her head.

“How is she?” I asked.

Before Jeremy could speak, Charlene said, “My neck hurts.”

“You’re going to have to go to the hospital,” I said. “We’ll call your parents.”

Jeremy was kneeling, trying to peer up into her face. “You’re going to be okay. Everything’s going to fine. It’s their fault. Those idiots. They caused this.”

I wanted to smack him.

“See if you can stand up,” he said.

“No,” I said. “Don’t move, Charlene. Just stay right where you are.”

Already, I thought I heard a siren in the distance. I looked in the direction of the parking lot entrance. It wasn’t what I saw pulling in that caught my attention, but what was pulling out.

A black van.

Duckworth told Trevor to stay at Carol Beakman’s building. He would come to him.

Ten minutes later, he was pulling into the lot in his black, unmarked police cruiser. Trevor was sitting on the edge of a short brick edifice that ran the length of the building, phone in hand. The moment he saw his father, he jumped to his feet. Duckworth brought the car to a stop in the no-parking zone directly out front of the building.

“Let’s find the super,” he said.

They went into the lobby together. Duckworth found the directory button marked “Building Superintendent” and leaned on the buzzer.

Several seconds later, a crackling female voice said, “Yeah?”

“Police.”

“What?”

“Police,” Duckworth repeated.

“Hang on.”

Duckworth said to Trevor, “This Toyota she drives. I don’t suppose you know the plate off the top of your head?”

“Jeez, no, how would I know that?”

“That’s okay. Just asking.” He got out his phone, entered a number. “Yeah, hi, it’s Duckworth. I need you to try to track down a plate for a silver Toyota Corolla, around 2012, registered to a Carol Beakman.” He gave the address. “Yeah, okay, give me a call when you know anything.”

The super, a pale woman in her forties wearing a dark blue bathrobe, turned the lock on the glass door and opened it. “Can I see some ID?”

Duckworth displayed it. He asked her name, which was Gretchen Hardy.

“What’s the problem?”

“We’re worried about one of your tenants,” he said. “She’s not answering her phone or knocks to her door.”